Do voluntary sustainability certification schemes in the sector of mineral resources meet stakeholder demands? A multi-criteria decision analysis

Abstract

Acceptance by different stakeholder groups plays a crucial role for the success of voluntary sustainability certification schemes (CS). By including the demands of stakeholder groups, this study addresses this important dimension and makes an important contribution to the growing empirical and comparative research on the design characteristics of CS in the sector of mineral resources. By applying a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) the stakeholder demands placed on the design characteristics were modeled as weights. The CS Fairmined, Fairtrade, ASI and RJC meet the demands of all stakeholder groups because they perform well regarding all of the considered design characteristics. CS that were developed by representatives from the supply chain, the civil society and multiple groups noticeably better meet the demands of their broad underlying stakeholder groups whereas CS originating from mining representatives meet the demands of their stakeholder group less well. Furthermore, old CS meet the demands of certain stakeholder groups less well as they especially perform poorly in developing high quality traceability systems which might rely on a lacking experience of early CS in developing such complex systems. CS having an overarching mineral focus perform badly compared to CS with a specialized mineral focus in terms of meeting broad demands. CS might struggle when developing these design characteristics appropriately as the complexity of the design characteristics increases when focusing on several mineral resources. The results are useful for CS′ representatives as the quality of design characteristics can be improved with regard to important stakeholders’ demands and in the light of rival CS.