Assessment of sustainability in Austrian wine production

Abstract

The aim of the project was to find out whether environmental sustainability can be measured not only with regard to climate change and carbon consumption but also as to other criteria concerning material consumption, energy, soil, biodiversity and water. We investigated which measures in the vineyard and wine cellar can lead to “better” sustainability while ensuring a high quality standard. 343 activities were identified to fulfill 61 quality objectives. Of the 2,191 sustainability assessments that were determined the measurements of the individual sustainability criteria vary and are in some cases even negatively correlated. Nevertheless, it was still possible to differentiate sustainably managed wineries from others in all of the Austrian wine producing areas. In our approach, a specifically developed online tool can calculate the expression of ecological, economic and social sustainability and show the effects in a spider diagram in the form of a traffic light rating system. Moreover, an algorithm suggests adequately which quality improvements can be achieved. If part of the management system is changed the online tool will show the positive and negative sustainability effects.