Demand-Side Actors in Agricultural Supply Chain Sustainability: An Assessment of Motivations for Action, Implementation Challenges, and Research Frontiers

Agricultural supply chains of forest-risk commodities such as soy, palm oil, and cocoa have risen to the top of the global sustainability agenda. Demand-side actors, including consumer-goods companies, retailers, and civil society organizations have coalesced around a growing number of sustainable s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:World (Basel) 2023-09, Vol.4 (3), p.569-588
Main Authors: Mueller, Carina, West, Christopher, Bastos Lima, Mairon G., Doherty, Bob
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Biodiversity
Certification
Civil society
Cocoa
Commodities
Commodity prices
Consumption
corporate sustainability
Data collection
Decision making
deforestation
Emission standards
Emissions
Food
Manufacturers
Multinational corporations
NGOs
Nongovernmental organizations
Soya beans
Supply
supply chain
Supply chains
Sustainability
Sustainable development
sustainable sourcing
traceability
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Summary:Agricultural supply chains of forest-risk commodities such as soy, palm oil, and cocoa have risen to the top of the global sustainability agenda. Demand-side actors, including consumer-goods companies, retailers, and civil society organizations have coalesced around a growing number of sustainable supply chain policies. However, despite rapid advances in tools and methods to convert data into useful information about impacts and policy effectiveness, and their implementation for decision-making is lagging. There is an urgent need to examine such demand-led action and understand how to accelerate progress towards agricultural supply chain sustainability. Here, we explore how demand-side actors within globalized supply chains see limitations in knowledge and barriers to progress in the context of forest-risk commodities. We draw from 20 semi-structured interviews and two focus group discussions with manufacturers, retailers, NGOs, and data providers. Our findings show that civil society pressure in consumer regions is perceived as a key driver guiding action, that certification is commonly sought to reduce detrimental impacts, but that collaboration to tackle systemic issues remains a gap. Companies also highlight the need for simple, timely, and meaningful metrics to assess impacts—practical usability concerns that need to be considered in the search for ever-greater accuracy in capturing complex phenomena.
ISSN:2673-4060
2673-4060
DOI:10.3390/world4030035