Integrating coordination mechanisms in the sustainability assessment of agri-food chains: From a structured literature review to a comprehensive framework

Liesbeth Dries,Carlos Moreno-Miranda

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107265

Liesbeth Dries, Carlos Moreno-Miranda

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107265

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Abstract

The assessment of sustainability at the level of the agri-food supply chain is complex.Achieving sustainability in agri-food chains requires coordinated interaction between chain actors. The aspect of coordination is rarely included in the assessment of sustainability and current assessment methodologies do not allow conclusions about the linkage between coordination and sustainability. This paper analyzes the state of the art in the assessment of agri-food supply chain sustainability based on a structured literature review. Following the structured review that includes category analysis and content analysis, we develop a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework for agri-food chains across multiple stages. The novelty of the framework is to incorporate the dimension of coordination across chain stages as a critical sustainability dimension. The study contributes to research on the assessment of agrifood supply chain sustainability by incorporating the role of coordination across chain stages and its relationship with economic, environmental, and social performance. This essential relationship between coordination and sustainability offers several areas of interest for future research. The study also contributes to practice by providing scholars, chain actors, and policymakers with directions for improving sustainable strategies.

Highlights

The sustainability of agri-food supply chains is high on international and domestic policy agendas for corporations, governments, NGOs, academia, and societies
Based on the struc tured literature review, we developed a comprehensive framework for measuring sustainability performance and tested this for relevance and feasibility
The sustain ability assessment framework developed in this article adds a relevant contribution to the existing literature on sustainability assessments

Summary

Introduction

The sustainability of agri-food supply chains is high on international and domestic policy agendas for corporations, governments, NGOs, academia, and societies. The common issues are food waste (Vanlauwe et al, 2019), water contamination (Mihai and Ingrao, 2018), the inefficiency of en ergy use (Wang et al, 2020), and livelihoods deterioration (Huss et al, 2021). Concerns exist over the increasingly imbalanced distribution of benefits across supply chain actors (Barbosa, 2021; Mani et al, 2020). These observations show that sustainability encompasses several di mensions (Kilelu et al, 2017; Um and Kim, 2019) and requires a transdisciplinary approach to tackle this priority (Green et al, 2020; Melkonyan et al, 2020)

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