Gemma Lewis¹, Anoma Ariyawardana², Lilly Lim-Camacho³, Joseph Crawford¹ 

¹Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

²School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, Gatton, Queensland, Australia

³Agriculture and Global Change, CSIRO Agriculture and Food, St Lucia, Australia

Email: gemma.lewis@utas.edu.au

ABSTRACT

Climate change, and its associated climate variability, has significant impacts on the wine industry and these changes will increasingly be felt along the whole chain of companies that produce, handle, process and market wine. There has been very little work in understanding how wine consumers perceive both the climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts of these companies. This study was conducted to explore Australian wine consumer perceptions towards climate change adaptation and the impacts of climate change on the growing, making and marketing of wine. Data were collected through four focus groups discussions, with a total of of 30 Australian wine consumers. This paper reports the preliminary results of data analysis. Findings revealed that participants are concerned for the production and quality of Australian wines, but their purchase decisions and drinking habits are still guided predominantly by non-environmental factors. They would, however, like to make informed decisions on wine purchase and consumption considering climate, which suggests wine businesses could benefit from educating consumers, and communicating specific climate adaptation information to consumers in a timely manner.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr Lewis is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics. Her research interests include inter-organisational collaboration and networking, value chains, entrepreneurship and small firm marketing. She has gained a strong reputation for working on externally funded grant projects, which comprise inter-disciplinary research teams and close collaboration with Australia’s agriculture industry. In the community, Dr Lewis is a long-standing member of Tasmania’s Cradle Coast Natural Resource Management (NRM) Committee and a Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute.