Transnational Comparison of Sustainability Assessment Programs for Viticulture and a Case-Study on Programs’ Engagement Processes
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School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide, Waite Campus, Private Mail Bag 1, Glen Osmond SA 5064, Australia
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Mathematical Science School, University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus, 6.43 Ingkarni Wardli, Adelaide SA 5005, Australia
3
Adelaide Business School—School of Marketing and Management, University of Adelaide, 09.03 Nexus 10, Adelaide SA 5064, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Sustainability 2014, 6(4), 2031-2066; https://doi.org/10.3390/su6042031
Received: 26 February 2014 / Revised: 24 March 2014 / Accepted: 28 March 2014 / Published: 10 April 2014
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Wildlife)
This article documents and compares the most prominent sustainability assessment programs for individual organisations in viticulture worldwide. Certification and engagement processes for membership uptake; benefits; motives; inhibiting factors; and desirable reporting system features of viticultural sustainability programs, are all considered. Case-study results are derived from nine sustainability programs; 14 focus groups with 83 CEOs, Chief Viticulturists or Winemakers from wine grape production organizations from five countries (Australia, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States); 12 semi-structured interviews with managers either currently or formerly in charge of the sustainability programs; researcher observations; and analysis of documents. Programs were categorized by their distinct program assessment methods: process-based, best practice-based, indicator-based and criterion-based. We found that programs have been created to increase growers’ sustainability, mainly through the direct and indirect education they receive and promote, and the economic benefit to their business caused by overall improvement of their operations. The main finding from this study is that the success of each of these programs is largely due to the people driving the programs (program managers, innovative growers and/or early adopters) and the way these people communicate and engage with their stakeholders and peers.
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Keywords:
sustainability program; assessment; certification; wine grape; viticulture; agriculture; engagement; self-assessment; focus group; comparison
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
MDPI and ACS Style
Santiago-Brown, I.; Metcalfe, A.; Jerram, C.; Collins, C. Transnational Comparison of Sustainability Assessment Programs for Viticulture and a Case-Study on Programs’ Engagement Processes. Sustainability 2014, 6, 2031-2066.
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