Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

A cross-national comparison of sustainability in the wine industry

Gergely Szolnoki*
Geisenheim University, Department of Business Administration and Market Research, Von-Lade-Str. 1, 65366 Geisenheim, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This cross-national study investigates different aspects of sustainability from the wine producers point
Received 23 July 2012 of view. A qualitative study conducted with fty-ve wine producers in the USA, France, Spain, Italy,
Received in revised form Germany, Hungary and Greece was undertaken to analyse the producers denition, evaluation and
13 March 2013
practice of sustainability in the wine industry. Results show that the interviewed producers mainly
Accepted 19 March 2013
associated the term sustainability solely with the environmental dimension; whereas some wineries
Available online 5 April 2013
applied a more complete approach of sustainability including not only the environmental, but also the
economic as well as the social dimensions. Regarding the production management systems, there is
Keywords:
Sustainability
some ambiguity since many of the interviewees confuse the terms organic, biodynamic and sustainable.
Wine industry The majority of the wineries participating in this study complain about the lack of information among
Cross-national differences relevant organizations, producers and consumers concerning sustainability. The barriers to this ow of
Qualitative study information might be the great challenge the sustainable wine industry will face in future. All these
ndings indicate the necessity of closer cooperation of national organizations on an international level in
order to provide the information needed by the wine producers and consumers.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction plays a very important role in the wine business. In the twenty-rst
century, the wine industry has to cope with several problems. One
Sustainability has become an important term not only from an of these problems is beyond doubt the environmental dimension of
environmental but also from a political, an economic and a social wine producing. Numerous different sustainable practices are
point of view. Yet, it is not easy to dene what sustainability means referred to in the literature. Below, some points are mentioned that
exactly, since a wide range of denitions of this term appears in the may be relevant in the future; however, this list does not claim to be
literature. The roots of sustainable practices go back to the book by exhaustive: soil management, water management, wastewater,
Meadows et al. (1972), The Limits to Growth, and the article by biodiversity, solid waste, energy use, air quality, agrochemical use,
Goldsmith et al. (1972). The word sustainability became promi- etc. (Ohmart, 2008).
nent in the literature only after the World Council of Churches The foundation of the rst sustainable winegrowing programme
Assembly in 1974 in Nairobi (Cobb, 1992). One of the rst ofcial was laid in 1992, when the Lodi Winegrape Commission from
denitions given by the United Nations (1987) was formulated as California launched a grassroots Integrated Pest Management
follows: Sustainable development is development that meets the programme that introduced sustainable farming practices through
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future neighbourhood grower meetings (Ross and Golino, 2008). It took
generations to meet their own needs. Since then, several confer- eight years before the rst edition of The Lodi Winegrowers Work-
ences on sustainability (1992 United Nations conference in Rio de book was published and another ve years before the rst six
Janeiro; 1997 Climate Summit in Kyoto; 2002 World Summit in wineries were certied on the basis of the California Code of Sus-
Johannesburg, etc.) have been organized and environmental man- tainable Winegrowing Practices (Warner, 2007). This was followed
agement systems dealing with sustainable production, like EMAS by the Wine Sustainable Policy in New Zealand, which rests upon the
and ISO, have been established. national sustainable programme published in 1997 (New Zealand
Winemaking has a tradition of more than a thousand years and Wines, 2011). Since then, other institutions and organizations
in addition wine is an agricultural product; therefore, sustainability have also dened their guidelines for sustainable winegrowing. In
South Africa, the Integrated Production of Wine Scheme certied the
rst sustainable wine in 2000 (IPW, 2012). In France, the VDD
* Tel.: 49 6722 502 394; fax: 49 6722 502 380. (2012) (Vignerons en Dveloppement Durable) developed a sus-
E-mail address: [email protected]. tainable winegrowing concept, while Australia launched its new

0959-6526/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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244 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251

