Back to the ground: sustainability in the agri-food industry

The agri-food industry is experiencing a consistent number of challenges like climate change, soil degradation, waste productions, consumption of natural resources, greenwashing phenomena and the issue of sustainable food production has become increasingly important at international level as clearly witnessed by initiatives like Sustainable Development Goals, Farm to Fork Strategy and Food System Summit. The present research project aims to expand the debate regarding environmental sustainability in the agrifood industry and understand how it can actively contributes to protection of the environment and face the numerous issues it has been exposed to. To achieve this goal the thesis has been divided into three major chapters. The first one is a literature review focused on a specific niche of the agri-food industry, wine production, that provides a definition of the state of the art of environmental sustainability academic studies and makes a precise categorization to identify literature gaps and research needs. The second paper is a qualitative case study that explores the application of Kotter’s 8-step organizational change model applied to the adoption of an environmentally sustainable business model inside an important wine enterprise in the Montalcino area. The paper includes both theoretical and practical implications for the development of a long-lasting change, that makes possible for wine companies to embrace environmental sustainability principles without loosing competitive advantage. The thesis is concluded by a quantitative paper which performs a multi case quantitative study to inquire the role of green human resource management (GHRM) ,focusing on the green training dimension, inside European enterprises belonging to different industries included agrifood one. The connection between the three chapters, along with the agrifood focus, is the constant merging between academic and practical perspective to provide a multilateral and holistic observation of environmental sustainability without loosing the contact with current market situation. The final aim of this research project is to try to provide scientific and empirical bases that demonstrate how the need for sustainable agriculture is not only the result of philanthropic ideologies and not even a forced choice due to the inexorable climate degradation to which man is subjecting our planet, but a conscious and responsible way to revise the concept of entrepreneurship, also developing a greater resilience of enterprises to meet the challenges that will be imposed in the immediate future.