The potential carbon neutrality of sustainable viticulture showed through a comprehensive assessment of the greenhouse gas (GHG) budget of wine production
Author(s)
Date Issued
2019
Type
article
Volume
225
Start Page
435
End Page
450
Journal
Abstract
Sustainable agricultural and food processing practices are often proposed as attractive strategies enabling
food systems to respond to the challenges posed by climate change in terms of adaptation and mitigation.
However, information on the actual contribution to climate change provided by sustainable food
production systems is lacking in literature.
With the intention to contribute to a more informed debate, this study aims at quantify the actual
impact on climate of sustainable practices applied to a grape-to-wine system in Italy. The overall budget
of greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes is assessed at wine farm level, from the vineyard to the final bottle of
wine, through an integration of methods, including the eddy covariance technique, the life cycle
assessment (LCA) and the IPCC guidelines. All the components of the GHG budget have been considered:
the (a) biogenic GHG fluxes and the (b) anthropogenic GHG emissions generated for the grape production
as well as the (c) carbon stock change due to the vineyard management and the (d) anthropogenic
GHG emissions generated by the transformation of grape into wine.
At the vineyard level, the overall GHG budget resulted to be close to zero, showing a potential carbon
neutrality of sustainable viticulture: the sum of biogenic GHG fluxes (a) and the carbon stock change (c)
resulted in a net carbon sink with a potential contribution to climate change mitigation
of 0,27 ± 1,11 Mg CO2eq year 1 per hectare; while the anthropogenic GHG emissions (b) for the sustainable
vineyard management accounted for 0,24 ± 0,05 Mg CO2eq ha 1 year 1.
The total carbon footprint (b þ d) of sustainable wine is 0,79 ± 0,14 kg CO2eq per bottle, with 15%
attributable to the agricultural phase and 85% to the transformation of grape into wine.
These findings indicate that sustainable wine production has in general a lower contribution to climate
change. In particular, sustainable practices applied to viticulture can turn the system into a net carbon
sink able to totally compensate the anthropogenic emissions for the vineyard management. Therefore,
sustainable viticulture allows food production with a potential carbon neutrality without exacerbating
climate change.
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Chitiacò et al. _2019.pdf
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