certifying programme in 2009 (WFA, 2009). The OIV resolution CST to the fact that The New Zealand wine industry has a strong
1/2004 establishes guidelines for the production of grapes, wines, commitment to sustainable production in both vineyards and
spirits and other vine products in accordance with the principles of wineries, as the ofcial website of New Zealand Wines (2011)
sustainable development applied to viniculture, which was states.
extended in 2008 (Castellucci, 2008). Despite e or perhaps because The research questions of the publications summarized in
of e the vast number of larger or smaller organizations, there are Table 1 differed widely. Hughey et al. (2005) compared for example
completely different strategies and different practices that make Sustainable Winegrowing NZ with ISO 14001 and Bio-Gro, and
international but sometimes even national comparison extremely found that each of these three systems has its own strengths, but no
complicated. one is better than the others. Sippl (2006) analysed wineries and
This research investigated various aspects of sustainability from stakeholders in the Baden-Wrttemberg wine area, in Germany.
the producers point of view. Qualitative in-depth interviews with Her results show that the German winegrowers and their stake-
wine producers were undertaken in seven different countries. First holders have a common opinion about sustainability in the wine
of all, the interviewees were asked to dene sustainability in the industry; however, they often reduce sustainability to environ-
wine industry in their own words to obtain a real picture of how mental protection and emphasize the lack of information and
this term is understood among wine producers. The lack of a possible high costs as an impediment to changing to sustainable
common denition and the fact that those who have not yet development.
applied one of the sustainable policies most often understand Flint and Golicic (2009) asked managers from wineries as well as
something completely different when talking about sustainability from retailers and restaurants how they conceptualize sustain-
necessitate an investigation of the denition of sustainability. Even ability and summarized the methods whereby sustainability can be
the differentiation and the relationships between sustainability and competitive within the New Zealand wine supply chain.
other agricultural concepts like organic or biodynamic are hard to In other studies, drivers for environmental and especially for
dene (Thrupp and Ross, 2010), which makes the communication sustainable practices were investigated. Gabzdylova et al. (2009)
with consumers more complicated. Therefore, secondly, the simi- found that personal factors like environmental values, personal
larities between sustainable and organic or biodynamic were ana- preferences and satisfaction with this profession are the main
lysed to determine how wineries differentiate sustainability from drivers for the implementation of sustainability practices, while
other management systems. Sinha and Akoorie (2010) established in their research a strong
Thirdly, arguments for and against sustainability were collected correlation between a higher commitment to exporting and a
and the question how do producers evaluate the reaction of wine higher willingness to adopt environmental practices. Furthermore,
consumers on sustainability was answered. Finally, a list of na- they found that the cognitive rather than the institutional pressure
tional organizations dealing with sustainable grape growing and explains the use of these practices.
winemaking was composed. To our knowledge, this kind of cross- Thomson and Forbes (2011) conducted a case study of a winery
national study of sustainability has not yet been undertaken. in New Zealand and analysed the three elds of sustainability:
This study is addressed to owners, stakeholders and partners of environment, social and economic. They concluded that engaging
wineries which are already certicated or will be certicated as sustainability in the wine industry resulted in a well-managed and
sustainable. Furthermore we dedicate the results of this study to protable business for the selected winery. Atkin et al. (2011)
governmental and non-governmental institutes and organizations reached a similar conclusion; they showed that US wineries with
that are already working on this topic. a clear EMS strategy exhibited signicant differences in cost lead-
ership. Flint et al. (2011) investigated sustainability from another
2. Theoretical foundation point of view. They found that the basic notion of sustainability in
the wine industry is the ability of a business to be successful in the
2.1. Literature review long term, and specically to be resilient to signicant competitive
forces in the marketplace. They analysed seventeen employees
Investigating the wine industry in terms of sustainability is a from ten Italian wineries and found that leaders of successful
fairly young research discipline. The rst scientic papers date back wineries who achieved sustainability in the face of intense
to 2005; later on, several research results were published in this competitive pressures engage in detailed assessments of the
eld (Table 1). marketplace and adopt specic strategies to become resilient
As Table 1 e which gives an overview of selected publications on compared with other wineries.
this topic e indicates, the majority of the articles come from New Only a few researchers have dealt with the connection of sus-
Zealand and analyse the opinion of producers, which is mainly due tainable wine and consumer perception. Zucca et al. (2009), in their

Table 1
Overview of selected publications concerning wine and sustainability.

Author Year Objective N Country Method

Loveless et al. 2011 Consumer 500 UK, Ireland, USA, Quantitative
Canada, Sweden
Flint et al. 2011 Producer 17 Italy Qualitative
Atkin et al. 2011 Producer 98 USA Quantitative
Thomson and Forbes 2011 Producer 8 New Zealand Qualitative
Sinha and Akoorie 2010 Producer 3 127 New Zealand Qualitative quantitative
Gabzdylova et al. 2009 Producer 24 New Zealand Qualitative
Forbes et al. 2009 Consumer 109 New Zealand Quantitative
Zucca et al. 2009 Consumer 300 USA Quantitative
Flint and Golicic 2009 Managers from wineries, 27 New Zealand Qualitative
retailers and restaurants
Sippl 2006 Producer and stakeholders 44 65 Germany Qualitative
Hughey et al. 2005 Producer 15 New Zealand Qualitative
 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251 245

