Search

The effective integration of the environmental with the economic and social dimensions of sustainability will only succeed when the core problem perceptions of professionals in these fields adjust as well. Yet, while sustainability integration in general has been thoroughly researched, few studies have analysed the specific role of subjective understandings among professionals. This article bridges this gap by asking how professionals understand and operationalise sustainability integration. Which factors shape their perceptions and practices? We present the results of an online survey that was circulated to a diverse sample of professionals and then analysed using statistical methods. Responses from 508 participants show that sustainability integration is mostly perceived as a balance across all three sustainability dimensions rather than a hierarchy with the environment at its basis. However, perceptions also vary significantly across professional and geographical contexts. This signifies the need to better account for how individual circumstances affect processes of integration.

A recent article in this journal (Jackson 2021) validly emphasized that debates about the Anthropocene need to recognize a diverse range of perspectives, worldviews, and forms of knowledge. In doing so, however, the author mischaracterized scholarship on earth system governance as being antithetical to a critical and pluralistic stance on the Anthropocene. In this commentary we address key concerns about the article: selective and misleading quotations regarding the earth system governance literature’s diversity; unwarranted insinuations that juxtapose the implications of this literature with those of slavery and holocausts; and neglect of the breadth and diversity of scholarship on earth system governance. We underscore the need for scholarly debates on the Anthropocene to be informed by a balanced and rigorous assessment of existing scholarship, and for a constructive dialogue between global and locally situated ways of understanding the earth.

The Covid-19 outbreak generated an unprecedented drop in global CO2 emissions as a result of economic disruption and reduced demand for electricity and transportation. Similar to the 2008-9 global financial crisis, several scholars have put forward ideas for a Green New Deal and coordinated green fiscal stimulus that can simultaneously reduce economic hardship (especially for the most vulnerable segments of our societies) and address climate change concerns. During a global health and economic crisis of such proportions, there is a heightened risk that financing of low-carbon investment can fall victim to future budget cuts and reduced international aid. In addition, carbon-intensive travel, trade and tourism jointly contribute to both global warming and the rapid spread of pathogens across borders - forced behavioural changes (as a result of Covid-19 mobility and social contact restrictions) offer a unique opportunity for reflection of our unsustainable lifestyles.

Private governance, in the form of certification schemes, has grown remarkably in the past decades as a response to some of the most pressing environmental and social challenges. Certification schemes denote steering mechanisms that allow enterprises to voluntarily adhere to a set of verifiable principles. While certification has global aspirations, its uptake and growth are heterogeneous across different countries. Yet, few studies empirically analyze such variation. We address this gap by focusing on the Forest Stewardship Council, a major sustainable forestry management certification program. We empirically evaluate uptake and growth across 151 countries and hypothesize that market and socio-political characteristics explain variation in uptake and growth. We find that a value-added wood industry, state-control of the forestry industry and competing certification programs, contrary to the literature, are key drivers.

Nowadays Internet is a successful key for the promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by offering benefits to e-commerce through Internet marketing. A vast majority of SMEs related to agri - food sector has an eminent presence in the Web. This paper studies the characteristics and the connection between Internet and Social media Market of Non Wood Forest Products especially of Mushrooms, Truffles and Herbs of Greek SMEs. The research compares the connection between a social media profile of SMEs and its official website in firms in the above sector. As it derives through this study there is not a specific correlation that improves a connection between the SMEs profile of a social media and its website and Social media predominate in the internet market. Therefore, firm owners should focus on social media profile characteristics and features.

In the past few decades, transnational corporations (TNCs) have become pivotal actors in agri-food governance of sustainable development. Their remarkable growth in both number and size as well as their global reach have made them particularly attractive partners for governments and civil society organisations aiming to foster environmental and social goals by harnessing market forces. In this context, the development of standards and certification schemes that prescribe and monitor environmental and socially responsible behaviour in agri-food supply chains increasingly involves the participation of TNCs. While TNC involvement in sustainable agri-food governance has the potential to achieve great benefits by transforming the market from within, it might also come at a cost. Accordingly, this contribution explores the effects of TNC endorsement of private agri-food sustainability initiatives. Adopting a critical perspective, this contribution argues that while some positive consequences can be identified, for example, a larger penetration of the mainstream market, TNC involvement in agri-food governance will likely also lead to the development of less stringent, comprehensive and inclusive standards. Moreover, the mechanisms with which sustainable development objectives are constituted and implemented by TNCs risk changing the fundamental principles and ideas of sustainable development as equitable and participatory governance. The chapter illustrates its argument with an examination of TNC involvement in a select number of initiatives.

