Fine wine export - energy use and CO₂ emissions : a case study

Abstract

This dissertation examines the supply chain of a New Zealand wine producer, from the growing of the grapes to the transporting of the finished wine to its final destination at the distributor’s warehouse in the United Kingdom. The motive to conduct such a case study is the ongoing discussion about food miles. The purpose of this study was to identify and estimate the inputs causing the total energy use and CO₂ emissions for one bottle of fine wine. The methodology chosen was the methodology from Wells dividing the inputs into direct, indirect and capital inputs and extended by adding the important factor of transportation. For the transportation two different scenarios were considered. Firstly, the change to bulk shipments and secondly, the change to light glass bottles. The current amount of energy used to produce and transport one bottle of wine is 13.7 MJ and the respective CO₂ emissions associated with one bottle are 1,068.12 g. Over one third of the energy and emissions relate to the transportation of wine. Changing the type of transportation from bottling at source and shipping it to its destination to shipping the wine in bulk and bottling at destination can save a significant amount of energy and reduces the emissions considerably. Therefore this dissertation concludes that wine shipments should be transported in bulk using flexitanks with bottling at destination into 300g light glass bottles to obtain energy savings of 23.62% and reductions in emissions of 21.85% considering the life cycle within the wine supply chain from vineyard to distributor. Furthermore the dissertation discusses whether shipments should be conducted temperature controlled or not and gives a brief outlook on how this would effect the energy use and CO₂ emissions from shipping the wine.