study, reported a strong consumer intention regarding wine that is 3. Material and methods
produced using green production practices in the USA; however,
the result may differ in other countries. Forbes et al. (2009) re- 3.1. Qualitative research
ported that customers like the concept of sustainable winemaking,
but they really do not have a clear idea of what sustainability means This cross-national study, conducted in seven different coun-
in practice or the processes the wineries apply to achieve it. tries, was based on a qualitative research method whereby owners
Loveless et al. (2011) conducted a study in ve countries in order to or winemakers of selected wineries were interviewed face to face
analyse the importance of sustainability compared with other (or in rare cases by telephone) using a semi-structured catalogue
important attributes, such as taste, region, brand, price, promotion, with open-ended questions (Hughey et al., 2005; Gabzdylova et al.,
quality control and traceability. The results show that sustainability 2009).
is less important to consumers than other characteristics; however, Each interview included thirteen questions altogether, which
the authors could identify a segment across the countries, which could be divided into ve main topics: 1) the denition and princi-
represents almost 30 per cent of all wine consumers as the stron- ples of sustainability from the wineries point of view; 2) the dif-
gest in valuing sustainable claims. ferences or similarities of sustainable winemaking compared with
organic or biodynamic winemaking; 3) the pros and cons of applying
2.2. Development of the research questions sustainability; 4) the expected reaction of consumers; and 5) the
overall organization of sustainable wine production in the specic
Since this is exploratory research, research questions in the form country. The Appendix contains the complete question catalogue.
of propositions were used. Three propositions on the denition of The interviews were conducted by seven native-speaking
sustainability, the difference between organic, biodynamic and trained interviewers, who recorded, coded and analysed their in-
sustainable and the reaction of consumers were developed. terviews according to a coding and analysing scheme.
The often-cited three-dimensional concept of sustainability All the questions were translated into the ofcial language of the
(United Nations, 2005) which is based on Elkingtons model of selected country. The interviews as well as the entire analysis were
triple bottom line (1997) denes the three main elds of sustain- conducted in that particular language and only the nal results
ability as environmental, economic and social. Although the three- were translated into English.
dimensional concept is widely accepted and used, the meaning and The interviews were the only source of data. All the interviews
elds of application of sustainability are very differentiated. Thus, were digitally recorded and then literally transcribed for further
sustainability terms, their denition and their interconnections are analyses. Strategies, know-how, experiences and practices were
crucial for better understanding and communication (Glavic and collected, but no anecdotal and illustrative information.
Lukman, 2007). Since the rst Lodi codex was published, several
other organizations, associations, groups and institutes in different 3.2. Interview partners
countries have created their own rules or adopted already-existing
guidelines to practice sustainability. However, these practices vary The interviews were conducted in different wineries in France,
signicantly from region to region. This study therefore assumes Germany, the USA (California), Hungary, Italy, Greece and Spain.
that (P1) from the producers point of view there is no common Generally, the aim of the study was to compare Europes biggest
denition of sustainability. The purpose of this study is not to wine-producing courtiers (France, Italy, Spain and Germany) with
dene a new term for sustainability but to obtain a real picture of each other as well as with an oversee country and with some
how this expression is used and what producers mean when talk- smaller traditional wine countries. For the lattes we chose Hungary
ing about sustainability in the wine industry. and Greece, while from the New World the cradle of sustainability
Another critical point that makes the denition of sustainable in the wine industry, California was selected. The aim was to
winemaking essential is the difference between sustainable and analyse a representative variety of wine-producing companies,
organic or biodynamic wines, which still causes confusion, not only across the main wine regions, including all sizes in each country in
among consumers, but also in the circles of winemakers and wine order to maximize the external validity. However, we contacted
companies (Smith, 2010). Sustainable grape growing and wine- wineries from which we expected to obtain answers to our ques-
making are a much broader concept than organic, biodynamic or tions in order to analyse the research propositions and maximize
integrated pest/crop management. They include many dimensions the internal validity.
(Thrupp and Ross, 2010). This study tries to nd out whether The interviewees included wine company owners, viticulturists
wineries in different countries have the same opinion. For that and winemakers and were chosen from the main wine regions for
reason, this study further assumes that (P2) producers associate this study. In California and France, all of the interviewed wineries
sustainability with organic or biodynamic farming. are already certicated; in the other ve countries e due to the lack
In the framework of this study, we did not have the opportunity of certication e wineries with an interest in sustainability were
to ask consumers about sustainability and wine as well. However, selected. The wineries were contacted by email or telephone.
we took advantage of the survey of producers and asked them Multiple responses from the same winery were not allowed. The
about consumers reaction. Producers have direct or indirect con- reported wineries represent a total of 60,000 ha. In order to assure
tact with consumers; therefore, it is supposed that they have a clear anonymity, Table 2 shows only the number, the region and the size
idea about consumers perceptions, expectations and preferences. of the fty-ve interviewed wineries.
Other studies that have concentrated on consumer reactions to
sustainable wines have conrmed that consumers like the concept 3.3. Content analysis
of sustainable wines (Forbes et al., 2009) and that they would
pay more for a green wine than a conventionally produced The interviews were mainly analysed by means of content
wine. However, consumers do not have a clear idea of what sus- analysis, however in some cases, where the research question
tainable means and how it is practiced (Zucca et al., 2009). This needed it, in-depth analysis was used.
leads to the proposition (P3) that from the producers point of view Content analysis had been dened as a systematic, replicable
consumers are confused concerning sustainable winegrowing and technique for compressing many words of text into fewer content
winemaking. categories based on explicit rules of coding (Krippendorff, 2004).
246 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251

