Station One – BlueMorph Demonstration: Alex Farren, CEO & Co-Founder of BlueMorph will demo their UV sanitation technology that has been used by wineries like Dominus Estate and Cakebread Cellars to eliminate chemical and water use for tank cleaning.
Station Two – Water & Soil Health: Learn about the value of Irrigation Distribution Uniformity Assessments from Ben Mackie, Vineyard Program Manager for Napa Green; the interconnection of soil carbon and water retention and delivery from Adam Koeppel, CEO of Agrology; and how biochar can enhance soil moisture and plant availability from Eric Mayer, Co-Founder of Napachar.
Alex Farren is the Founder and Chief Science Officer of BlueMorph, Inc. a company that specializes in the design of UV light delivery systems to disinfect the interior surfaces of rooms, containers and other defined spaces. He has over 10 years experience and 19 patents issued on the delivery of targeted UVC dose to a surface irrespective of distance and material. He is now focused on the use of FarUV to provide people-friendly solutions that can be used more effectively in the battle against pathogenic microorganism. Ultraviolet light has the advantages of being a sustainable disinfectant, consuming no water and using no chemicals.
BlueMorph Waterless Tank Sanitation System is a UV-based technology that provides the first truly effective and environmentally-friendly method of sanitizing vessels and containers without the use of chemicals. Customers benefit from over 80% reduction in water use, no chemicals to dispose of, lower electricity use compared to other sanitizing methods and safe and easy operation.
For the past 15 years, Ben has been designing and implementing regenerative farming systems in a variety of ecosystems. A New Englander by birth, Ben fell in love with agriculture in the verdant fields of northern California in high school. Ever since, Ben has been managing farms, improving soils, and educating the next crop of environmental stewards with a holistic view of farming with natural systems. No stranger to Napa, he previously lived on Mt Veeder, where he fell in love with the oak and madrone woodlands and made friends with the local ravens. When Ben is not helping Napa’s vineyards adopt 21st century practices, he is spending time with his impressive wife and two wild children in the woods and on the water. Ben currently occupies Nisenan Territory and is a proud alumnus of Sterling College in Northeast Vermont, where he received a BA in Sustainable Agriculture.
Adam is the CEO of Agrology. His motivation is growing enough food to feed the future world. He focuses on discovering customer problems, developing products to solve them, and designing business models to get products in customers’ hands. While growing up in California, Adam enjoyed working in his godparents apple orchard and visiting many Central Valley farms during family road trips. He also experienced many droughts. This led to his interest in agricultural optimization and soil carbon respiration. Adam has experience at multiple early stage companies as well as corporate research labs. He worked on IoT connected cards at Capital One and has 48 granted patents and 69 applications under prosecution.
Wildfires, frost, heat waves, pest threats — know ahead of time.
Agrology lets you know when there’s a problem — now or in the near future. Our technology platform applies Machine Learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. We monitor and predict the issues coming your way. Then we alert you when there’s a problem. On your phone, anytime, anywhere. It’s the power to enable your team to take action and plan for the future.
Eric Mayer earned a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Stanford, where he studied fluid
mechanics and hydrology and published research improving global climate simulations. After
graduating and desiring to have a more immediate effect on the climate crisis, Eric went to
work for LightWater, a Florida-based biotechnology company focused on developing a scalable
algal bioreactor to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. However,
upon learning of biochar and the simple technologies already developed for its production, Eric
became convinced that biochar held more immediate promise for scalable carbon capture and
storage, and Napachar was born. Today, you can find Eric and Napachar in the vineyards and
forests of Napa and Sonoma, diverting pulled vines and forestry slash from burn piles to roast in
their customized biochar kilns, returning the carbon to the soil.
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.
🌱CLIMATE ACTION & REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE DAY on May 8th! Our final day of RISE 2025 which encompasses all of our pillars of sustainability. Link in bio for tickets or head to www.risegreen.org!
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Unfortunately, wine cannot flow directly from the barrel to your glass. It takes a lot of materials and packaging to get that elegant wine bottle to your table. Wineries have significant purchasing power and can green their supply chain and shift to environmentally preferable products.
