CLIMATE ACTION & REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Registration opens
Asking the Critical Questions Forum: Can Forest & Creek Restoration Create Localized Climate Cooling?
Breakfast with Sponsor Scavenger Hunt
Official Welcome: Charles Krug’s Riana Mondavi and Napa Green Board Members, Tod Mostero & Andrew Alexander
RISE Leadership Award TEDTalk
Break
Asking the Critical Questions Forum: Can Wine Really Impact Climate Action?
Official RISE Closeout
Catered lunch & Wine
At RISE 2023, agroecologist and winemaker Mimi Casteel gave a standing ovation keynote on combating heat domes through landscape restoration and rehydration. Dominus Estate’s Tod Mostero was so inspired he launched a watershed collective that aims to turn this vision to reality in Napa County. The collective has brought together dozens of stakeholders and landowners and identified several hundred acres along sub-watersheds for potential restoration pilots. The aim is to adapt and apply innovative nature-based models already being proven by USGS and the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, among others.
Napa Green’s Anna Brittain will facilitate a conversation between Casteel, Mostero, and two leaders in ecological restoration – Brock Dolman and Obi Kaufmann – sharing progress, discoveries, and the opportunities and challenges of designing and funding nature-based restoration. The wins could be huge: capturing and storing water, enhancing biodiversity, reducing fire risk and increasing resilience, and generating meaningful localized cooling. Our community has the opportunity to create a tangible model for climate-resilient agricultural landscapes.
Action Opportunities:
Anna Brittain is the Executive Director of Napa Green. Anna has worked locally, nationally and internationally on environmental management and policy with organizations ranging from the environmental economics think tank Resources for the Future in Washington, DC to the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Hanoi, Vietnam. She has spent a decade facilitating and growing sustainability in the wine industry, with an expertise in communications and certification standards. Anna has served as a lead sustainability consultant with Ontario Craft Wineries, Sustainable Winegrowing British Columbia, Crimson Wine Group, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, and individual wineries including Benziger Family Winery and Seghesio Family Vineyards. She has helped lead the growth of the Napa Green program for over six years, and stepped into the position of Executive Director of the now independent non-profit in fall 2019. Anna has a Master’s of Environmental Science & Management from the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from Williams College.
Vineyard manager and winemaker for Hope Well Wine, Mimi Casteel is an incredibly passionate voice and example for this new era of regenerative carbon farming. Mimi is world-renowned for her vision of transformative viticulture, her approachable communication of that vision, and her on the ground examples of how to produce expressive wines from vibrant, healthy, carbon-rich soils in vineyards actively cultivating plant and animal diversity.
Director of Viticulture and Winemaking, the French connection runs strong through Mostero, who studied in Bordeaux and trained at Château Haut-Brion, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix. He worked with Baron Philippe de Rothschild in the Languedoc and at Almaviva in Chile before returning to his native California to join Dominus Estate in 2007.
“Christian Moueix has been my guide throughout my career and has been my greatest example of a perfect winemaker. He is clear, precise and is profoundly attached to the vineyard. He has guided me from the beginning.”
Obi Kaufmann is an award-winning author of many best-selling books on California’s ecology, biodiversity, and geography. Most famously, his 2017 book The California Field Atlas recontextualized popular ideas about California’s more-than-human world. His following books, THE STATE OF WATER and THE CALIFORNIA LANDS TRILOGY, present a comprehensive survey of California’s evolutionary past and its unfolding future. 2024’s THE STATE OF FIRE; WHY CALIFORNIA BURNS is among his most popular and timely books to date. When he isn’t backpacking, Obi Kaufmann makes his home in Oakland, where he is working on more Field Atlases to come.