Table 2 summarizes the results of the interviews. Most questions of the

Overview of the wineries interviewed in seven countries. study were analysed by topic (see Material and methods), to try to
Country No. of Region and size of the interviewed wineries (ha) give a common answer highlighting at the same time the differ-
wineries ences and the similarities between the countries. The consumer
France 15 Alsace (7, 21); Bordeaux (65, 94); Bourgogne reaction from the producers point of view is an exception. Because
(150); Champagne (7.5, 11, 25); Languedoc- of the huge differences, we investigated the answers by countries.
Roussillon (20); Loire (6); Cognac (15);
Rhone (1000, 1247, 2300); Aquitaine (1942)
Germany 8 Ahr (2.8); Franken (30); Mosel (11); 4.1. Denition and principles
Pfalz (85); Rheingau (15); Rheinhessen
(10, 60); Wrttemberg (10) Even in the literature, the term sustainability is dened
USA 7 Napa Valley (28, 46, 73, 148, 486);
completely differently from author to author. Therefore, it is not
(California) Sonoma Valley (70, 183)
Hungary 7 Buda (10); Eger (43); Mtraalja (30); surprising that fty-ve interviewees from seven countries gave
Szekszrd (20); Tokaj (20); Villny (28, 125) fty-ve different answers to the question How would you dene
Italy 6 Alto Adige (160); Emilia Romagna sustainability?. Regardless of their philosophy, the country and the
(12, 390,00); Sicilia & Trentino (3150); size of the winery, almost all the interviewees agreed that sus-
Trentino (5700); Toscana (6)
tainability is a very individual and personal term. This was
Greece 6 Amyndeon & Naoussa (57); Crete-Chania
(12); Domokos & Fthiwtida (22); Crete & conrmed also by Gabzdylova et al. (2009) who found that personal
Goumenissa & Naoussa & Mantineia & preferences play an important role on how sustainability is being
Santorini (500); Agio Oros & Chalkidiki & applied. Table 3 shows how many wineries from each country
Naoussa & Rapsani & Thraki (700, 30)
mentioned one or more of the three dimensions (environmental,
Spain 6 Peneds (20, 76); Ribera del Duero (900);
Rioja (20, 80); Somontano (1100)
economic, social) dened by the United Nations (2005) in their
1,300,000 ha 55 44 winegrowing areas (60,000 ha) answers. It is conspicuous that in countries like the USA and France
the denition given by the different wineries almost always con-
tains all three dimensions of sustainability. This result traces back
We quantied and analysed the presence, the meanings and the to the fact that in these two countries the interviewed wineries are
relationships of the words and concepts in the interviews under- already practising sustainability.
taken and then we made inferences about the messages within the Considering the size of the interviewed companies, the results
texts (Weber, 1990; Stemler, 2001). show that small wineries, especially if they are certied as organic
Deductive and inductive schemes were used for coding the or biodynamic, think rst and foremost about the environmental
open-ended questions. The coding frames were adapted from dimension of sustainability, while cooperatives or bigger com-
various other studies. For the test of the rst proposition (P1), the panies also take economic and social dimensions into account.
denition of the United Nations (2005) was used. The second From the farm management point of view, wineries working bio-
research question (P2) was analysed inductively in accordance with dynamically emphasize e for comprehensible reasons e the
Smith (2010), while the analysis of the last proposition (P3) was importance of the environment, whereas conventional companies
based on Forbes et al. (2009) and Zucca et al. (2009) as well as on talk rather more about optimizing the production chain. Also Sippl
inductive information. (2006) concluded that wineries often reduce sustainability to
environmental protection without mentioning the other two
3.4. Validity and reliability dimensions.
Table 4 contains the most-cited words or phrases the in-
Special quality criteria by Krippendorff (2004) were selected to terviewees used to dene sustainability, on an agglomerate level.
prove the validity and reliability of this study. The interviewed The words and phrases mentioned most frequently are highlighted.
wineries were selected randomly in each country. Before selecting This table shows that the environmental dimension is the most
and contacting the wineries, the circle of potential companies was often mentioned and therefore the most important for the com-
dened based on certication of sustainability, interest (internal panies. Economic and social components are referred to as well, but
sample validity) as well as size and winegrowing area (external in far less detail than the environmental dimension.
sample validity). Native-speaking interviewers conducted, tran- Another interesting point is that the interviewees rarely talked
scribed, coded and analysed the interviews. The interviewers took about sustainable production in the cellar, but mostly about sus-
part in three common sections, in which the selection of interview tainable viticulture. Although practices like water management,
partners, the interviewing procedure as well as the coding and wastewater, energy use, transport or packaging have already
analysing techniques were trained. Therefore, the coding system become an important part of sustainable wine management
and rules were developed together with all the interviewers (se- (Castellucci, 2008), wineries mentioned only outside practices.
mantic validity). Each interviewer analysed all the interviews from This shows that viticulture is more popular than oenology when
his/her own country, which allowed consistent and uniform
investigation (reliability). Table 3
Also, the interrater reliability, which was dened by Number of wineries that mentioned one or more of the three dimensions of sus-
Krippendorff (2004) as the extent to which two or more individuals tainability dened by the United Nations (2005).
(coders or raters) agree, can be assured, since all of the interviewers Country Number of Dimensions of sustainability
took part in education and training concerning the coding and interviewed wineries
Environmental Economic Social
analysis of the texts. In addition, a supervisor organized, managed
France 15 15 11 9
and monitored the work of all the interviewers.
Germany 8 8 2 4
USA (California) 7 7 7 7
4. Results and discussion Hungary 7 7 2 1
Italy 6 6 3 3
Greece 6 6 3 2
Although different countries were involved in this study, there Spain 6 6 4 1
are still similarities concerning the answers. This part of the paper
 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251 247

