Benziger Family Winery Essay

In the case of the Benziger Family Winery, is being faced with the decision of whether or not Chris Benziger should invest in an ISO 14000 certification. The answer is yes, he should pursue the certification in an attempt to strengthen his knowledge that his company already has about being environmentally friendly. This will strengthen his position on the market as a leader in wine industry. In pursuing the certification, he will also educate other growers on the importance of a strong environmental management system. This will make them want to take those same steps to help promote their business to be more like him. By getting the ISO this will further support his environmental policy that he strongly applies to the daily routines for helping the company conserve resources and prevent pollution. He is already certified by the Sonoma County Green Business Program (SCGBP) and is in full environmental compliance. As part of this compliance, the winery has saved over 2 million gallons of water per year through recycling all wastewater. They reduced solid wastes as well as energy cost due to the construction of a wine cave built in the hillside which maintained temperature cool enough to prevent them from using electricity to cool. The Gap Analysis is the formal study behind what the business is currently doing and where they want to be in the future. This means the need for continuous improvement is necessary in promoting the best possible outcomes for the company goals. The gap analysis identifies the gaps from what the company is doing now to what they would be doing should they utilize additional resources to help improve the company’s outputs. By documenting what they have done in the past, this will show what other requirements are necessary to be put in place in an attempt to maximize the company’s capabilities. This may involve benchmarking as well. In this case the winery currently has annual revenues of about 15 million. They are striving to launch a new brand, Tribute that would be selling in the $50-$60 range at about 4000 cases per year. They would also like their exports to increase from about 10% of sales to 20%. For Benziger, this analysis can be done at an operational level since all of his employees are well-trained on the company’s environmentally friendly efforts and are shared with guests of the winery to promote the business. This is an opportunity for Benziger to bring his reputation to a high point and work towards his goal for being a world-class leader in the wine industry. Since the U.S. market is very competitive this would make him stand out since very few U.S. wineries have their ISO 14000 certification. He could enter more markets that its consumers are sensitive to environmental products and continue expanding his business to other countries. It is stated that becoming certified with the ISO 14000 is expensive. This is an investment that will pay for itself in the future. There will be revenue increases by becoming more attractive to consumers who support the environmentally safe production process. The ISO 14000 is an attempt to develop a widely accepted, uniform approach to certify that Benziger’s EMS is the best way to run a business for long term savings and making a positive contribution to the environment. In exhibit 40.4 it shows the EMS Gap Analysis and explains what policies and procedures the Benziger may or may not have in place. It explains that he does have an environmental policy in place and that he has conducted an analysis of the impact that it has on the environment. When it comes to legal requirements, they do not have a procedure in place. This is the responsibility of the Ranch manager and it has not been done yet. He has covered all of his objectives and has established a well-written program to achieve those objectives. He has very good structured within the winery and has delegated responsibilities to each of the family members as well as their other employees. However no roles have been defined and documented yet. It is also noted that there is need for additional training on EMS aspects. The Ranch manager seems to need assistance with organization of training and documentation as well. Although they are on the right track he needs to ensure that they are taking all the necessary steps to continue the company professionally and in an organized fashion. Once the ranch manager has assigned specific roles and tasks to certain team members it will not be all on him to keep the EMS running properly it will become a part of the way they do business. The last part of the Exhibit 40.4 shows some things that they need to improve on. There is no documentation for anything the company does. He needs to be able to show records of his work to be environmentally sensitive. Several of the drafts have been started but none have been completed. It also states that there needs to be a regular review ensuring that the EMS is suitable and effective. Exhibit 40.5 is the Benziger Family Winery Environmental Policy. In comparison to Exhibit 40.4, the policy states the steps they are willing to take to make sure the winery is an environmentally safe and sustainable business. However, when each of the bullets are broken down into a series of questions as they are in Exhibit 40.4, they are not satisfying all of their own expectations. It seems as though they have a few small improvements to make that seem as though are they are not too time consuming. Once each of these steps has been achieved, they are well on their way to being more successful and more organized. If the proper steps are taken to correct the small issues on-hand, the next step for the Benziger Winery is to pursue the ISO 14000 certification. This will set the bar for how other wineries should be run and help the company become one of the top U.S. wine distributors.