Abstract
The wine sector is going through a significant evolution dealing with the challenges of competition issues in international markets and with necessary commitments to sustainability improvement. In the wine supply chain, the agricultural phase represents a potential source of pollution and costs. From the farmers’ point of view, these contexts require them to be more attentive and find a compromise among environmental benefits, economic benefits, and costs linked to farming practices. This paper aims to make a sustainability assessment of different wine-growing scenarios located in Calabria (Southern Italy) that combines conflicting insights, i.e., environmental and economic ones, by applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to identify the main hotspots and select the alternative scenarios closest to the ideal solution through the VIKOR multicriteria method. In particular, the latter allowed us to obtain synthetic indices for a two-dimensional sustainability assessment. Conventional practices associated to the espalier training system represent the best compromise from both environmental and economic points of view, due to the higher yield per hectare. The choices regarding Functional Unit (FU) and indicators were shown to have a high influence on results.
Highlights
According to the definition provided in 1989 by the American Agronomy Society, sustainable agriculture can be considered as an activity “that, over the long term, enhances environmental quality and the resource base on which agriculture depends; provides for basic human food and fiber needs; is economically viable; and enhances the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole” [1]
Results of Environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment (EnLCIA) are illustrated for each scenario by distinguishing the different stages of life cycle (Figure 3)
Acidification (AP) and Eutrophication (EP) impacts follow the same trend of Global Warming Potential (GWP) in terms of scenario performances
Summary
According to the definition provided in 1989 by the American Agronomy Society, sustainable agriculture can be considered as an activity “that, over the long term, enhances environmental quality and the resource base on which agriculture depends; provides for basic human food and fiber needs; is economically viable; and enhances the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole” [1]. The agro-food sector is one of the most polluting economic sectors [5], producing around 10% of European emissions of greenhouse gases [6], around 90% of acidifying pollutants emissions and depleting nearly 34% of freshwater resources [7] These phenomena are attributable to the large use of fertilizers, methane emissions by ruminant’s digestion, the use of agricultural machines etc.; the rate of growth of these environmental externalities is faster than the regeneration rate of ecosystems. The resulting damages such as global warming, loss of biodiversity, energy resources depletion and wastes production, in the long term, could lead to serious social and economic consequences
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