Table 4 adapt the farm to natural rhythms (such as planting seeds during
Overview of the most important principles of sustainability given by the certain lunar phases) (Diver, 1999). The primary difference between
interviewees.
organic and biodynamic farming systems is that biodynamics uses
Dimension Main principles a series of soil and plant amendments, called preparations, said to
Generally Soft farming; complete management; viable stimulate the soil and enhance plant health and the quality of the
development; safety for the future produce (Reeve et al., 2005).
Environmental Carbon footprint; respect for environment; balance of
It is clear from Table 3 that the environmental dimension of
ecosystem; management of natural resources;
agro-ecological development; minimization of use of sustainability includes all the principles of the organic and partially
synthetically produced fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides those of the biodynamic wine production. Therefore, it is reason-
and pesticides; correct distribution and stewardship of able that some companies do not see great differences.
the land; keeping the land in the same or better shape; Generally speaking, there are three essential points of view
minimize transport; minimize emission; biodiversity;
recycling; water management; soil management; energy
regarding the way in which the interviewees consider the rela-
management; packaging management; greenwashing tionship between sustainable and organic or biodynamic
Economic Protability; improving the production; optimization of management:
production chain
Social Responsibility; respect for the next generation; full the
1) Similar concept: especially small wineries already practising
demands of the consumers; full the needs of the
employees organic or biodynamic management have the opinion that
there are no big differences between these systems. These
wineries integrate themselves into the sustainability system
and think that sustainable is in fact no more than organic or
discussing sustainable wine techniques. In the list of principles,
biodynamic farming, since both have the environment in focus.
greenwashing1 was mentioned as the only negative aspect.
2) Middle way: some interviewees believe that organic or
Wineries that have less to do with sustainability associate this
biodynamic is only a small part of sustainability, namely the
term only with the carbon footprint, which is, without doubt, the
environmental dimension. In their opinion, organic or biody-
most frequently mentioned term in the whole study. Even bigger
namic can be sustainable, or the other way around, but it is not
companies with experience in sustainability put this term in the
inevitable.
rst place.
3) Different concept: most conventional companies bring forward
For many of the interviewed wineries, mostly the smaller ones,
the argument that organic or biodynamic systems are inexible
sustainability is a lifestyle and a personal philosophy on its own.
and because they focus only on the environmental dimension
Because of the heterogeneity of the answers, the rst proposi-
without dealing with water, energy and waste conservation,
tions (P1) can be conrmed, as there is no common denition either
omitting to mention the economic and social dimensions, they
on an international or on a national level.
cannot be seen as sustainable. They all share the view that
conventional farming can also be sustainable.
4.2. Sustainable vs. organic or biodynamic
Considering the ofcial denitions of all these terms, it can be
It would not be surprising if somebody supposed that con- claimed that sustainable, organic or biodynamic styles of farming
sumers do not know the exact difference between sustainable and differ on the levels of commitment, restriction and adequate -
organic or biodynamic winemaking. However, even wine producers nances. Sustainable is described as the most economic and liberal
sometimes do not distinguish between these management sys- type of farming, while biodynamic is the farming system with the
tems. For a better understanding, the denition of organic and most rules and restrictions and therefore requires the biggest
biodynamic wines is presented here rst. Organic wine is wine commitment.
made from organically grown grapes without the help of and need Despite this fact, the interviewees opinions vary enormously.
for synthetic fertilizers, synthetic plant treatments and herbicides. Table 5 shows the number of interviewees who believe that sus-
Organic grapes come from vineyards following organic farming tainable winemaking is different from organic or biodynamic
methods, as dened at the European level by the Council Regula- winemaking. In some countries, sustainability is still an almost
tions (EC) No. 834/2007 and No. 889/2008 on organic production unknown term. Therefore, only a limited range of answers was
and the labelling of organic products, the result of which is that the expected. This limitation is to be found in the comparison of
sole rules to be applied to wines processed from organic grapes are organic or biodynamic with sustainable as well as in the sustainable
those contained in the EC Regulations 479/2008 (annexes 4 and 5) practice.
and 1622/2000, which dene the oenological practices and treat- It is interesting to note that here again the USA (California) and
ments allowed for wines in Europe (Trioli and Hofmann, 2009). France show the highest proportion of wineries that distinguish
Biodynamics can be understood as a combination of biological between these different systems, again presumably because of the
dynamic agricultural practices. Biological practices include a same reason as mentioned in Section 3.1.
series of well-known organic farming techniques that improve soil The interviewees from other countries do not see clearly the
health. Like organic farming, biodynamics prohibits synthetic differences between sustainable and organic or biodynamic, which
chemical inputs such as fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides and is most likely because of the lack of knowledge. This nding is in
does not use genetically modied seed. Dynamic practices are agreement with Smiths (2010) results, who pointed out that these
intended to inuence the biological as well as the metaphysical three systems are often being confused. Therefore, we have to split
aspects of the farm (such as increasing the vital life force), or to up the database of the study: on one hand the USA (California) and
France and on the other hand the rest of the interviewed countries.
In this way, the proposition (P2) that wineries nd sustainable
1
Greenwashing: The concept of greenwashing refers to the shaping of public practice to be equal to organic or biodynamical farming must be
perceptions that rms have an environmental consciousness and are actively
engaged in activities that improve the environment when, in reality, their income-
rejected for the rst group; however, it can be accepted for the
generating activities remain largely unaltered and environmentally suspect (Burch second group. This test shows again the importance of information
et al., 2006). management concerning sustainability.
248 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251

