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Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Vine-Growing Combining Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Multicriterial Analysis

Giacomo Falcone, Anna Irene De Luca, Teodora Stillitano, Alfio Strano, Giuseppa Romeo and Giovanni Gulisano
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Giacomo Falcone: Department of Agriculture (AGRARIA), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Anna Irene De Luca: Department of Agriculture (AGRARIA), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Teodora Stillitano: Department of Agriculture (AGRARIA), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Alfio Strano: Department of Agriculture (AGRARIA), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Giuseppa Romeo: Department of Agriculture (AGRARIA), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy
Giovanni Gulisano: Department of Agriculture (AGRARIA), Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, Feo di Vito, Reggio Calabria 89122, Italy

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-34

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.

Keywords: environmental and economic sustainability; LCA; LCC; multicriteria analysis; VIKOR technique; wine-growing systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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