IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v8y2016i4p305-d66573.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Handling Diversity of Visions and Priorities in Food Chain Sustainability Assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Francesca Galli

    (Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy)

  • Fabio Bartolini

    (Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy)

  • Gianluca Brunori

    (Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy)

Abstract

Food chain sustainability assessment is challenging on several grounds. Handling knowledge and information on sustainability performance and coping with the diversity of visions around “what counts as sustainable food” are two key issues addressed by this study. By developing a comparative case study on local, regional and global wheat-to-bread chains, and confronting the multidimensionality of sustainability, this work focuses on the differing visions and perspectives of stakeholders. We integrate qualitative and quantitative data, stakeholder consultation and multi-criteria analysis to align the visions and the multiple meanings of sustainability. Because of the complexity and the dynamicity of the food system, the multidimensionality of the sustainability concept and its pliability to stakeholders priorities, sustainability is an object of competition for firms in the agro-food sector and has major implications in the governance of food chains. Results identify key propositions in relation to: (i) the value of combining science-led evidence with socio-cultural values; (ii) multidimensional sustainability assessment as a self diagnosis tool; and (iii) the need to identify shared assessment criteria by communities of reference.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesca Galli & Fabio Bartolini & Gianluca Brunori, 2016. "Handling Diversity of Visions and Priorities in Food Chain Sustainability Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-21, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:4:p:305-:d:66573
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/4/305/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/4/305/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. C. Hinrichs, 2014. "Transitions to sustainability: a change in thinking about food systems change?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(1), pages 143-155, March.
    2. Gava, Oriana & Galli, Francesca & Bartolini, Fabio & Brunori, Gianluca, 2014. "Sustainability of local versus global bread supply chains: a literature review," 2014 Third Congress, June 25-27, 2014, Alghero, Italy 173096, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    3. Kemp, Katherine & Insch, Andrea & Holdsworth, David K. & Knight, John G., 2010. "Food miles: Do UK consumers actually care?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 504-513, December.
    4. Karen Hills & Jessica Goldberger & Stephen Jones, 2013. "Commercial bakers and the relocalization of wheat in western Washington State," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(3), pages 365-378, September.
    5. Stefan Gold & Stefan Seuring & Philip Beske, 2010. "Sustainable supply chain management and inter‐organizational resources: a literature review," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 230-245, July.
    6. Elbehri, Aziz, 2007. "The Changing Face Of The U.S. Grain System: Differentiation And Identity Preservation Trends," Economic Research Report 7185, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Ness, Barry & Urbel-Piirsalu, Evelin & Anderberg, Stefan & Olsson, Lennart, 2007. "Categorising tools for sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 498-508, January.
    8. Bebbington, Jan & Brown, Judy & Frame, Bob, 2007. "Accounting technologies and sustainability assessment models," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 224-236, March.
    9. Candel, Jeroen J.L. & Breeman, Gerard E. & Stiller, Sabina J. & Termeer, Catrien J.A.M., 2014. "Disentangling the consensus frame of food security: The case of the EU Common Agricultural Policy reform debate," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 47-58.
    10. Jason Konefal & Michael Mascarenhas & Maki Hatanaka, 2005. "Governance in the Global Agro-food System: Backlighting the Role of Transnational Supermarket Chains," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 22(3), pages 291-302, September.
    11. Giuseppe Munda, 2008. "Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation for a Sustainable Economy," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-73703-2, January.
    12. Giuseppe Munda, 2003. "Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE)," UHE Working papers 2003_04, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    13. Francesca Galli & Fabio Bartolini & Gianluca Brunori & Luca Colombo & Oriana Gava & Stefano Grando & Andrea Marescotti, 2015. "Sustainability assessment of food supply chains: an application to local and global bread in Italy," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-17, December.
