Environmental impact analysis of a Chilean organic wine through a life cycle assessment

The food system is responsible for critical environmental problems around the world. The wine industry, having a global scale, is accountable for part of these impacts. Organic wines have been developing fast in the past decade, nevertheless there is still lack of research on this vitiviniculture practice, especially in productive countries outside Europe. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of organic vitiviniculture in Chile by utilising the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. A cradle-to-market attributional LCA including viticulture, vinification, bottling, and distribution was executed on one of the main wines produced and commercialised by the largest organic winery in the world, representing a reliable recreation of the pro-ductive and operative processes involved. The environmental impacts were calculated for all impact and damage categories of the ReCiPe 2016 methodology, using primary data from the company, and modelling it in SimaPro. Viticulture, bottling, and distribution were identified as the main lifecycle phases contributing to the impacts and damages assessed, contributing 39%, 11.8%, and 42.2% respectively. Fertilisation, the glass bottle, and the long-distance freights were the variables responsible for most of the contribution shares (31.9%, 9.39%, and 33.46% respectively). Energy consumption, especially in the viticulture and vinification phases, was also rec-ognised as an impactful factor to be considered (5.34%, and 6.3% respectively). Different scenarios were developed to analyse potential actions and the magnitude of their improvements, all being achievable options for the winery. Replacing the glass bottle resulted in the major benefits, reducing environmental impacts between 12.7% and 21.3% depending on the material. The winery should evaluate this alternative further or explore other routes-of-action that allow to decrease the impacts related to the production of glass and their posterior transport to the international markets where the wine is sold.