Brock Dolman (he/him) co-directs the WATER Institute, Permaculture Design Program, and Wildlands Program. He has taught permaculture and consulted on regenerative project design and implementation internationally in Costa Rica, Ecuador, the US Virgin Islands, Spain, Brazil, China, Canada, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, and widely in the United States. He has been the keynote presenter at numerous conferences and was featured in the award-winning films The 11th Hour by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Call of Life by Species Alliance, and Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution by Vanessa Shultz. In October of 2012, he gave a City 2.0 TEDx talk. Brock completed his BA in the Biology and Environmental Studies departments at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1992, graduating with honors. For over a decade, he has served as an appointed commissioner on the Sonoma County Fish & Wildlife Commission.
With Renée Lertzman PhD + Gen Z Climate Justice Organizer, Finn Does
Join us for our marquee keynote featuring two powerful voices bridging the generational divide in climate advocacy.
In this dynamic dual TED-style presentation, moderated by Anna Brittain of Napa Green, our speakers will explore the critical intersection of emotions and effective climate action. Renée’s TED Talk, “How to turn climate anxiety into action” has over 2.25 million views. Finn offers fresh insights from his groundbreaking work uniting over 9,000 Bay Area students and researching how identity shapes youth climate activism.
Together, they’ll tackle the essential questions of our time: How do we create tipping points from overwhelm to empowerment? What does it take to build collectivist cultures of meaningful action while staying personally resourced? Don’t miss this transformative conversation bridging inspiring academic research with youth-led grassroots innovation.
My story as a climate psychologist and environmental strategist started while studying psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz. I stumbled into an introductory class on climate and environmental issues, one of those “environmental studies 101” (aka really bad news). While listening each week to a different ecological crisis, I was deeply troubled by what I was learning (very bad news), but I was equally perplexed. Why weren’t people moved to protect and conserve our ecosystems and future life on earth? And why wasn’t this a high priority for those working in the psychological fields? I took this question to my teachers and mentors in the psychology field, and no one had satisfactory answers. Likewise, when raising this with my environmental professors, I was met with equally blank looks.
This question — what does it mean emotionally and cognitively to confront global systemic ecological crises, and how can we help engage and mobilize response — led me to pursue a Master of Arts in environmental communications at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where I worked with renowned researchers in rhetoric, geography, anthropology, and psychology. I then went on to complete my PhD at the Cardiff University School of Social Sciences in the UK. My PhD focused on people living in the Great Lakes region, leading to my premise of the “myth of apathy.” It also sparked the topic for my TED Talk in 2019 on why we need to focus first and foremost on “attuning” to the very real anxieties, ambivalence and aspirations many of us are experiencing, the “double binds” that can leave many feeling stalled out and paralyzed, and what to do about it.
Finn Does is a 19 y/o student-organizer, educator, and storyteller making climate education accessible. He’s the former co-chair of the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit, helping to unite over 9,000 Bay Area students. Finn has worked with Project Drawdown, been interviewed by NPR, Newsweek, and more, sharing his commitment to reframing and empowering climate action in schools, workplaces, and organizations. Finn helps to inspire the shift to collectivist cultures taking meaningful action, while also ensuring we remain personally resourced.
As a high-value crop with deep cultural roots, wine is both uniquely vulnerable to climate change and has extraordinary power to influence global climate solutions. Napa Green’s Anna Brittain, an expert in whole systems climate solutions, will moderate a conversation with three visionary leaders bridging wine and climate action. Diana Snowden-Seysses shares a cross-continent perspective – making wine for Burgundy’s Domaine Dujac, Napa Valley’s Snowden Vineyards, and Ashes & Diamonds. She works closely with Porto Protocol and champions glass reuse and climate smart packaging. Dr. Olga Barbosa, founder of the Wine Climate Change and Biodiversity Program, shares research and results leveraging biodiversity to create more self-regulating vineyard ecosystems, better able to weather climate pressures. Elaine Chukan Brown, renowned writer, speaker and global wine educator, brings the lens of diversity and indigenous knowledge to wine’s climate challenges and solutions. Together, these leaders explore how wine’s perennial nature, cultural resonance, and powerful platform make it an ideal proving ground for climate actions that can be adopted by other ag and beverage sectors.
From the beginning, RISE has asked, If not here, where? If not now, when?
