Adaptation to climate change in the UK wine sector

This research contributes to literature on private sector adaptation, examining business-level adaptation to climate change in the UK wine sector. The research adopts a temporal and relational view of adaptation, through a sector-wide, value chain lens and through considering adaptation to both climate variability and longer-term change.

Results show businesses increasingly see climate change as an opportunity for the UK wine sector. Yet climate risks remain and propagate along value chains, through supply and demand. This produces winners and losers in ‘good years’ and ‘bad years’, as well as over longer timescales. We find businesses along the value chain take steps to engage in extensive proactive adaptation behaviour, often right from business design and development.