Table 5 Sustainable farming requires more time because of the necessary

Number of wineries believing that differences exist between sustainable and organic documenting and tracking down of every single process. Further-
or biodynamic systems.
more, it needs capital investment, especially at the very beginning
Country Number of Number of wineries when restructuring is necessary to prepare the company for sus-
interviewed that believe that sustainable
tainable management.
wineries differs from organic or
biodynamic
The next greatest disadvantage from the interviewees point of
view is related to the different kinds of communication listed below
France 15 11
Germany 8 3 and almost every winery judges this point as quite critical. This
USA (California) 7 7 problem even exists on three levels:
Hungary 7 2
Italy 6 1 1) Obtaining information about sustainability practices: the rst
Greece 6 2
Spain 6 3
critical information barrier occurs when wineries that are
interested in sustainable winemaking try to nd information
about sustainable practices. Because too many different sus-
tainable practices e that are constantly changing e exist,
Analysing the answers of the second group, we nd that mostly newcomer wineries need a partner or a corresponding person
small wineries that are already practising organic or biodynamic to help them, at least in the rst steps. Therefore, wineries who
management have the opinion that there are no big differences are members of cooperatives have an easier way to start
between the farming systems. following central management.
2) Informing co-workers: the co-workers of the winery also
4.3. Pros and cons of sustainable wine production belong to the social dimensions of sustainability. They should
be informed about the whole sustainable concept of the com-
Similar to the denition of sustainability, the arguments for and pany, too. In several wineries, sustainability is actually dened
against practising sustainability constitute quite an individual not only as a new management system but also as a personal
issue. philosophy, possibly even a lifestyle, and therefore it is not al-
From Table 6 it can be deduced that practising sustainability has ways easy to persuade co-workers of its importance or simply
as many pros as cons, which does not make it easy for the wineries of its meaning.
to change their philosophy from one day to another. Similar to 3) Informing consumers: sustainability only exists when also
Table 4, the table highlights the words and phrases mentioned by consumers are informed of it said some interviewees, who
almost every interviewee. The interviewees see the biggest wanted to emphasize the importance of informing consumers.
advantage in the protection of the environment, but additional This should include among other things basic information
advantages surfaced during the interviews, such as improved about sustainability, but should also mean a current informa-
quality, economic efciency, cost-efciency through using for tion ow between producers, government and consumers.
example renewable energy and less material for packaging, and
effectively organized producing processes.
Some companies even mentioned the positive reaction of con- 4.4. Consumer reaction to sustainable winegrowing and
sumers while interviewees from California e due to various bad winemaking
examples in the past e warned us about the use of the term sus-
tainability as just a greenwashing tool. The interviewees brought up As Section 4.2 showed, even producers had a poor under-
time intensity, extra costs and communication barriers as disad- standing when differentiating sustainable, organic and biodynamic.
vantages. Sippl (2006) pointed out the same disadvantages in her Therefore we did not interview them to nd out what they think,
study conducted in Germany; however, the outcomes of this study how consumers would differ between various farming systems, we
have proven that these problems appear to be international and rather aimed to analysed how producer judge the situation of
are transferable to other wine-producing countries, as well. consumes in terms of sustainability and wine.

