As an agricultural product, the cultivation of grapes requires natural, manufactured, and energetic resources, resulting in both proximate and macro-scale environmental emissions. Along the rest of the product chain, wine making, packaging, transport, refrigeration and disposal can further add to the material and energy requirements, and subsequent environmental implications of wine.

As regards UK based research, one example of a systems approach to the food chain is "Give Peas a Chance: Transformations in Food Consumption and Production Systems" by Ken Green and Chris Foster. This paper looks at the environmental and social sustainability of different strategies for food systems by analysing the whole chain of production, processing, distribution and consumption activities of the production of frozen peas, a vegetable that is 'symbolic' of modern food systems and the UK diet. It explores such issues as:

Work carried out by the Resources Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University, under Professor Nigel Mortimer (who has also carried out work on biofuels – click on the PDF icon for example) ranks various kinds of commercial buildings on the basis of their energy use and CO2 emissions per square metre. The study looks at both food and non-food related premises.