Towards a Footprint-oriented framework for sustainability assessment at enterprise level

The agri-food sector, responsible for significant resource consumption and environmental impacts, faces mounting pressure to adopt sustainable practices. Within this context, Italy’s wine industry, a key economic and cultural sector, must balance its environmental responsibilities while maintaining production quality and heritage. This research addresses the sustainability challenges in wine production by adopting a Footprint Framework Approach for assessing and enhancing sustainability at the enterprise and product level. The study focuses on Banfi S.r.l., a leading winery in Tuscany, Italy, leveraging its operations as a representative case study for the Italian wine industry. The scope of the research encompasses the entire wine production life cycle, including vineyard management, winery processes, and packaging, analysed through the lens of three established environmental footprints (Carbon, Water, and Nitrogen) and an exploratory fourth, the Solar Footprint, derived from Emergy accounting. These indicators were tailored to the wine sector and analysed together to obtain a comprehensive view of sustainability, as each of them is focused on an aspect relevant for sustainability issues: greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, nitrogen-related pollution, and resources use. The study is based on the acquisition of an exclusive set of primary data provided directly by the company, rather than relying on estimates or secondary data. This dataset is particularly complex and includes a wide range of heterogeneous variables, including meteorological, physico-chemical, environmental, physiological, and economic data. In addition, the study introduces methodological innovations aimed at enhancing the robustness, inclusiveness, and overall effectiveness of footprint assessment tools. These improvements are designed to better capture the complexity of real-world systems and to integrate a wider range of variables and processes, thus overcoming some of the limitations commonly associated with conventional approaches. Methodological advancements introduced in this study include: (i) the refinement of life cycle-based Carbon Footprint accounting through the integration of carbon sequestration processes, enabling a more accurate enterprise-level offset calculation; (ii) the improvement of Water Footprint assessments by means of ad hoc biophysical and econometric models of evapotranspiration tailored to the specific characteristics of the study area; and (iii) the development of a Nitrogen Footprint accounting approach capable of quantifying reactive nitrogen flows, including both direct and indirect emissions, throughout the entire wine production life cycle. The study also proposes the Solar Footprint as a systemic indicator to assess cumulative energy inputs and resource dependencies, evaluating renewable and non-renewable contributions across vineyard, cellar, and packaging operations. The multi-indicator framework revealed critical insights across production phases. The Carbon Footprint identified packaging as the largest contributor (42%). However, CO₂ sequestration and reuse strategies helped mitigate the overall Carbon Footprint across all life cycle phases, reducing net emissions by 96.5% per FU. The Water Footprint emphasized the vineyard phase as the primary consumer of the water resources (99.6% of total water use), while the cellar phase contributed just 0.35%. Thanks to advanced modelling and recycling practices, the overall Water Footprint was minimized to 375.83 L/FU. The Nitrogen Footprint exposed inefficiencies in fertilizer use and significant reactive nitrogen emissions in the vineyard, while emissions in the cellar and packaging phases were tied to non-renewable energy and material production. The Solar Footprint highlighted the energy-intensive nature of packaging processes, primarily due to material production. In contrast, the integration of renewable resources enhanced the energy efficiency in the vineyard and cellar phases. The adoption of the Footprint Framework approach offers significant methodological advantages over single indicator sustainability assessments, providing a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of sustainability. It revealed interdependencies and trade-offs across environmental dimensions, for example, how improving water use efficiency enhanced renewable energy performance but also led to increased carbon emissions. It enabled detailed assessments by identifying phase-specific hotspots, such as fertilizer application in vineyards, which contributed to increasing both nitrogen and carbon emissions. By integrating natural systems, such as soil carbon storage and evapotranspiration, with human-driven activities like labor and energy-intensive processes, the framework provided a balanced assessment that captures both environmental and socio-economic dimensions. This approach demonstrates that using multiple indicators within a unified framework enhances the accuracy, depth, and practical applicability of sustainability assessments. The findings provide actionable insights for improving resource efficiency and reducing environmental impacts. Beyond the wine sector, this methodology offers a replicable model for advancing sustainability across diverse agricultural and industrial contexts.