Table 6
List of the most frequently mentioned arguments.

Country Pros Cons

France Responsibility; transmission of healthy heritage; Time management; investment; implementation; administration; difcult
doing something positive for future generations to understand; lack of information
Germany Protection of the environment; breaking the Higher costs through social dimension
monoculture; disclaim of chemicals; future-oriented
business management;
USA (California) Agro-ecological development; exible, dynamic Time-consuming; additional individual efforts; greenwashing; hard to
character; this kind of farming is exciting; communicate; freedom of using synthetic chemicals in the vineyards
nancial efciency
Hungary Easy to practice, protect the environment Underdeveloped in Hungary; needs more time to be used in practice;
lack of information
Italy Awakes interest of consumers; makes Extra costs through social dimension; lack of uniform norms; marketing tool
communication more effective and protable;
health aspect for the environment and for employees
through disclaim of chemicals
Greece Cost-efciency; higher product quality; feeling Underdeveloped in Greece; difcult to nd appropriate sources, help and
of satisfaction regulation; time-consuming; investment required
Spain Sustainability is the future; improvement of the More costs; change of mentality; economic resources; not much support from
environment; integrated economy; efcient processes; the society; slow way; needs communication
positive image; differentiation; money saving; quality
 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251 249

Due to the fact that the interviewees from different countries 4.5. Organization concerning sustainability
assessed consumer reactions diversely, the answers were split into
country-specic parts. The majority of examples of different organizations were given
France e Interviewees in France associated this part of the by the interviewees in California. This relates to the fact that Cali-
interview, dealing with the consumer reaction, mainly with the fornia was the pioneer in sustainable winegrowing. The biggest and
question of communication, namely why consumers should be most trustworthy one appears to be the California Sustainable
informed about sustainability. Positively thinking wineries hold Winegrowing Alliance, which is associated with the Wine Institute
the opinion that consumers have positive attitudes towards sus- of California and with the California Association of Winegrape
tainability because it is good for their health and for the envi- Growers. Others were the Napa Green Winery, Napa Green Land
ronment and that they like to be informed because they feel and Fish-Friendly Farming, all three created and certied by Napa
involved. However, critical voices say that there is too much in- Valley Vintners, the Bay Area Green Business Program, the Sus-
formation and too many labels on the market and that consumers tainable Napa County and SureHarvest. The above-mentioned
are confused about the management systems and do not know organizations focus on certifying wineries as sustainable and also
what they mean. on funding education programmes for the winegrowers.
Germany e The interviewees here argued that consumers are Wineries from the other countries listed here belong to organic
primarily interested in wine quality and not in farm management or biodynamic organizations, which shows again that the in-
systems, although they show an interest when the term sustain- terviewees confuse these systems with sustainability.
ability is mentioned. Also, German wineries brought up the French companies underlined the activity of cooperatives con-
example of confused consumers who could not distinguish be- cerning sustainability practices and said that some winegrowers
tween sustainable and organic or biodynamic. associations also help, although only with information. In Germany,
USA (California) e These interviewees are also of the opinion winegrowers associations and ofcial service centres that are also
that consumers are greatly confused, since they do not know running their own pilot projects, like Weinbauverband Franken,
what green, sustainable, organic, biodynamic or even sh- Dienstleistungszentrum Rheinland-Pfalz and DINE in Heilbronn,
friendly farming means. They are not informed enough to un- were mentioned. In Hungary, there is only one programme that
derstand the differences, and it is a very complicated concept provides information about sustainability (AKG), whereas the other
for them. Their environmental consciousness has evolved organizations mentioned were rather organically and bio-
extremely in the last twenty years supporting everything that is dynamically oriented. In Greece, sustainability means for some
green which was (also reported by Zucca et al. (2009) and wineries a complete management system that can be certied and
Forbes et al. (2009)), but trusting only the certied sustainable supervised by the program Agrocert. There are numerous
wines. agencies and consultants that can put together and certify this
Hungary e The general opinion of the interviewees is uniform: system in the companies. Agrocert, though, is only specied in
sustainability is an unknown term for consumers, not even experts viticulture and not in the winery. Italian interviewees point to
or winemakers do know exactly what it means. regional initiatives like campi aperti and take the San Michele
Italy e Private clients of biodynamic wineries are always inter- Research Institute as an example, too. In Spain, all the interviewees
ested in the farm management; therefore, the interviewees think agree that there is no special organization related to this concept, at
that sustainability is also one of the pieces of information that can least not ofcially. They only mentioned some organic and biody-
awaken interest; still, not every consumer is willing to be informed namic organizations like Sociedad Espanyola de Agricultura Eco-
about it. Here the effect of the economic crisis became obvious as lgica (Spanish Society of Ecological Agriculture) and Uni Vincola
the interviewees mentioned that consumers have become more Catalana (Catalan Wine Union), but no special information sources
price-sensitive and they do not pay attention to ecological and about sustainable wine production.
social dimensions. Furthermore, standardization systems like ISO or HACCP as the
Greece e Wineries barely communicate their green practices. most relevant ones were mentioned in almost every country.
Therefore, the reaction of consumers is zero. On the one hand,
wineries do not communicate their green philosophy because 5. Implication and future research
they believe that consumers will not appreciate it. On the other
hand, consumers are not aware of any green wines and therefore This cross-national study, conducted in seven countries, shows
they cannot prefer them. It was also said that organic wines are how difcult it is to dene the term sustainability, because not
much more expensive than conventional ones and as a result only each country but also each interviewee has a different un-
consumers cannot afford them. However, all the interviewees derstanding of sustainability in the wine industry. Generally
stated that for their consumers abroad and especially in the speaking, the term is mainly associated with the environmental
United States, it does make a great deal of difference whether the dimension and in some cases only with the carbon footprint. There
wines are produced greenly and therefore they communicate it to are wineries that mentioned in the interview also the other two
them. dimensions of sustainability, however these wineries are already
Spain e The interviewees think that at the moment customers certied as sustainable and have put the complete sustainable
are not greatly concerned about this aspect; they just show some theory successfully into practice. The best way to harmonize and
sympathy. This probably resulted from the lack of information, connect the different opinions concerning the denition and in
campaigns, etc. Wineries practising sustainability want to increase combination with it also the practice of sustainable grape growing
the. and winemaking might be cross-national cooperation involving the
The third proposition (P3), based on the results of Zucca et al. different institutes and organizations already described above. This
(2009), can also be conrmed, since almost all of the in- kind of collaboration would help to formulate a clear prole for
terviewees made mention of their experience or of being afraid that sustainable wine and a better understanding of these products for
consumers were confused by sustainable winegrowing and wine- consumers, as well. Another critical point arises when discussing
making concepts. Forbes et al. (2009) also refer to the confusion of the difference between sustainable and organic or biodynamic
the consumers who have less idea about what sustainability in the management. There is ambiguity regarding these terms, since not
wine industry exactly means. only consumers but even some of the wineries still confuse
250 G. Szolnoki / Journal of Cleaner Production 53 (2013) 243e251

