Good environmental practices in a traditional wine producer: an opportunity for global competition

In an environment characterised by a global, dynamic and increasingly more competitive economy, wine businesses must identify advantages which enable them to achieve higher profits than their competitors. As such, the integration of an environmental variable in business strategy is being promoted as a potential source of competitive advantages. This investigation analyses, from a multidisciplinary point of view, the potential effects of good environmental practices on strategic behaviours in the wine industry, as well as their ecological and economic results. A cooperative group in this industry provides the study context; the authors investigate how it confronts threats from its environment. The results show that managerial commitment has been the main promoter of good environmental practices, mostly those that are easy to apply, demand low economic costs, and allow for improvements in the productivity and quality of the products. This study also offers a series of implications to contribute to existing knowledge about success factors for environmental strategies, especially in the wine industry.