By Bennett Caplan
I am pleased to introduce my colleague, Bennett Caplan, head of secretariat for FIVS, which is essentially the international equivalent of WineAmerica. FIVS represents producers and associations from more than 25 countries, monitors developments internationally, and has observer status at several key international organizations such as the World Trade Organization, World Health Organization and the International Office of Vines and Wines. Bennett has agreed to share current information on some key areas.
—Jim Trezise, president, WineAmerica
The global wine and alcohol beverage sector faces a more complicated and challenging trading environment than ever before. The ongoing debate around alcohol and health continues to evolve as the impact on the sector expands. Climate change and the subsequent increase in extreme weather presents a threat to the trade’s wineries, particularly for those vineyards in fire-prone areas. And across the world, trade barriers are increasing in number and complexity.
We at FIVS — an international federation with 55 member organizations from 25 markets, accounting for 75% of the global wine trade — are working to address these issues, which are critical to the overall sustainability of the global alcohol beverage sector. We seek to create a successful global wine sector, operating on the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability, focusing on consumer interests and operating in a climate free from trade-distorting factors of all kinds.
FIVS conducts its work at a practical level, gathering and disseminating information for its members, organizing meetings for its members and advocating consensus positions to international and intergovernmental organizations, as well as governments. FIVS is an observer at the International Organization of Vine & Wine (OIV), Codex Alimentarius and other international governmental organizations.
The following three issues are of particular importance to our work.
Alcohol and health
For many years, the broader alcohol sector has worked to play a constructive role in a “whole of society” approach to addressing harmful alcohol consumption. At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) and public health groups around the world have increasingly shifted their focus away from addressing harmful use to simply focusing on reducing all access to alcohol by imposing higher excise taxes, restricting marketing and advertising, and curbing the availability of alcohol, among other policies.
For its part, FIVS works to ensure policies are supported by the clear preponderance of scientific evidence and are developed through transparent, evidence-based processes. FIVS members continue to work to reduce harmful drinking by developing with FIVS’s Guiding Principles for Advertising and Marketing for Alcohol Beverages and by showcasing novel and intriguing social responsibility programs featured in the FIVS-Assure database.
Climate Change
Climate change and environmental degradation pose a threat to the global alcohol sector. As the public increasingly demands that growth should not be achieved through unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, governments are creating environmental requirements for trade that entail cradle-to-grave cleaner production approaches and which cover product life cycles starting with natural resources and energy provision to eventual re-use, recycling or disposal into the waste stream. In response, many in the wine sector have created or are establishing environmental stewardship programs.
FIVS is addressing this area with its Global Wine Sustainability Principles, which set forth general tenets promoting the idea that the continued health of the wine sector rests entirely on natural resources (including solar energy, clean water and healthy soils) that are successfully integrated with sound ecological processes. In addition, we are creating a benchmark for wine sustainability standards which, hopefully, will lead to more consistency among standards around the world.
Trade Barriers
FIVS addresses unjustified trade barriers that hamper the ability of producers to export their products around the world. These barriers can take many forms and over the past few years have included:
- Retaliatory tariffs targeting wine as a result of trade disputes completely unrelated to wine, such as Chinese tariffs on imported wines from Australia and the United States.
- Trade-distorting labeling requirements, such as Ireland’s recent alcohol labeling laws, which were passed independent of current European Union regulations.
- Tax increases, such as the United Kingdom’s duty increase scheduled for August 2023.
Together, tariffs and onerous regulations present barriers to trade for the alcohol beverage sectors. In situations like these, FIVS helps to clarify these issues by working with governments, the World Trade Organization, and other international bodies to challenge trade barriers.
Each year appears to bring new challenges that the alcohol sector must meet. Stay tuned, because these areas are sure to require the attention of the sector more and more.
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Bennett Caplan
Bennett Caplan has served as the head of secretariat of FIVS and as the executive director of FIVS-Abridge since 2003. An attorney and government affairs specialist with extensive experience in public policy and regulatory matters regarding the alcohol beverage industry, Bennett was previously senior director of international and government affairs at Allied Domecq, director of policy development at Seagram and a partner at McDermott, Will & Emery. He has served as president of the Washington Foreign Law Society, as vice president of the Washington Fletcher Alumni Association, and as a member of the board of directors of the International Wine Law Association. He has taught graduate-level courses on international trade policy at the University of Maryland and Syracuse University. Caplan is a graduate of Columbia University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Boston College Law School.
