Reusable system for wine bottles: An analysis of acceptance among German wine consumers

Abstract

Consumer demands for environmentally friendly products, including wine, are constantly increasing. An important lever to improve the environmental sustainability of wine is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases during wine production. The carbon footprint (CFP) is an indicator that measures the emissions of a product during its life cycle.

Previous work has demonstrated that the CFP of a produced wine bottle is strongly determined by the emissions caused by the single-use glass bottle. It has also been shown that the reuse of glass bottles, which has been common practice in Germany approximately 15 years ago, can save a substantial share of the greenhouse gas emissions of a bottle of wine. It is clear that, the reintroduction of a recycling chain for wine entails a number of challenges, such as the need to reduce the diversity of bottles, adapt closing and labelling technology, storage capacity for empties, and set up comprehensive cleaning logistics. However, there are already successful reuseable schemes in Germany, and consumers have a major influence on the success rate. The acceptance of a reusable system among wine consumers has only been examined to a limited extent to date. Hence, this consumer survey is intended to provide novel and up-to-date insights.

In our representative survey, conducted by an online panel provider, data of over 1000 respondents was collected. Different quotas (age, gender, place of residence) were used to control the representativeness of the sample of the German population. Minors and people who do not drink wine were screened out. In addition, factors influencing acceptance and environmental awareness were recorded using established scales. Willingness to buy and willingness to pay for wine were measured using a discrete choice experiment (DCE). For this purpose, various attributes with different options, such as origin, price, deposit price and certifications, which provide information about the wine, were defined and combined in various choice sets. The DCE was analysed with a logit model, and an exploratory factor analysis was used to identify latent variables.

We observed significant effects of price, organic certification, and the wine’s origin on the likelihood of selection, while specific details about the winery had no impact. Interestingly, the attributes related to the reusable system of wine bottles, i.e., deposit and deposit label showed no significant influence on the choice probability.