Action Opportunities:
Anna Brittain is the Executive Director of Napa Green. Anna has worked locally, nationally and internationally on environmental management and policy with organizations ranging from the environmental economics think tank Resources for the Future in Washington, DC to the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Hanoi, Vietnam. She has spent a decade facilitating and growing sustainability in the wine industry, with an expertise in communications and certification standards. Anna has served as a lead sustainability consultant with Ontario Craft Wineries, Sustainable Winegrowing British Columbia, Crimson Wine Group, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, and individual wineries including Benziger Family Winery and Seghesio Family Vineyards. She has helped lead the growth of the Napa Green program for over six years, and stepped into the position of Executive Director of the now independent non-profit in fall 2019. Anna has a Master’s of Environmental Science & Management from the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies from Williams College.
Diana Snowden Seysses was born in Napa, California, graduated from the University of California at Davis with a BS in Viticulture and Enology in 2001 and then moved to France. Today she divides her time between the Napa Valley where she makes wine for her family estate, Snowden Vineyards and for Ashes & Diamonds and France where she is oenologist at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy and consults for Domaine de Triennes in Provence. After twenty-four years in wine, she finds ever more meaning in the craft of making vins de terroir. “The most memorable wines are living and changing. They are the result of vineyard work without chemicals, native yeast fermentation with minimal handling, and élevage in a cellar that breaths. Beyond these simple, traditional techniques, those of us who are fortunate enough to run wineries must deepen our thoughts on terroir to allow that term encompasses both ecosystem and community. We must think about balance between prosperity in our beautiful grape-growing regions and protecting the natural charm that made them famous in the first place. Climate change and all our farming choices have genetic impact on the vine. The emotional state of our employees leaves it signature on our wines. All these complex issues are in part our responsibility. I seek to protect a healthy environment in the largest sense of the term and transmit this just savoir faire to the next generation.” Diana is a member of the Académie du Vin, a board member of the Porto Protocol thinking committee and a mentor for Batonnage Forum and the Roots Fund.
Olga Barbosa is a biologist with a PhD in Ecology from the Universidad Austral de Chile and a researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB-Chile), a research institute of excellence where she is also deputy director.
Her scientific research is in the field of ecosystem ecology and the conservation of biodiversity associated with productive and urban systems. The main objective of her work is to reconcile productive development with social and environmental development through scientific evidence.
Olga is convinced that biodiversity conservation is necessary for the socioeconomic development of countries. Therefore, she has not only co-developed a biodiversity conservation model with viticulture in Chile and California but has also actively participated in the development of public policies, participating at the Chilean national level in parliamentary and executive committees, establishing links between scientific knowledge and evidence-informed decision-making. Likewise, at the international level, she has served expert panels at FAO (LEAP-biodiversity) and IPBES, where she is currently participating in the development of the Business and Biodiversity Assessment.
Finally, she participated in the establishment of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation from 2019 to 2022, serving as the first Regional Ministerial Secretary for the regions of La Araucanía, Los Ríos, and Los Lagos. During this period, she participated in the team that developed the first gender policy in Science, Technology, and Innovation.
Elaine Chukan Brown serves as a writer, speaker, and global wine educator working at the intersection of sustainability, climate action, and reducing gatekeeping in wine. Brown has served as the Executive Editor US for JancisRobinson.com, a columnist for Decanter Magazine, a contributing writer to Wine & Spirits Magazine, as well as the 4th and 5th editions of The Oxford Companion to Wine, the 8th edition of The World Atlas of Wine, and the compilations On California and On Burgundy from Academie du Vin Library. Brown currently reviews wines of Napa Valley for Wine Enthusiast Magazine, serves as a judge for the Texsom Awards, and a board member of the Wine Writer Symposium. Brown co-founded the Diversity in Wine Leadership Forum, and have advised diversity initiatives in multiple countries.
