Sustainability and the New Zealand Wine Industry

Abstract

This thesis seeks to address the research question – what motivates the wine companies in New Zealand toward sustainability practices? Through interviews with representatives from fourteen wine companies, this study finds that while market incentives are identified as the key driver, there is a strong engagement with moral and ethical discourses in the participants’ discussion of their own, as well as their companies’, sustainability motivations. In these moral and ethical discourses, individuals’ values and beliefs are often perceived as the normative core that challenges, and substantiates, the common ‘business case’ mentality. This is indicative of change in the social value system, as well as in the business’ conception of its place in society. The study concludes that although many of the participating companies’ involvement with sustainability practices is still largely market-oriented, such a business case is often rooted in, and sustained through, a normative case which is embedded in individuals’ moral and ethical pursuits. In addition to these empirical findings, this thesis also aims to make a theoretical contribution to the field of business ethics by examining relevant moral and ethical issues in the business arena.