sustainability with organic or biodynamic farming. Here again, a interviews. I would also like to thank all the wineries that took part
harmonized and internationally accepted denition of sustain- in the study and shared their knowledge with us, as well as Evdokia
ability in the wine industry could help to distinguish the different Dimkou, Eike Kaim and Nicole Siegenheim for their helpful
management systems. comments!
Information barriers seem to be a huge challenge that the sus-
tainable wine industry will face in the future. Wineries complain Appendix
about the lack of information concerning sustainability and feel the
need to inform their co-workers, as well as the consumers. This fact Question catalogue
again enhances the necessity of dening sustainable wine on an
international level and the cooperation of different national orga- 1. What does sustainability mean to you; how would you dene
nizations in order to be able to provide the information needed by it?
wine producers, employees and consumers. 2. What are the most important principles of sustainable wine
As regards the advantages of sustainability, almost all the in- in your opinion?
terviewees are of the same opinion that it protects the environment 3. Do you nd any differences or similarities in sustainability with
and that it is of particular importance for the future. However, the organic or biodynamic viticulture?
practising sustainability is assessed as a time-consuming system 4. Why did you choose the philosophy of sustainability for your
needing extra investment and sometimes personal commitment and winery and what was your philosophy beforehand?
philosophy. Therefore, supposedly, only part of the wineries with the 5. Do you nd practising sustainability complicated or simple?
personal commitment mentioned above and special attitude e 6. How exactly do you practise sustainability (in general)?
which is absolutely essential for this management system e will 7. What are the pros and cons of the system you are following?
follow the principles of sustainability in the future. The interviewed 8. How do consumers react to sustainable wines?
wineries generally accept that consumers are not sufciently 9. Concerning sustainability, what kinds of organizations exist in
informed to appreciate sustainable wines, so it will be another your country?
challenge for the wine industry to persuade them. Nowadays, sus- 10. Do you receive any help/consulting from these specic
tainability is a beloved topic in the media; nevertheless, institutions organizations?
and wineries that apply sustainable practices have to educate con- 11. How does this consulting work (member fees, seminars ...)?
sumers about the principles and advantages of sustainability. Over- 12. Is external help/consulting necessary to you?
all, although sustainability has been developing very intensely over 13. How would you consider the development of sustainability in
the last years, including more and more areas of everyday life, it still your country (compared with other countries)?
has a long way to go to achieve its complete expression.
This approach has the potential limitation that it does not allow
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