Modern food governance is increasingly hybrid, involving not only government, but also industry and civil society actors. This book analyzes the unfolding interplay between public and private actors in global and local food governance. How are responsibilities and risks allocated in hybrid governance arrangements, how is legitimacy ensured, and what effects do these arrangements have on industry or government practices? The expert contributors draw on law, economics, political science and sociology to discuss these questions through rich empirical cases.

Marine ecosystems are increasingly under pressure. Despite commitments by governments and intergovernmental organizations, such as the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement and the 1995 Food and Agriculture Organisation Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries Practices, the depletion of marine resources has intensified over the past 40 years. In this context, a number of non-state market-based governance schemes have emerged that attempt to mitigate the ongoing marine crisis through certifying sustainable fisheries. In this article, we investigate the effects of one of the most prominent private organizations in global fisheries governance, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Specifically, we evaluate the role of the MSC in addressing the worldwide decline in fish stocks and examine broader political and socio-economic effects that are often associated with the emergence and implementation of private rules and standards. With this analysis, we aim to unravel the conditions under which the MSC can contribute to more sustainable and equitable fisheries management at regional and global levels. © 2013 AESS.

IntroductionThe governance of global food and agriculture is beingtransformed as the food system has become more global-ized and as corporate control of that system has becomemore concentrated. Traditionally the domain of govern-mental and intergovernmental actors, the governance offood and agriculture is increasingly becoming not justinfluenced, but also ‘‘created’’ by corporate actors viaprivate governance mechanisms. These mechanismsinclude industry-set quality and safety standards, privatecodes of conduct, and corporate social responsibility (CSR)initiatives. While the literature has paid considerableattention to the globalization of the agrifood system morebroadly (Bonanno et al. 1994) and has begun to look at therole of corporations in the system (Clapp and Fuchs 2009),empirical research on private governance mechanisms inglobal food and agriculture governance is only just startingto emerge. We still require considerably more insight onthe nature of the private governance mechanisms and theirimpact on fundamental values and core objectives of foodgovernance.The rise of private governance mechanisms in theagrifood system poses challenges for several fundamentalvalues and core objectives of food governance. In partic-ular, the privatization of key aspects of the agrifood gov-ernance system raises questions about their ability touphold democratic legitimacy and to promote sustainabil-ity. How do democratic ideals fit with private actors gen-erating rules and regulations that transcend nationalborders moving to spaces previously occupied by states(Schaller 2007)?

This paper investigates the creation and consequences of private regulation in global food governance. It points to the power to govern and the authority to govern as the two crucial conditions for the emergence and diffusion of private food regulation. More specifically, the paper argues that the power to govern is a function of the structural power of agrifood corporations, particularly retail food corporations in our case. The authority to govern is a function of the perceived legitimacy of retail food corporations as political actors. By linking power and authority to the material and ideational structures existing in the global political economy of food, this paper analyses the processes that serve to create, maintain and reproduce private regulation in food governance. With its analysis, the paper aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical debates on private authority, private regulation and the challenges for sustainability in the global food system. © 2010 Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.

In the food sector, retailers often present themselves as guardians of consumer interests, with superior efficiency and effectiveness in the governance of food, in relation to public actors. Concerns about retail governance institutions, such as private standards or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), mainly emphasise a lack of input legitimacy, that is legitimacy relying on democratic procedures. Less often concerns are raised regarding output legitimacy, that is legitimacy based on the effectiveness of retail governance institutions. Based on concepts of discursive power, this paper explores how retail corporations establish their claim to legitimacy in food governance via concepts of output legitimacy. The paper pursues its aim by performing a critical discourse analysis of retailers' discursive strategies identified here as imperialist, recursive, symbiotic and ironic.

As markets become more globalized, they have also become governed by an increasingly complex array of public and private regulation. This volume investigates the changing landscape of food governance. In so doing, the contributions to his volume provide insights into broader analytical issues that have concerned regulatory governance scholars. These include the legitimacy and effectiveness of public and private regulation, the interaction of networks of regulation, regulatory responses to crisis and the distribution of power in regulatory arrangements.

