Influence of perceived environmental sustainability on purchase decisions

Many reports have indicated a shift towards integrating environmentally friendly wine production practices into wine selection decisions. This study investigates the changes in attitude towards environmentally friendly produced wines from 2007 to 2011. A survey was conducted including 1229 and 2001 respondents, respectively. Both samples were collected using population sampling techniques to match demographic variables to known ABS statistics. Further, the two samples were matched so that they corresponded as closely as possible. The majority of the respondents indicated that they predominantly consumed wine and on regular occasions (everyday, several times a week, or once a week) regardless of gender and year of observation. The findings suggest that environmental practices followed to produce wine concerned buyers around 20% less in 2011. In addition, willingness to consume wine produced from genetically modified crops increased by 28% in 2011 from the 2007 survey. Attitudes toward organic wine also changed, whereby respondents were less concerned about whether the wine they drank was organic or not in 2011 (approximately 18% of respondents). Similarly, approximately 18% of the respondents from 2011 were indifferent to environmentally friendly wines in 2011 compared to 2007. It was concluded that consumers nowadays are less concerned about sustainable wine production and genetically modified vines as compared to four years ago. These results can be considered as genuine attitudinal changes, as age, gender, education and household income did not significantly account for the differences. These findings are important for winery owners to consider when planning production changes to address consumer attitudes.