High environmental value certification and the politics of sustainable viticulture in France: Evidence from Champagne and Cognac
Abstract
This article analyses how the High Environmental Value (in French, Haute Valeur Environnementale, HVE) certification became institutionalised as a state-backed sustainability standard in French viticulture, focusing on Champagne and Cognac. Situating HVE within debates on eco-labelling, audit-based environmental governance and corporate environmentalism, it shows how this public certification translates mounting environmental and health critiques of pesticide-intensive viticulture into an auditable, incentive-compatible form of regulation. Drawing on a three-year qualitative research project combining semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis, we show how public authorities, interprofessional organisations and major firms have promoted HVE as an accessible, flexible "third way" between conventional and organic farming, and helped scale it through collective certification strategies and its integration into incentive architectures, including eco-schemes under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). While HVE can support incremental adjustments across a broad range of producers, it often formalises pre-existing practices and legitimises a lowambition definition of sustainability compatible with competitiveness. We argue that HVE should be understood as both an institutional success for its promotersscalable, auditable and politically legitimateand a certification framework whose ecological ambition remains limited.
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BibTeX
@article{thivet2026high,
title = {{High environmental value certification and the politics of sustainable viticulture in France: Evidence from Champagne and Cognac}},
author = {Delphine Thivet and Océane Carneiro and Benoît Leroux and Ibrahima Diallo},
journal = {Journal of Rural Studies},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1016/j.jrurstud.2026.104300},
url = {https://shs.hal.science/halshs-05745475v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - High environmental value certification and the politics of sustainable viticulture in France: Evidence from Champagne and Cognac
AU - Delphine Thivet
AU - Océane Carneiro
AU - Benoît Leroux
AU - Ibrahima Diallo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
JO - Journal of Rural Studies
DO - 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2026.104300
UR - https://shs.hal.science/halshs-05745475v1
AB - This article analyses how the High Environmental Value (in French, Haute Valeur Environnementale, HVE) certification became institutionalised as a state-backed sustainability standard in French viticulture, focusing on Champagne and Cognac. Situating HVE within debates on eco-labelling, audit-based environmental governance and corporate environmentalism, it shows how this public certification translates mounting environmental and health critiques of pesticide-intensive viticulture into an auditable, incentive-compatible form of regulation. Drawing on a three-year qualitative research project combining semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis, we show how public authorities, interprofessional organisations and major firms have promoted HVE as an accessible, flexible "third way" between conventional and organic farming, and helped scale it through collective certification strategies and its integration into incentive architectures, including eco-schemes under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). While HVE can support incremental adjustments across a broad range of producers, it often formalises pre-existing practices and legitimises a lowambition definition of sustainability compatible with competitiveness. We argue that HVE should be understood as both an institutional success for its promotersscalable, auditable and politically legitimateand a certification framework whose ecological ambition remains limited.
SN - 0743-0167
ER -