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Biodiversity is becoming a critical aspect of the ‘environmental’ dimension of environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards governing corporate behaviour. Biodiversity is a precondition for the effective functioning of ecosystems and ultimately for sustaining life on Earth. Biodiversity loss leads to simplification, decline and the progressive disappearance of life. The United Nations highlighted safeguarding biodiversity as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No. 15 of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The importance of biodiversity has been recognised at both global (e.g. the impact of the: Final Report – the Economics of Biodiversity. The Dasgupta Review (https://www .gov .uk /government /publications /final -report -the -economics -of -biodiversity -the -dasgupta -review)) and European levels (e.g. the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (https://environment .ec .europa .eu /strategy / biodiversity -strategy -2030 en)). This chapter first introduces the Italian winemaking sector. It then discusses how biodiversity is defined in the winemaking sector. The chapter goes on to analyse a range of reports on sustainability and biodiversity produced by a sample of leading Italian winemaking companies. It then discusses a particular case study of Cantine Teanum, a family-run small-medium enterprise (SME) situated in the Apulia Region, using detailed qualitative analysis.

Particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision (PIC/MCC) simulations are an important tool for understanding low-temperature plasma dynamics, and benchmark work is needed to build a solid base for the correctness of PIC/MCC codes. In our recent publication (Wen et al., 2021), benchmarking of the object-oriented PIC/MCC oopd1 code was performed against the well-established xpdp1 code for a simplified argon reaction set. Furthermore, oopd1 was upgraded to incorporate the excited state atoms as space- and time-varying fluids. Here, we show more details and perform further analysis of the benchmark work. The plasma density profile transition is further explored; the 'passively' flat plasma density profile in the absence of metastables is found to be parabolic at low pressure and flat at 1.6 and 5 Torr. In the presence of metastable atoms, the 'parabolic' profile at 5 Torr becomes 'flat' at 15 Torr due to the reduced excited state atom density in the discharge center, which decreases the step-wise ionization rates. In addition, the effects of electron elastic scattering, i.e., Coulomb-screening-based non-isotropic scattering, total elastic (and momentum transfer) cross-section-dependent non-isotropic scattering, and momentum transfer isotropic scattering on capacitive discharges, are examined, showing that at a low pressure of 50 mTorr Coulomb-screening-based scattering underestimates the plasma density and electron power absorption by around 15%. However, isotropic scattering and cross-section-dependent non-isotropic scattering give almost the same plasma density and electron power absorption. At a higher pressure of 1.6 Torr, the plasma properties are independent of electron scattering in the presence of metastable atoms. In the absence of metastable atoms, different electron scattering treatments bring a few percent difference for plasma density and electron power absorption., QC 20230227

One-dimensional particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collisional simulations are performed on a capacitive 2.54 cm gap, 1.6 Torr argon discharge driven by a sinusoidal rf current density amplitude of 50 A m(-2) at 13.56 MHz. The excited argon states (metastable levels, resonance levels, and the 4p manifold) are modeled self-consistently with the particle dynamics as space- and time-varying fluids. Four cases are examined, including and neglecting excited states, and using either a fixed or energy-dependent secondary electron emission yield due to ion and/or neutral impact on the electrodes. The results for all cases show that most of the ionization occurs near the plasma-sheath interfaces, with little ionization within the plasma bulk region. Without excited states, secondary electrons emitted from the electrodes are found to play a strong role in the ionization process. When the excited states, and secondary electron emission due to neutral and ion impact on the electrodes are included in the discharge model, the discharge operation transitions from alpha-mode to gamma-mode, in which nearly all the ionization is due to secondary electrons. Secondary electron production due to the bombardment of excited argon atoms was approximately 14.7 times greater than that due to ion bombardment. Electron impact of ground state argon atoms by secondary electrons contributes about 76% of the total ionization; primary electrons, about 11%; metastable Penning ionization, about 13%; and multi-step ionization, about 0.3%., QC 20220314