Agrology is a leading climate tech start-up and Public Benefit Corporation with a mission to help farmers adapt to and beat climate change with real-time analysis and predictive insights. The Agrology platform consists of climate and carbon monitoring systems, both based on ground-truth data and machine learning. The Agrology Climate Monitoring System delivers predictive insights and warnings, up to three days in advance, for wildfire smoke taint, extreme weather, soil conditions, pest and disease emergence, and irrigation. Agrology’s Carbon Monitoring System tracks soil carbon sequestration in real time, quickly detecting carbon loss via carbon dioxide emission events. Agrology customers include Braga Fresh, The Duckhorn Portfolio, Boisset Collection, Dana Estates, Emeritus Vineyards, Jordan Vineyards and Winery, Joseph Phelps Vineyards, Langtry Farms, Lawrence Vineyards, Mission Hill Family Estate Winery, Renteria Vineyard Management, Signorello Estate, Silver Oak Vineyards, and numerous specialty farms. Agrology is the winner of two highly selective National Science Foundation SBIR Awards, a 2023 WINnovation Award, and is a recipient of a USDA Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant. Agrology has offices in Alexandria, Virginia, and Sonoma, California, and can be found online at Agrology.ag.
Diam Bouchage has always been an innovative company; every year, it allocates a substantial budget to research and development.
In 2003, the company began investing in a revolutionary, patented process, called the DIAMANT® process that uses the properties of supercritical CO2 to extract the volatile compounds of cork and eradicate the molecules responsible for giving a taste to the wine, especially those causing “cork taint”.
Twelve years later, the company made yet another breakthrough in major technological progress with the launch of Origine by Diam®, a closure that reconciles science and nature, integrating a beeswax emulsion and binding agent composed of 100% plant-derived polyols.
Founded in eastern Napa county, Napachar converts woody waste from vineyard management and local forest fuel-reduction efforts into Biochar, one of the richest soil amendments and most stable forms of carbon capture available today. By making our biochar with portable kilns on site in the vineyard and forest, we reduce transportation costs and emissions, and offer a drop-in replacement for burn-piling and wood-chipping. Additionally, our kilns are substantially lower polluting than these alternatives, producing almost no smoke and releasing a tenth of the CO2. Our resulting product is ready for incorporation into vineyard soil, where it serves as an organic tool for holding onto water and nutrients in the soil and encourages increased growth and crop production, with no detriment to the quality of the fruits.
At Scout, our mission is to assist growers, wineries and vineyard management companies achieve their financial objectives, grow better quality fruit, and increase their yields using data harvested during the growing season. We believe in the blending of traditional farming intuition with state of the art data collection and AI assisted insights will enable sustainable, profitable, and high quality farming for generations. We are dedicated to helping our customers make the best decisions to maximize their efforts across all their planted sites while improving their bottom line.
Full service Wildfire Fuel Reduction and Forest Debris Management.
With their mobile burn process, The Clean Burn Company is able to perform most burning services where the piles are; eliminating the need to dismantle and manage each part of the tree separately. They manage all parts of a tree in one process.
No hauling, no chippers, no piles of flammable material left behind.
Napa Green is a global leader in sustainable winegrowing, setting the highest bar for sustainability and climate action in the wine industry. Napa Green facilitates systematic soil to bottle certification for wineries and vineyards, and provides the resources, tools and connections to continuously level up leadership. In 2021, Napa Green was the first sustainable winegrowing program in the world to redevelop Vineyard certification standards to focus on climate action, regenerative carbon farming, and social equity. In 2022, Napa Green and community partners launched a first of its kind, six-event Climate & Wine Symposium (Napa THRIVES now RISE) with over 65 speakers and 600 total guests.
Congratulations to @domainecarneros for receiving the RISE Leadership award for Energy Efficiency & Savings!
Join us on April 30 @risegreenwine to hear about their cutting edge micro grid and investments in renewable energy with a clear ROI.
Thank you for your exceptional leadership!
#climateaction #climatesmartwine #renewableenergy #wineaymposium #energyefficient #saveenergy
Huge thanks to @mcecleanenergyfor being an Exclusive Event Sponsor of @risegreenwine symposium since day one! Their support has been instrumental in making our action-oriented content and emissions and cost reducing results a reality.
