Sustainable Wine Assessment Tool (SWAT): a hierarchical framework to measure sustainability performance

Abstract

The imperative to address and accurately assess sustainability aspects is crucial for wine companies seeking to enhance their performance and adapt to evolving environmental, societal, and market pressures. Despite efforts within the wine industry to address these issues through guidelines or sustainability programmes, there is a notable lack of multidimensional instruments specifically designed to comprehensively measure the sustainability level of the wine sector. This work introduces the conception and development of an indicator-based assessment framework tailored for the wine industry – the Sustainable Wine Assessment Tool (SWAT). Hierarchically structured, SWAT encompasses environmental-social-governance dimensions (ESG), key properties, themes, subthemes, indicators, and reference values. The assessment framework serves as a decision-support tool relevant to the wine industry, accessible to a wide range of end-users, from wine producers to policy-makers. Additionally, SWAT can help businesses navigate and comply with forthcoming environmental policies or regulations on sustainability reporting.