Governance, from local to global levels, relies increasingly on private governance arrangements. Private actors, specifically corporations and civil society organizations, increasingly design, implement and monitor rules and standards that guide and prescribe behavior in a range of policy areas, including sustainability, banking and international security, to name a few. Even though the involvement of private actors in global politics is not a new phenomenon, the creation of cooperative arrangements in the form of organizations that lead to private regulation - thus complementing traditional ways of political influence - is relatively novel. This paper focuses on private rule-setting organizations that have emerged in the global governance of sustainability. It starts from the observation that, despite seemingly performing similar roles and functions, organizations differ both in terms of outputs they produce as well as rules of participation and decision-making. Accordingly, the paper evaluates whether organizations providing a more inclusive and participatory approach in relation to others have different implications for the quality and relevance of rules (outputs). Hence, it aims to shed light on the way private rules and standards are decided and the associated implications, in view of their increasing role and relevance in sustainability governance. In more detail, we contend that there is no linear relation between democratic legitimacy and effectiveness. While inclusiveness and representativeness in the standard-setting process will probably lead to more stringent and comprehensive rules, those regulatory systems with high stringency will be the ones least taken up. Empirically, the paper illustrates its argument with a comparison of five private rule-setting organizations that have emerged in the global governance of fisheries sustainability: the Marine Stewardship Council, Friend of the Sea, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, the Global Aquaculture Alliance and GlobalGAP. © 2013 Copyright ICCR Foundation.

Over the past fifteen years a number of transnational certification and labeling schemes have emerged with the aim to foster sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices worldwide. Despite notable successes in the uptake and implementation of these standards, few measurable environmental improvements have been achieved on a global scale to date. This paper explores the conditions for effective governance taking into account external and internal attributes of the relevant rule-setting organizations. The analysis provided in this paper is situated in a broader debate regarding the effectiveness of transnational forms of governance and thereby contributes to recent efforts to build clearer theoretical propositions on the basis of more nuanced theoretically and empirically informed analyses.

Democratic legitimacy is rarely associated with private governance. After all, private actors are not legitimized through elections by a demos. Instead of abandoning democratic principles when entering the private sphere of governance, however, this article argues in favour of employing alternative criteria of democracy in assessments. Specifically, this article uses the criteria of participation, transparency and accountability to evaluate the democratic legitimacy of private food retail governance institutions. It pursues this evaluation of the democratic legitimacy of these institutions against the background of their ambivalent impact on the sustainability of the global agrifood system. The paper refers to a range of cases of private retail standards with different governance structures and substantial foci to illustrate its argument.

The objective of this chapter is to explore the democratic legitimacy of transnational corporations (TNCs) in global governance. In pursuit of this objective, the chapter investigates political activities of TNCs within transnational processes of private and public governance. It starts from the recognition that, global governance is increasingly being created not only by (inter)governmental actors but also by private actors. Corporations, in particular, have become key players in the global governance system. On the one hand, they have acquired and expanded a ‘new’ role as a political actor through the creation of private governance institutions, such as private standards, or public-private or private-private partnerships (PPPs). On the other hand, they have expanded their ‘traditional’ political power in terms of influence exercised on public governance output, due to their advantage over other actors in terms of resources, such as exclusive information and financial and human resources. As a result of the central role that TNCs play as political actors in global governance structures and processes today, the question of the democratic legitimacy of their political activities moves into the spotlight. Democracy, after all, is one of the major political achievements of mankind. With the shift of political decision-making to the global level and to non-state actors, as captured in the global governance literature, there is an urgent need to address the question of how to maintain basic requirements of participation, transparency, and accountability.

The global food system and its governance have important implications for the question of sustainability. Engaging over half of the world’s population, agricultural production provides a livelihood for a major proportion of people on the planet, and food is a commodity that touches us all as consumers. Food production and trade, moreover, have important implications for socioeconomic outcomes and, depending on their organization and distribution, can work to either enhance or detract from economic opportunities and environmental and social living conditions.

Agricultural and food objectives have shifted during the past decades from ensuring food sufficiency to striving for food sustainability. At the end of the Second World War, a devastated Europe searched for ways to feed its undernourished population. In the European political agenda at that time, issues of food security, land reforms, increasing productivity and technological improvement scored very high. The aim was to produce enough affordable food for society. At the national levels, state-driven policies supporting the industrialization, intensification and rationalization of agricultural production were put forward with the adoption of the Fordist model of increasing wage/productivity (McMichael 1997) through American led reconstruction programs such as the Marshal Aid (Goodman and Redclift 1991; Marsden et al. 1996; Ward and Almas 1997). At the same time, industrialization – which paid much higher wages than labour in agriculture – occurred in different sectors of the economy and resulted in urbanization and rural exodus. For that reason, subsidies were introduced to keep agricultural labour from lapsing to competitive fields and secure production. The results were rewarding: agriculture began to transform from a relatively backward and highly labour-intensive sector of the economy towards one of increasing technological sophistication (Bowler 1985; Gardner 1996), while the process of business termination slowed down (Van Leeuwen, 2003).