Sustainability and Well-Being: The Perception of Younger Generations and Their Expectations

The paper aims at analyzing the level of knowledge and the perception of the concepts of sustainability and well-being of high school students in Tuscany. It is an explorative study carried out during specific events held in high schools with the support of the teachers; during the events, students were asked to fill a questionnaire designed to elicit their relation with these topics as well as the level of involvement of their families. The results provide an interesting starting point for a debate about what the expectations of younger generations are and what we can do to match them. The debate moves from the assessment of the importance of sustainability and well-being indicators and the relevance of perceived threats. Moreover, the results put the role of institutions (and in particular that of public schools) under scrutiny to develop the level of awareness and to promote knowledge transfer

Sustainability and Food: a Text Analysis of the Scientific Literature

The paper analyses the evolution of the research debate related to sustainability and to the relation between food and sustainability. A number of text analysis techniques were combined for the investigation of scientific papers. The results stress how discourse analysis of sustainability in the pre-Rio period is mostly associated with agriculture and with a vision where the ecological and environmental aspects are dominant. In the post-Rio phase, the discussion about sustainability, though still strongly linked to environmental issues, enters a holistic dimension that includes social elements. The themes of energy and the sustainability of urban areas become central, and the scientific debate stresses the importance of indicators within an assessment approach linked to the relevance of planning and intervention aspects. The focus on the role of food within the debate on sustainability highlights a food security oriented approach in the pre-Rio phase, with a particular attention towards agriculture and third world Countries. In the post-Rio period, the focus of the analysis moves towards developed Countries. Even though food security remains a strongly significant element of the debate, the attention shifts towards consumers and food choices

Future Scenarios of the Food System: Insights from the Consumers’ Perspective

 A careful analysis of contemporary society shows a radical evolution of the role and function of consumption. So-called post-modernity, along with the technological, economic and social transformations that have brought it on, inaugurate a different way of conducting relationships, of existing and of consuming. So consumptions evolve, assuming new expressions in extremely heterogeneous ambits, including that of food consumptions. The past decades have witnessed a progressive increase in the complexity of food consumptions due to the affirmation of increasingly more differentiated trends sensitive to territorial specificity and, at the same time, open to the globalisation of tastes. This topic represents a theme as interesting from the scientific viewpoint as it is decisive from the perspective of implementing food marketing strategies. In this framework, studying food consumptions and the sources that influence them in order to comprehend motivations and significances, implicates reflecting on and investigating into the way these practises can be the object of conditioning mediated by business communication, social practises and practises among friends, or by particular socio-economic conditions...

Strategie di adattamento al cambiamento climatico per il settore vitivinicolo: un’applicazione della Teoria del Prospetto Cumulativo

The work analyses adaptation strategies to cope with extreme events and climate change in viticultural sector. Tools for complex systems analysis are integrated with probabilistic methods and operational research to account for uncertainty and the subjective perception of farmers. The concepts of Expected Utility and Cumulative Prospect Theory are considered to compare expected and prospected damages. The study area is located in the Chianti Classico district (Tuscany). A combination of fans, anti-hail nets and emergency irrigation is suggested as strategies in current scenario. The future climate projections suggest the need of fixed irrigation systems and the modification of production disciplinary. Multi-risk insurance does not seem to be an attractive strategy due to area peculiarities

The role of the raw materials in the development of a Tuscan craft beer chain

Over the past two decades, the craft beer sector has developed significantly both in Europe and Italy. Through a SWOT analysis, the research highlights the main critical points of the Tuscan craft beer chain, in particular the use of local raw materials, which are mainly linked to the cereal malting process currently carried out by large non-regional plants. The research also shows that the high quality and the strong product differentiation are the main strength of the sector, since they meet the preferences of a niche of consumers attracted by products characterized by a strong bond with the territory. The major risks concern the introduction of “craft” lines by multinationals and the entry of new craft breweries, which are not in line with the microbreweries’ quality standards

Winescape perception and big data analysis: an assessment through social media photographs in the Chianti Classico region

Quantifying and mapping the relevant landscape attributes of winescape is difficult due to both the complex identity characterization of the places and the multidimensionality of the pursued perceptive experience on the emotional level. Although the quality of the rural landscape is recognized as an essential element of winescape, in the literature there are no methodological and applicative studies on the identification of the most significant characteristics of a wine region that are fundamental attributes in the preferences of visitors. The aim of the work is to propose a methodology to link the environmental and cultural landscape characteristics of the territory with the concept of winescape to improve the image of wine tourism adopting a systematic approach for territorial branding starting from the analysis of the visitors' preferences. The analysis is conducted through the geographical information data shared on the social media Flickr. Different methods of analysis are applied in an integrated way to: a) analyze the demand for winescape in its different dimensions; b) identify the territorial variables that are part of the winescape supply; c) build a spatial relationship model between winescape demand and supply to quantify the territorial suitability and provide useful information for rural development strategies. Keywords: Winescape, Big data, Landscape quality, Image clustering, Maxent, Wine tourism: territorial marketin

Generation Y, wine and alcohol. A semantic differential approach to consumption analysis in Tuscany.

Abstract The aim of the study is the elicitation of the consumer's semantic perception of different alcoholic beverages in order to provide information for the definition of communication strategies for both the private sector (and specifically the wine industry) and the public decision maker. Such information can be seen as the basis of a wider social marketing construct aimed at the promotion of responsible drinking among young consumers. The semantic differential approach was used in this study. The data collection was based on a survey to 430 consumers between 18 and 35 years old in Tuscany, Italy. The database was organized in a three-way structure, indexing the data in a multiway matrix. The data were processed using a Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA). Moreover, homogeneous clusters of consumers were identified using a Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components (HCPC) approach. The results of the study highlight that beer and spirits are mainly perceived as "Young", "Social", "Euphoric", "Happy", "Appealing" and "Trendy" beverages, while wine is associated mostly with terms such as "Pleasure", "Quality" and "Comfortable". Furthermore, the cluster analysis allowed for the identification of three groups of individuals with different approaches to alcohol drinking. The results of the study supply a useful information framework for the elaboration of specific communication strategies that, based on the drinking habits of young consumers and their perception of different beverages, can use a language that is very close to the consumer typologies. Such information can be helpful for both private and public communication strategies