The Rise of Buyer-Driven Sustainability Governance: Emerging Trends in the Global Coffee Sector
Year: 2017
Type: preprint
Abstract: The coffee industry connects millions of smallholder farmers with global markets and has historically been a frontrunner in sustainability efforts. Yet, the governance of this value chain and its sustainability depends on the distribution of power between market actors. This paper applies a Global Value Chain approach (Gereffi, 1999) to characterize the current distribution of power and opportunities in the coffee sector, and examines how this characterization has influenced the sector’s non-state market-driven (NSMD) sustainability governance structure (Bernstein and Cashore, 2007). The study finds that in a strongly buyer-driven chain, the reinterpretation of sustainability as supply chain management has led to the emergence of more company-owned standards and direct-impact projects as alternatives to third-party certification schemes, as well as their coordination in pre-competitive sectoral platforms. The simultaneous rise of producing-country definitions of sustainability points to a continued fragmentation of sustainability governance and a loss of authority of traditional NSMD channels.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Janina Grabs
Institution: University of Münster
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2754990012