    14. Sala, Serenella & Ciuffo, Biagio & Nijkamp, Peter, 2015. "A systemic framework for sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 314-325.
    15. Erin Nelson & Laura Gómez Tovar & Rita Schwentesius Rindermann & Manuel Gómez Cruz, 2010. "Participatory organic certification in Mexico: an alternative approach to maintaining the integrity of the organic label," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(2), pages 227-237, June.
    16. Hugh Campbell, 2009. "Breaking new ground in food regime theory: corporate environmentalism, ecological feedbacks and the ‘food from somewhere’ regime?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(4), pages 309-319, December.
    17. Eric Brousseau & Bernd Siebenhuner & Tom Dedeurwaerdere, 2012. "Reflexive Governance for Global Public Goods," Post-Print hal-01493503, HAL.
    18. Pretty, J.N. & Ball, A.S. & Lang, T. & Morison, J.I.L., 2005. "Farm costs and food miles: An assessment of the full cost of the UK weekly food basket," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 1-19, February.
    19. Coley, David & Howard, Mark & Winter, Michael, 2009. "Local food, food miles and carbon emissions: A comparison of farm shop and mass distribution approaches," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 150-155, April.
    20. Steven Schnell, 2013. "Food miles, local eating, and community supported agriculture: putting local food in its place," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(4), pages 615-628, December.
    21. Martha A. Starr, 2014. "Qualitative And Mixed-Methods Research In Economics: Surprising Growth, Promising Future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 238-264, April.
    22. Hand, Michael S. & Martinez, Stephen W., 2010. "Just What Does Local Mean?," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-4.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Talis Tisenkopfs & Emils Kilis & Mikelis Grivins & Anda Adamsone-Fiskovica, 2019. "Whose ethics and for whom? Dealing with ethical disputes in agri-food governance," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(2), pages 353-364, June.
    2. Oriana Gava & Francesca Galli & Fabio Bartolini & Gianluca Brunori, 2018. "Linking Sustainability with Geographical Proximity in Food Supply Chains. An Indicator Selection Framework," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-22, August.
    3. Galli, Francesca & Venturi, Francesca & Bartolini, Fabio & Gava, Oriana & Zinnai, Angela & Chiara, Sanmartin & Andrich, Gianpaolo & Brunori, Gianluca, 2017. "Shaping food systems towards improved nutrition: a case study on Tuscan Bread Protected Designation of Origin," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 20(4), April.
    4. Reina-Usuga, Liliana & Parra-López, Carlos & de Haro-Giménez, Tomás & Carmona-Torres, Carmen, 2023. "Sustainability assessment of Territorial Short Food Supply Chains versus Large‐Scale Food Distribution: The case of Colombia and Spain," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    5. Gianluca Brunori & Francesca Galli & Dominique Barjolle & Rudolf Van Broekhuizen & Luca Colombo & Mario Giampietro & James Kirwan & Tim Lang & Erik Mathijs & Damian Maye & Kees De Roest & Carin Rougoo, 2016. "Are Local Food Chains More Sustainable than Global Food Chains? Considerations for Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-27, May.
    6. Kimberley Reis & Cheryl Desha & Sioux Campbell & Prudence Liddy, 2022. "Working through Disaster Risk Management to Support Regional Food Resilience: A Case Study in North-Eastern Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-28, February.
    7. Gianluca Brunori & Francesca Galli, 2016. "Sustainability of Local and Global Food Chains: Introduction to the Special Issue," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-7, August.
    8. Galli, Francesca & Arcuri, Sabrina & Bartolini, Fabio & Vervoort, Joost & Brunori, Gianluca, 2017. "Exploring scenario guided pathways for food assistance in Tuscany," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 5(3), February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Biancamaria Torquati & Lucio Cecchini & Chiara Paffarini & Massimo Chiorri, 2021. "The economic and environmental sustainability of extra virgin olive oil supply chains: An analysis based on food miles and value chains," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 23(1), pages 1-28.
    2. Torquati, Biancamaria & Cecchini, Lucio & Paffarini, Chiara & Chiorri, Massimo, 2021. "The economic and environmental sustainability of extra virgin olive oil supply chains: An analysis based on food miles and value chains," Economia agro-alimentare / Food Economy, Italian Society of Agri-food Economics/Società Italiana di Economia Agro-Alimentare (SIEA), vol. 23(1), May.
