Operational Group: Sustainable Development and the Circular Economy in the Wine Sector

The initial objective of the Operational Group creation and project definition phase was to present the results obtained from the reporting, in order to receive feedback from companies in the sector for the GO's definition of the innovation project. With this in mind, a working meeting was convened at INNOVI's facilities, where the INNOVI Project Committee was also invited.

The main objective of this Commission is to promote research, development, and innovation projects throughout the wine sector's value chain, aligned with INNOVI's vision and mission. The objectives of the Commission and the Governing Body are thus completely aligned, which is why it was deemed appropriate to hold the working meeting jointly. The Commission currently consists of seven members, including wineries, universities, and technology centers.

From the presentation of the results, companies emphasized the need for the innovation project not only to focus on developing a system of indicators for the circular economy, but also to enable companies to define specific actions that would help them promote circular economy business models.

From this point on, the project's approach was enriched by the sector's request to also develop, in parallel, circular economy business models that would leverage the system of indicators initially proposed. It was also agreed that the OG would be composed of INNOVI and EURECAT and would rely solely on the support of companies to jointly define the project in a subsequent workshop session, in order to identify their needs and actively convey them. This would allow the company to gain their vital support for presenting the project to one of the research calls as beneficiary partners.

The aforementioned workshop took place on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. The GO was in charge of the preparation, and 12 attendees from different winemaking sectors participated in this workshop.

Three fundamental parts were considered:

• Introduction (30 min.). Presentation and reminder of the background, the formation of the GO, objectives, and the methodology that would be used in the workshop.
  
• Participatory dynamic (1h and 45 min.) Two groups of 6 people worked on the circular economy models already defined with the Canvas methodology, with a EURECAT member moderating each table.
  
• Conclusions (15 min.) Sharing of the ideas that emerged and the main conclusions reached.

The workshop highlighted the main issues of interest to the sector regarding these circular economy models, as a preliminary step toward developing the research project itself.

In this way, we began to identify the most pressing needs in order to implement the solutions developed for the project itself and, at the same time, further sparked the interest of companies in participating.

As a result, the proposed innovation project itself was finalized. Its main objective is to develop and implement new business models based on the circular economy in the wine sector to strengthen the sector, diversify its activities, and open it up to new development opportunities, taking into account a sustainable perspective.