Adoptie, design en implementatie van vrijwillige duurzaamheidsstandaarden in globale hout- en agrovoedingssector
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS), or eco-labels, have become major private transnational governance instruments to address sustainability concerns embedded in global production systems, especially in primary natural resources sectors such as agriculture and forestry. VSS set standards related to sustainable production that economic actors can voluntarily adopt to signal their commitment to sustainable production processes. As VSS have gained prominence in the last three decades through gaining recognition and certifying considerable shares of global production area, in particular in wood and agri-food sectors, an extensive body of research has been dedicated to understanding whether VSS are effective in achieving their goals. Evidence on this remains inconclusive and context-specific, although it is generally agreed that VSS have failed to generate transformative changes in global production systems. Yet, there remain gaps in our understanding of the determinants of VSS effectiveness. This thesis aims to advance knowledge on three determinants in particular: the adoption, design, and implementation of VSS. Chapter 1 offers a general introduction to VSS and presents a conceptual framework to understand VSS effectiveness. It posits that, to be effective, VSS need both widespread adoption and strong design, although VSS also face tensions between these two dimensions due to their voluntary nature. The chapter provides an overview of the academic literature on VSS effectiveness related to adoption and design, highlights research gaps, and puts forward an additional, largely omitted determinant of VSS effectiveness: implementation. Based on this, the chapter outlines the research objectives and structure of this thesis, and gives an overview of the empirical data collected. Chapter 2 focuses on advancing knowledge on the first dimension of VSS effectiveness: their adoption. It starts from the observation that VSS seem to be undergoing a stagnation in adoption recently despite enhanced recognition, including their increased institutionalization in public policies. The chapter seeks to understand this trend by exploring the dynamics of adoption of VSS and the determinants thereof. To do so, it conducts a case study of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC is a leading VSS in the forestry sector which has been widely institutionalized, yet its adoption has been stagnating globally in recent years. Based on an originally developed database containing adoption data of the FSC for all countries in the world over a 20-year period, the adoption dynamics of the FSC are disaggregated at country-level. The chapter shows that different adoption dynamics hide behind the global stagnation trend. In some countries, a strong growth in FSC adoption can be observed, but it is counterbalanced by stagnation and decline in other countries. Based on selected country case studies, several factors are identified which can explain these dynamics across countries, including market dynamics, the role of governments, and competition from other VSS. Overall, this chapter shows that the adoption of VSS and their retention depend on complex combinations of political and economic factors. Better understanding the factors that jeopardize adoption could help enhance VSS effectiveness. Chapter 3 investigates the second dimension of VSS effectiveness: their design. It looks into how VSS are designed to ensure compliance with their requirements, in order to better understand their potential for sustainability impacts (and the heterogeneity therein). Drawing from the existing literature, three main "compliance mechanisms" are identified as distinct approaches through which VSS ensure the implementation of their requirements: enforcement, incentives, and capacity-building. An analytic framework operationalizing these three mechanisms into observable VSS design attributes is developed and allows to assess the extent to which individual VSS use these mechanisms to ensure compliance with their requirements. Using cross-sectional data on VSS design, the analytic framework is empirically applied to 13 leading VSS in the wood and agri-food sectors. The results show that the enforcement mechanism is widely used across VSS, which reflects an "audit culture" that has made enforcement measures necessary for VSS to hold legitimacy. In contrast, the use of the incentives mechanism is less common, and the use of the capacity-building mechanism shows most variation across the VSS studied. Overall, heterogeneity across VSS can be observed, not only in the extent to which, but also in the combinations through which, the three mechanisms are used, which can be partly explained by historical and contextual factors. More broadly, the chapter demonstrates that not all VSS are equally designed to ensure compliance with their standards: some VSS are more strongly designed than others for compliance, which could partially explain differences in the impacts they generate on the ground. Chapter 4 looks at the implementation of VSS by intermediaries as a largely omitted dimension of VSS effectiveness. It starts from the fact that VSS are often adopted in the form of group certificates, where economic actors higher up the value chain enlist and organize sometimes thousands of producers in their certificates. These certificate holders are responsible for implementing VSS and act as intermediaries who convey VSS rules to producers in the field through compliance mechanisms (enforcement, incentives and capacity-building). However, how - and how well - these intermediaries implement VSS can differ, which can explain VSS ineffectiveness in generating impacts. To understand this, a case study of Rainforest Alliance in the Indonesian cocoa sector and its implementation by three distinct multinational companies as certificate holders is conducted based on qualitative data from over 50 interviews and three focus group discussions. The findings show that VSS implementation relies on more complex and diverse ecosystems of intermediaries driven by certificate holders than previously researched. The implementation effectiveness of the three different intermediation ecosystems is assessed based on descriptive survey data of 228 certified farmers by measuring the extent to which farmers in the three respective certificates are effectively exposed to enforcement, incentives and capacity-building mechanisms, which can influence their compliance with Rainforest Alliance requirements. The results show that intermediation structures and characteristics, which are partly determined by path dependency, matter for implementation effectiveness. Specifically, direct (as opposed to cascading) structures, independence, specialization, oversight, embeddedness of relationships, specific capacities and credibility in intermediation appear as key characteristics to effectively convey enforcement, incentives and capacity-building to farmers. The chapter also finds evidence substantiating the tension that VSS face between adoption and stringent design through instances of regulatory capture by these intermediaries, and highlights the role of trusted relationships for implementation effectiveness. Overall, Chapter 4 demonstrates the importance of understanding how VSS rules are translated by intermediaries and conveyed to the field level. It illustrates that even strongly designed VSS might be ineffective in generating sustainability impacts because of how they are implemented by intermediaries. Chapter 5 empirically tests whether variation in VSS implementation by different intermediaries matters for compliance, and whether the three compliance mechanisms, through how they are implemented in the field, are effective in generating compliance. To do so, it builds on the case study and farm-level survey data collected on Rainforest Alliance implementation by the three certified multinational companies in the Indonesian cocoa sector. Through regression analyses, it assesses how certification implementation by different intermediaries and exposure to compliance mechanisms affect farmers' likelihood to comply with seven selected outcome parameters related to sustainable production practices prescribed by Rainforest Alliance. First, the findings show that while certification in general has a positive yet limited association with the likelihood of farmers to comply with the selected outcome parameters compared to non-certified farmers, this varies across certified groups, showing that implementation by intermediaries matters. Second, exposure to capacity-building, followed by enforcement, shows a positive association with farmers' compliance on outcome parameters, with more nuanced findings for incentives. However, the respective effects of these compliance mechanisms depends on the compliance indicator studied. Some contextual imperatives, such as productivity challenges, also appear as barriers that limit the potential positive effect of compliance mechanisms and of certification in general. Overall, Chapter 5 empirically confirms that both the design and the implementation of VSS matters for their effectiveness. Chapter 6 concludes by summarizing the main findings and reflecting on the contributions and limitations and the thesis. It also proposes avenues for future research and highlights policy implications for different stakeholders. Overall, this thesis suggests that there are ways forward for VSS to be effective in fostering more sustainable global production systems, in particular in the wood and agri-food sectors, through better understanding factors jeopardizing their adoption, strengthening their design, and ensuring their proper implementation in the field. However, multinational companies as key sustainability governance actors also need to enhance their engagement with producers. Coordinated efforts with public policy can help achieve these sustainability objectives.
Source: Lirias
Author: Depoorter, Charline
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7054650499
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