    3. Panzone, Luca A. & Wossink, Ada & Southerton, Dale, 2013. "The design of an environmental index of sustainable food consumption: A pilot study using supermarket data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 44-55.
    4. Francesca Galli & Fabio Bartolini & Gianluca Brunori & Luca Colombo & Oriana Gava & Stefano Grando & Andrea Marescotti, 2015. "Sustainability assessment of food supply chains: an application to local and global bread in Italy," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-17, December.
    5. Alexandra Doernberg & Annette Piorr & Ingo Zasada & Dirk Wascher & Ulrich Schmutz, 2022. "Sustainability assessment of short food supply chains (SFSC): developing and testing a rapid assessment tool in one African and three European city regions," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 39(3), pages 885-904, September.
    6. Vincenzina Caputo & Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr & Riccardo Scarpa, 2013. "Food miles or carbon emissions? Exploring labelling preference for food transport footprint with a stated choice study," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 57(4), pages 465-482, October.
    7. Elisa Giampietri & Dieter B. A. Koemle & Xiaohua Yu & Adele Finco, 2016. "Consumers’ Sense of Farmers’ Markets: Tasting Sustainability or Just Purchasing Food?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-14, November.
    8. David Cleveland & Allison Carruth & Daniella Mazaroli, 2015. "Operationalizing local food: goals, actions, and indicators for alternative food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(2), pages 281-297, June.
    9. Troullaki, Katerina & Rozakis, Stelios & Kostakis, Vasilis, 2021. "Bridging barriers in sustainability research: Α review from sustainability science to life cycle sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Reina-Usuga, Liliana & Parra-López, Carlos & de Haro-Giménez, Tomás & Carmona-Torres, Carmen, 2023. "Sustainability assessment of Territorial Short Food Supply Chains versus Large‐Scale Food Distribution: The case of Colombia and Spain," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    11. Kuhmonen, Tuomas, 2017. "Exposing the attractors of evolving complex adaptive systems by utilising futures images: Milestones of the food sustainability journey," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 214-225.
    12. Grebitus, Carola & Lusk, Jayson L. & Nayga, Rodolfo M., 2013. "Effect of distance of transportation on willingness to pay for food," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 67-75.
    13. Gianluca Brunori & Francesca Galli & Dominique Barjolle & Rudolf Van Broekhuizen & Luca Colombo & Mario Giampietro & James Kirwan & Tim Lang & Erik Mathijs & Damian Maye & Kees De Roest & Carin Rougoo, 2016. "Are Local Food Chains More Sustainable than Global Food Chains? Considerations for Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-27, May.
    14. Oriana Gava & Francesca Galli & Fabio Bartolini & Gianluca Brunori, 2018. "Linking Sustainability with Geographical Proximity in Food Supply Chains. An Indicator Selection Framework," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-22, August.
    15. Biancamaria Torquati & Chiara Taglioni & Alessio Cavicchi, 2015. "Evaluating the CO 2 Emission of the Milk Supply Chain in Italy: An Exploratory Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-16, June.
    16. Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias & Barkemeyer, Ralf, 2014. "The If, How and Where of assessing sustainable resource use," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 274-283.
    17. Mamen Cuéllar-Padilla & Ernesto Ganuza-Fernandez, 2018. "We Don’t Want to Be Officially Certified! Reasons and Implications of the Participatory Guarantee Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.
    18. Del Corso, Jean-Pierre & Kephaliacos, Charilaos & Plumecocq, Gaël, 2015. "Legitimizing farmers' new knowledge, learning and practices through communicative action: Application of an agro-environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 86-96.
    19. Oriana Gava & Fabio Bartolini & Francesca Venturi & Gianluca Brunori & Angela Zinnai & Alberto Pardossi, 2018. "A Reflection of the Use of the Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Agri-Food Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, December.
    20. Sibylle Bui & Ionara Costa & Olivier De Schutter & Tom Dedeurwaerdere & Marek Hudon & Marlene Feyereisen, 2019. "Systemic ethics and inclusive governance: two key prerequisites for sustainability transitions of agri-food systems," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(2), pages 277-288, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:4:p:305-:d:66573. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.