LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT AND CARBON FOOTPRINTIN THE WINE SUPPLY-CHAIN

Angelo Cichelli

, Andrea Raggi

Claudio Pattara

DASTA, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, viale Pindaro, 42, 65127 Pescara, Italy,cichelli@unich.it

Dept. of Sciences, G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, viale Pindaro, 42, 65127 Pescara, Italy

ABSTRACT

This study concerns the application of a Carbon Footprint (CF) tool to an Italian wine case-study to which Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) had already been applied, with the aim of testing this new approach and draw some preliminary comparative remarks. The functionalunit used was a 0.75 litre bottle and the supply-chain considered started from the vineyard andended with the sale of the product, including the transport related to the distribution stage. Theresults show that the considered tools are similar in terms of applicability, but differ in theoutputs they produce. The CF is easier to understand than LCA, which provides morecomplete data. The studied sample does not permit us to make a meaningful assessment of theconsidered tools. In conclusion, further studies must be carried out to validate the use of CF incompanies of different sizes, which may have significant environmental impacts also in othercategories.Keywords: wine industry, carbon footprint (CF), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

1. INTRODUCTION

The wine industry is a “global” sector, in terms of end market, which represents asignificant demand of world resources. According to recent data almost 8 million hectares areused for viticulture and the estimated annual world production of wine is about 270 millionhectolitres (OIV, 2006).In view of the size of the resources involved, a common strategy is required in order for thesector to develop and evolve towards a “sustainable” solution for the economy of the differentproducing countries and for the ecosystems that accommodate the cultivations. In thiscontext, in the last few years, new products have appeared on the market. Organic wines haverapidly obtained success together with a whole range of food products with the samecharacteristics. Even though wine is not a basic necessity, for some economies it hassignificant importance in terms of export data and it covers a large percentage of the GDPfrom the agro-industrial sector (Point, 2008). With the increase in the world production of wine, environmental problems related to this type of production are of growing concern,particularly in a few countries which are not traditionally known for winemaking (Australia,New Zealand, a few American countries and South-Africa). Environmental issues have in factimposed new development models based on innovative technologies that reduce theconsumption of resources (energy, chemicals) and the amount of pollutants and wastereleased, maximising the recovery and recycling of by-products at the end of the life cycle. Inthe case of the agri-food industry, specifically in the wine growing and making supply chain,certain methodological tools have been used to quantify and asses the environmental impactsthroughout the product life cycle, from raw materials to the end product and waste.From this point of view, over the years the first methodology to have been applied is LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) which assesses the environmental burdens of a product, from its

production to its disposal or recycling (cradle-to-grave approach). The completeness of theLCA tool makes it the ideal method to analyse and quantify the impacts of a product orprocess in the context of reference. This completeness on the one hand makes it a robustmethod but on the other hand does not make it very accessible for communication purposeswhen the target group is not specialised in this field. To overcome this limitation and to adaptto worldwide trends focusing on the Global Warming issues, and therefore on the emission of CO

and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), the OIV (Organisation Internationale de la Vigne etdu Vin), following the issue of the Guidelines for Sustainable Viticulture (OIV, 2004), isworking on the OIV-GHGAP (OIV-GreenHouse Gas Accounting Protocol) for the wineindustry. This process, which is in its final stage, will lead to the standardisation of amethodology to establish the contribution of CO

emissions in the wine industry.The purpose of this work is the application of a Carbon Footprint (CF) tool to a winery inAbruzzo, Italy, where an LCA had been already carried out previously (Petti et al., 2005,2006). This study examines, in a context already known, the characteristics of an instrument(CF) which is still being defined. At the same time we tried to make a quali-quantitativecomparison of the two instruments considered (LCA and CF), being well aware of the limitedsample observed.

2. CARBON FOOTPRINT

Thanks to growing interest in the climate change problem by Governments and consumers,which are more aware of environmental issues, producers have been increasingly encouragedto adopt more environmentally-friendly solutions and to effectively communicate them tostakeholders. For this purpose it was necessary to create a clear tool to label the carbonfootprint (total amount of GHGs emissions caused by a product, expressed in kg of CO