Join Cathy Corison & Grace Corison Martin in Conversation: Heritage & Horizon: A Mother-Daughter Vision for Wine’s Climate Future with Cathy Corison and Grace Corison Martin. Learn about reuse and upcycling opportunities, dive into how wineries can leverage their purchasing power to drive sustainability innovation, and hear experts weigh in on the critical question, Do Consumers Care about Sustainability & Climate Action?
Join the conversation May 7, 2025. Ticket link in bio.
Join us at RISE on May 7th for Supply Chain & Waste Prevention Day featuring @cathycorison & @gracecorisonmartin!
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Sustainability is about caring for the health and resilience of nature and environment, the health and resilience of employees and community, all of which contributes to the success and longevity of businesses. We cannot have environmental or economic sustainability without social sustainability.
Join us for Breaking Down Barriers: Where Hip-Hop Meets Wine featuring Jermaine Stone, CEO of Cru Luv Wines & Author of “Wine Barz Vol. 1.” Learn about building regenerative social systems, explore of how current and emerging cultural trends inform and shape sustainability engagement, and hear from experts on the critical question: Does Diversity Improve Business Performance & Resilience?
🌟 Apply now 🌟
We are offering six RISE Leadership Awards that will be given out during the six days of the RISE Symposium.
One award may be given out for each of the Six Pillars of Sustainable Winegrowing Leadership:
⭐️ Outstanding water efficiency & savings
⭐️ Outstanding energy efficiency & savings
⭐️ Outstanding whole farm regenerative practices
⭐️ Outstanding strides in caring for employees and building a more diverse and inclusive team
⭐️ Outstanding greening of supply chain & waste prevention
⭐️ Outstanding strides in climate action and/or regenerative, climate smart farming
Those who win the award will be given the chance to give a 5-7 minute version of a “TED Talk” at the RISE Climate & Wine Symposium.
Reach out to megan@napagreen.org for details!
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In the vineyard, nature is our ally. We can use cover crops that attract beneficial insects that eat the nasty bugs we don’t want in the vineyard and release vineyard-friendly insects like ladybugs. Putting up bluebird and owl boxes and raptor perches, helps with bugs, rodents, and scares away unwelcome birds that eat the grapes, like starlings.
Join Chris Renfro, Founder of The Two Eighty Project, for Building Community, From the Vine Up. Learn about the critical importance of soil health and biodiversity, the benefits of our furry and flying vineyard workers, and discuss the critical question, Is Regenerative Ag Our Future?
Join us May 1, 2025 for Proactive Farming, Soil Health & Biodiversity. Ticket link in bio.
🌱 Join us for Proactive Farming, Soil Health & Biodoversity Day at RISE on May 1st, 2025 at @charleskrugwinery!
🐑 Tickets may be found at www.risegreen.org or at the link in our bio.
💡Making wine is actually quite energy intensive. It takes a lot of refrigeration to cool, ferment, and age wines. A lot of hot water to sanitize tanks, barrels, and bottling lines.
Join acclaimed wine journalist @rayisle for a multifaceted exploration of “energy” in wine – from the vitality of healthy soils to the skilled work of vineyard teams, from production and supply chain to market momentum.
Attend workshops for an actionable exploration of nascent opportunities for the wine industry–solar thermal hot water and energy storage and understand the lifecycle analysis comparing EVs to conventional vehicles, examining crucial factors like battery production, grid electricity sources, and vehicle usage, and hear from industry experts address the critical questions, “To Till & EV or Not to Till & EV?”
⬆️ Find tickets at the link in our profile!
➡️ Scroll for Speakers!
💦 Water is gold in California, where we continue to face increasingly frequent and intense droughts tied to our changing climate.
Join the acclaimed journalist and storyteller Mark Arax as he unravels the complex tapestry of California’s relationship with water, lean how to transform your water management through proven metering and monitoring strategies, hear grower experiences of transitioning to dry farming, and listen to industry experts speak about the critical question “Is Water the Solution to Heat Stress?”
Ticket link in our bio for Water Efficiency & Savings on April 29, 2025 at the Charles Krug Carriage House.
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