Sustainability is now an integral part of the DNA of Italian agricultural and wine companies.
“Sustainability is increasingly becoming a business management model and, in particular, it has become a distinctive feature of agricultural companies, so much so that almost half of the companies in the sector will have a high or medium-high level of sustainability in 2021”.
This is a trend that last year saw a significant increase for all companies in the sector: +1% on 2019 for high level companies and around +4% for medium level companies. Wineries and, in general, farms have understood that sustainability is a key and indispensable element for growing and remaining competitive on the market.
According to the AGRIcoltura100 Report no. 2, promoted by Confagricoltura and Reale Mutua, the main actions on which companies are working to improve sustainability concern the improvement in the use of natural resources, the protection of food quality and health, risk management, the protection of work safety and the enhancement of human capital.
“The report also highlights the close relationship between innovation and sustainability: almost 90% of companies have made investments in the last two years and 82% of the most sustainable companies invest in at least three areas of development”. This also highlights the important link between sustainability and competitiveness: more than half of the most sustainable companies (52.7%) are also among the most competitive.
On the competitiveness front, the companies that are performing best are undoubtedly the large ones, as they have been developing and implementing competitive strategies based on sustainability for the longest time (around 83%). However, small companies are also achieving above-average levels, with 63.4% ranking high or medium-high.
“The experience of the pandemic has changed and will change agriculture considerably, bringing to the fore six guiding values of sustainability. First and foremost, product quality to protect food health; then the company’s commitment to environmental protection, the consolidation of supply chain relations and networking, investment in product, process and supply chain innovation; the promotion of the territory and enhancement of the community; and finally, the strengthening of the company’s social role towards workers and the community”.
The full Wine News article is available here.