-equivalent) of single products. At present there are various methodologies to evaluate thecarbon footprint; these include the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) (Forsyth et al,2004) elaborated by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council forSustainable Development, and the ISO 14064 standard (ISO, 2006) issued by the InternationalOrganization for Standardization. Both tools adopt Life Cycle Analysis approaches tomeasure the emissions of GHGs (Waye, 2008).With the aim of establishing a uniform methodology for calculating the carbon footprint of products and services, the British Standards Institute, co-sponsored by the Carbon Trust – anot for profit company established in the UK to tackle the climate change matter – and the UKDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), has developed the PAS 2050specification to assess the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted throughout the lifecycle of goods and services (BSI, 2008). The main goal of this specification isto recognizethe potential for organizations to use this method to deliver improved understanding of theGHG emissions arising from their supply chains, and to provide a common basis for thecomparison and communication of results (BSI. 2008).Furthermore, the Carbon Trust hasdeveloped a carbon label that shows the contribution of each single product to the emissionsof carbon dioxide (Carbon Trust, 2010). To support this initiative the Carbon Trust hasdeveloped a tool to calculate the carbon footprint based on the guidelines of the PAS 2050.In this same international context, the OIV has taken the IWCCP (International Wine CarbonCalculator Protocol) and the relevant IWCC (Carbon Calculator) (International Wine CarbonCalculator Protocol, 2008) – developed by an international consortium of winemakers’federations and formally endorsed by the International Federation of Wine and Spirits (FIVS)(www.fivs.org) – as a starting point to develop a tool to asses wine companies and theirproducts and fully analyse the various process stages in order to identify the GHGs emissionscaused by the production process and supply-chain. The Protocol and Calculator weredesigned primarily as a company-level tool in accordance with current international standards

and practices for GHG accounting. Moreover, it can also provide general guidance on thesignificant emissions related to individual products, although it is not to be strictly intended asa life-cycle-based tool. In this context the protocol and relevant calculator separate theemissions in three levels called Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3. Scope 1 includes all thoseemissions over which a company has direct control via ownership of the related activities(cultivation, wine-making, bottling). Scope 2 refers to purchased energy (heat or electricity).Scope 3 includes the emissions from all products/activities that are purchased from othercompanies. The emissions have been divided in this way to avoid double counting at aregional level. Scope 1 and 2 typically include the emissions concerned when firms developplans to minimise their impacts (as such scopes are considered the only ones directlycontrolled by the management). Scope 3 emissions represent a critical point of the winegrowing and making supply-chain as this scope includes all goods and services purchasedfrom other companies (e.g.: product packaging and transport). The Protocol expressly statethat all emissions that represent more that 1% of the mass of the product, or more than 1% of total GHG emissions, should be included. Currently the calculation does not include allelements of the short-term carbon cycle (e.g., CO

from wine fermentation, emissions fromcombustion or breakdown of vine prunings, etc), as well as land use change, infrastructureitems and assets (barrels, tanks and machinery), business travel of employees, and mostchemicals.

3. CASE-STUDY IMPLEMENTATION

A preliminary implementation of the IWCC, version 1.3 (Wine Institute, 2008), to anItalian wine product was made by using inventory data from a previous LCA studyconcerning an organic wine produced by a small-sized Italian winemaker (Petti et al., 2006).In this way some preliminary comparative considerations concerning the two approaches,notably CF and LCA, would also be possible.The main goal of the above LCA case-study was to identify the most impacting life-cyclestages. The functional unit chosen was a bottle (750 ml) of organic red wine (Montepulcianod’Abruzzo), including primary packaging (glass bottle, shrink cap, cork and label) andsecondary packaging (corrugated cardboard box, PVC film and wooden pallet). The farmanalysed has 12 hectares of vineyard, 5 of which cultivated with Montepulciano d’Abruzzogrape. The average yearly production of Montepulciano grapes is about 70 tonnes. The yearlyproduction of wine is about 50,000 litres, part of which (75%) is bottled, whilst the remainingis sold in bulk. The vineyard is cultivated according to organic farming standards. Thewinery’s activities include winegrowing and making, bottling and sale of the finished productto local, national and international markets. All the above steps were included within theproduct system boundaries, while wine consumption, transport of auxiliary materials, and theproduct’s end-of life phases were temporarily excluded (Petti et al., 2006).The collection of all production process inputs and outputs resulted in a database groupingall the operations carried out and the amounts of substances (fuel, chemicals, etc.) used in thevarious processes, as well as the output released throughout the reference year, according tothe month of reference (Petti et al., 2005). The same database was used as a source for thedata entered in the IWCC. The carbon calculator’s parameters and emission factors remainedunchanged, with the exceptions listed below.The data entry into the IWCC was easy, since the tool is based on a widely usedspreadsheet format (Excel), already known to most users. The data is added through thescreens in relation to the areas of reference: Scope 1, 2 and 3. Prior and during the data entryphase a few assumptions and choices were made, as described in the following.Because the available data on the phases upstream bottling refer to the overall quantity of Montepulciano wine produced, these data were allocated on a mass basis between bulk and