#sustainabiltyinaction #climateaction #energyefficiency #greenenergy #renewableenergy
Do consumers care about sustainability and climate action?
Most consumers want to support values-driven brands, but they struggle to identify responsible products at point of purchase.
Join us on May 7, 2025 to explore how wineries can leverage growing consumer demand for business transparency and trusted, responsible products and hear the opportunities and challenges in communicating sustainability.
Ticket link in bio.
#climateaction #wineindustry #winebusiness #winesymposium #sustainablewine #climatesmartwine #sustainabilityinaction
Congratulations to @cliffamily for receiving the RISE Leadership award for Supply Chain & Waste Prevention!
Join us on May 7 @risegreenwine to hear about the results of their packaging emissions inventory and receive their award.
Thank you for your exceptional leadership!
#climateaction #supplychain #climatesmartwine #winesymposium
Tune in to listen to Napa Green`s Anna Brittain, on Andrea Robinson`s Youtube Livestream, Quench - April 16th at 5:00 pm PST.
Andrea and Anna will discuss what sustainability in wine really means, how to know what to look for as a consumer and how to control how we spend our consumption dollars.
Andrea will feature 3 award winning wines from Napa Valley`s own @chandonusa - this year`s 2025 California Green Medal Sustainable Winegrowing Environment Award, as well as @pineridgewine and @cliffamily, both @napagreen certified wineries.
Follow the link in our bio and subscribe to Quench on Youtube!
#earthmonth #earthday #pineridgevineyards #pineridgeCBV #chandon #napavalley #cliffamilywinery #visitnapavalley
Congratulations to @boeschenvineyards for receiving the RISE Leadership award for Social Justice, Diversity and Inclusion.
Join us on May 6 @risegreenwine to hear about their outstanding commitment to worker disaster insurance and hazard pay from Doug Boeschen in a TED Talk style presentation.
Thank you for your exceptional leadership!
#climateaction #socialjustice #socialequity #dei #climatesmartwine #winesymposium
Does diversity improve business performance and resilience? The answer is a resounding, YES! Diversity enhances innovation, market reach and organizational resilience.
Hear an evidenced based discussion of how diversity strengthens business success and adaptability.
Join us May 6, 2025.
Ticket link in bio.
#wineindustry #sustainabilty #climateaction #regenerativeag #regenerativeagriculture #wineandclimate #climateandwine #regenerativevineyard #soilhealth #carbonfarming #winesymposium #diversity #dei
Congratulations to @pineridgewine for receiving the RISE Leadership award for Water Efficiency & Savings!
Join us on April 29th @risegreenwine to hear about their transition to dry farming and celebrate this award.
Thank you for your exceptional leadership!
#climateaction #regenerativeag #waterefficiency #dryfarming #regenerativevineyard #climatesmartwine #winesymposium
“Let’s not miss the moment!” Join speaker @__latinag on May 6th at RISE Sympoisum for Social Justice, Diversity & Inclusion day. This will follow the CIA Summit where Gabriela will co host the Asking the Critical Questions Forum: “DOES DIVERSITY IMPROVE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE & RESILIENCE?” With @nikki_silvestri at 4:00pm.
Stay for our first RISE Happy Hour immediately after. Get your tickets asap at www.risegreen.org. 🥂
#latinasinwine
Now is the time to come together and take bold action - are you ready to be inspired?
RISE brings together thought leaders with cutting edge insights from across the industry, U.S. and Globe. Every day of RISE there are speakers you rarely get to connect with here in Napa County. This includes beyond industry leaders who have been carefully curated for the power of their expertise and message.
➡️ Swipe to see all of these exciting speakers and join us April 29-May 1 and May 6-8 at Charles Krug Winery.
Ticket link in bio.
#wineindustry #winesymposium
Hear why @marisataylorwines is excited for the @risegreenwine Climate & Wine Symposium.
Join us for 6 action packed days April 29-May 1 and May 6-May 8 at Charles Krug Winery.
#climateaction #wineindustry #winebusiness . #regenerativeag
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