Search

Gli apprezzabili risultati, in termini di risparmio energetico e abbattimento delle emissioni di CO2eq, conseguiti dal settore della birra italiana sono attribuibili a efficaci strategie ambientali implementate dalle aziende di maggiori dimensioni, mentre permangono margini significativi di miglioramento per i birrifici artigianali, il vero fenomeno imprenditoriale degli ultimi dieci anni. In questo lavoro è stato esaminato il caso di due micro-birrifici della Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia, al fine di analizzare le relative Carbon Footprint di Organizzazione (OCF). Dai risultati ottenuti in questo studio preliminare appare evidente come, pur in presenza di sostanziali differenze in termini di percentuali di emissioni di GHG attribuibili ai diversi scopes, per entrambe le aziende l’hot-spot principale risieda nei consumi energetici, dove la distanza dalle scelte strategiche effettuate dalla grande industria birraria è ancora rilevante.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the wine consumption among young people belonging to the so-called millennial generationDesign/methodology/approachThis study uses a questionnaire and a choice experiment (CE) with a multinomial logit model (MNL), implementing a random parameter logit model (RPL), to investigate the attitudes of millennials towards wine consumption, their purchasing behaviours and their willingness to pay for attributes of the products; in particular regarding the follwing: region of origin, “winescape”, certification, carbon footprint claim and price.FindingsMillennials appear to drink wine less frequently; they consume it more often in social on-premise settings, having a slightly higher willingness to pay and preferring carbon-neutral brands when choosing wine.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this research was the analysis of a simulated situation where consumers declared their intention to purchase and not the effective purchase behaviour in the market.Further research should investigate wider millennials groups, also using the new media communication tools that characterise the communication behaviour of Generation Y. In this way, it would be possible to interview a millennial group at the national or international level.Practical implicationsThe research identifies some characteristics of millennials’ habits that can take into account the strategies of wine companies in order to develop a constructive relationship with Generation Y in Italy.Social implicationsThis research contributes to knowledge regarding the wine consumption habits of Italian millennials.Originality/valueThis paper applies discrete choice models to consumption situations in order to analyse millennials' preference and their willingness to pay for some innovative attributes of wine, in particular the carbon footprint.

The interest in wine produced in an environmentally friendly manner is increasing in the global market among both consumers and producers. Moreover, numerous labelling and certification systems have been introduced to guarantee environmentally friendly production. Consumers can consider some environmental attributes in relation to their purchasing decisions as components of their ethical demands; such consumer behaviours can drive wine production to more sustainable models. This change depends on many factors, such as consumers’ willingness to pay for sustainable and ethical attributes and the effective communication of such attributes. Among consumers, young people belonging to the so-called millennial generation are the new wine consumers, and they represent an increasingly important segment of the global wine market. This study uses a choice experiment to investigate Italian millennials’ preferences toward two ethical attributes of wine: ‘carbon footprint claim’ and ‘winescape aesthetic’. The findings show considerable heterogeneity among respondents, the majority of whom seem to be interested in the carbon footprint claim, even if a group of them prefer to pay a premium price to consume high-quality wines. Our results indicate that winescape aesthetic does not appear to be an important attribute in guiding respondents’ preferences.

In the last 20 years, the sector of the Italian beer has shown particular attention to environmental issues, reducing by about two-thirds the amount of water used in the production phase, more than a quarter of the energy consumption per hectoliter of product and approximately one fifth the amount of used glass. But the most important results were obtained for the amount of aluminum used in cans and for CO2 emissions (about -40%). These successes are probably attributable to the awareness and the marketing strategies of brewing companies of larger size (mainly for the ever-increasing use of kegs, which accounts for more environmentally friendly distribution system) while significant margins of improvement remain for microbreweries that represent the real entrepreneurial phenomenon in the beer sector, in both numbers of plants in the area and growth rates. Therefore, in this study we analyze the case of a micro-brewery of Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) Region to understand what may be, for a small private organization, the strengths and weaknesses in the management of the greenhouse gasses emissions. A Life Cycle case study was performed to detect and quantify the organization’s carbon footprint deriving from the overall activities of the brewery. Direct and indirect GHGs emissions from 3 high fermentation and 3 low fermentation beers production processes and packaging systems (0.33cL and 0.75cL glass bottles) were considered as well as the emissions related to plant management such as lighting, electric energy, workers mobility and waste treatment. Primary data were collected from a small brewer located in FVG region, secondary data were sourced from literature and databases included in the LCA SimaPro software used to calculate the CF applying the IPCC 2007 GWP 100a method. The organization is the reference unit for the analysis and the basis for defining the system boundaries, within these a carbon footprint of 58.2 t CO2eq was obtained mainly due to direct emissions, i.e. Scope 1, that contribute for 57% to the total GHG emissions of the organization.