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Villa Maria's Fabian Yukich announced as Sustainability Champion

Wednesday 17 November 2010, 3:29PM

By Villa Maria Estate

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AUCKLAND

Villa Maria’s National Wineries Manager Fabian Yukich was announced winner of the Sustainability Champion Award at the NZ Sustainable Business Network Awards last night.

Villa Maria has had a long held objective to leave something for the next generation and under the leadership of Sir George Fistionich, the company and its staff are committed to finding ways to reduce their impact.

Fabian has been driving sustainability and Villa Maria for more than 12 years and has been instrumental in embedding social, environmental and financial sustainability into the core of Villa Maria’s culture.

Fabian commented on the award, “This is very exciting news for me and for Villa Maria, without the support and leadership from George this success would not have been possible. It is a great honour to work for a company that truly believes in minimising its impact. One thing I am certain about is that sustainability is a journey and we need to keep searching for ways to do things better”.

Just some of Fabian’s work in embedding sustainable business principles include: 

  • Villa Maria becoming the first major NZ wine producer to achieve CEMARS (Certified Emissions Management and Reduction Scheme) Certification
  • BioGro Organic Certification from the vineyard to the winery
  • Successfully lobbying New Zealand’s Glass manufacturing company OI Glass t o manufacture lighter weight and less energy intensive glass wine bottles
  • Introduction of Hybrid (Toyota Prius) vehicles for national sales fleet.

Fabian is not only involved in sustainable business improvements within Villa Maria, he is an advocate for seeing an end to co-mingling glass with other recyclables and actively works to lobby local government to implement a change.a