Fairtrade and Climate Change

Can climate and development issues be tackled through partnerships? In view of the very limited number of multi-stakeholder partnerships for climate change in general, and those focused on development (developing countries) in particular, it seems useful to take a step back and consider the linkages between climate and development in a bit more detail. Also: what are the finance perspectives on climate change? And how do farmers look at the topic? Is there a trade-off between fairtrade and climate change? The fifth Max Havelaar Lecture considers these tensions. Position paper written by Ans Kolk and Jonathan Pinkse. Poverty alleviation constitutes a multi-faceted problem. It is on the one hand extremely local and leads to enormous deprivation of at least half of the world’s population. But on the other hand, it is an extremely international problem as well through the operation of global markets – in particular of resources – and the functioning of value chains. It has increasingly become acknowledged that the role of corporations and the private sector is vital for sustainable solutions to poverty. Entrepreneurial solutions are often considered preferable to the traditional approach of development aid and subsidies. Micro-credits and fair trade labels are typical examples of this new development paradigm. At the same time, however, it is clear that the involvement of private (international) corporations is far from undisputed. The claim that the profit maximisation strategies of private corporations can ‘solve’ poverty requires substantial modifications. It is obvious that some strategies are more effective than others. The integration of developing countries in the international supply chains of multinational corporations can have positive and negative repercussions. The new development paradigm therefore is not yet established, let alone undisputed. The Max Havelaar lecture stimulates the thinking on these issues in a balanced manner, without making use of the usual simplifications either in support of or against the involvement of firms in development. The Max Havelaar organisation is proof of this approach: it is aiming at a continuous improvement in its strategy towards labeling products – increasingly in a variety of partnerships with NGOs, corporations and governments. The Max Havelaar lecture has seven aims: - Provide a platform for the presentation of state-of-the-art scientific insights into how sustainable business and development cooperation can be combined - Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the involvement of corporations in poverty alleviation in a systematic and non-ideological manner - Address the complexities of sustainable development rather than engage in simplifications on poverty, in order to come up with realistic – and obtainable – approaches to address in particular poverty (Millennium Development Goal 1) - Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of specific approaches such as trade marks, codes of conduct, reporting or governance measures - Provide an arena in which innovative ideas can be launched - Consider development as part of international value chains in which a fair distribution of income, power and knowledge is an issue that affects both developed and developing economies - Start a structured dialogue on shaping the preconditions for effective partnerships between public and private parties (including firms and NGOs) for development (Millenium Development Goal 8

Transitioning to sustainable energy by incumbent utilities: insights from M&As, alliances, and divestments

Energy utilities play an important role in transitioning to a sustainable energy industry. Data on 8967 transactions by 19 European energy utilities from 1990 to 2019 illustrate when and how utilities invest in sustainable resources and divest traditional resources such as fossil-fuel plants. Utilities transitioning to sustainable energy have greater financial resources and experience with sustainability, are publicly owned, and access sustainable resources of international and inter-industry partners. Utilities adopt a diversified strategy of balancing sustainable and traditional resources.<br/

Tensions in corporate sustainability: towards an integrative framework

This paper proposes a systematic framework for the analysis of tensions in corporate sustainability. The framework is based on the emerging integrative view on corporate sustainability, which stresses the need for a simultaneous integration of economic, environmental and social dimensions without, a priori, emphasising one over any other. The integrative view presupposes that firms need to accept tensions in corporate sustainability and pursue different sustainability aspects simultaneously even if they seem to contradict each other. The framework proposed in this paper goes beyond the traditional triad of economic, environmental and social dimensions and argues that tensions in corporate sustainability occur between different levels, in change processes and within a temporal and spatial context. The framework provides vital groundwork for managing tensions in corporate sustainability based on paradox strategies. The paper then applies the framework to identify and characterise four selected tensions and illustrates how key approaches from the literature on strategic contradictions, tensions and paradoxes—i.e., acceptance and resolution strategies—can be used to manage these tensions. Thereby, it refines the emerging literature on the integrative view for the management of tensions in corporate sustainability. The framework also provides managers with a better understanding of tensions in corporate sustainability and enables them to embrace these tensions in their decision making

Sustainable product innovation and changing consumer behavior: Sustainability affordances as triggers of adoption and usage

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2020-10-02, rev-recd 2021-03-15, accepted 2021-03-29, pub-electronic 2021-04-10, pub-print 2021-11Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedAbstract: This conceptual paper argues that for sustainable product innovation to make a contribution to addressing sustainability issues, we need to understand not only why consumers adopt sustainable products but also what makes them use these in sustainable way. To explain how specific product features can change the ways in which consumers engage with sustainable products in the adoption and usage phase, we draw on affordance theory. Affordances refer to the potential for agentic action of users in relation to a technological object. We develop a conceptual framework that explains how sustainable product innovation can lead to the design of sustainability affordances that stimulate adoption and sustainable usage. The framework shows how three forms of agency—material, firm, and user agency—interact and together influence a product's sustainability affordances that drive adoption and a change in consumer behavior. The framework explains how trade‐offs between a product's environmental features and consumer expectations regarding desired functionalities and user experience can be overcome

Does the Business Case Matter? The Effect of a Perceived Business Case on Small Firms’ Social Engagement

This is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Springer and can be found at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2835-6The business case for social responsibility (BCSR) is one of the most widely studied topics in the business and society literature that focuses on large firms. This attention is understandable because large firms have an obligation to shareholders who, as commonly assumed, seek to maximize returns on their investments, in turn, pressing corporate managers to show that firms’ expenditures in social engagement would pay off. Small firms, on the other hand, rarely face such pressures, yet the BCSR logic is increasingly applied to small firms as well. Our primary objective in this paper is to examine whether and how much do small firm owners’ perceptions of BCSR affect the firm’s social engagement. In finding a fine-grained answer to those questions, we consider BCSR as a two-dimensional construct consisting of tangible and intangible benefits, and also integrate the BCSR perspective with the slack resource perspective to offer a motivation-capacity lens to examine firm’s social engagement. Drawing on a multi-industry sample of 478 small firms in the US, we find that while small firm owners’ perceptions about potential tangible benefits of social engagement are not related to the firm’s social engagement, perceptions about potential intangible are positively related. Firm’s financial performance is also positively related to its social engagement, but there is no interaction between potential benefits and financial performance. This study contributes to an improved understanding about small firms’ social engagement, which still remains an understudied area. Our results are in line with studies which argue that firms’ social engagement is a response to institutional factors

The Role of Short-Termism and Uncertainty Avoidance in Organizational Inaction on Climate Change: A Multi-Level Framework

Despite increasing pressure to deal with climate change, firms have been slow to respond with effective action. This article presents a multi-level framework for a better understanding of why many firms are failing to reduce their absolute greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change. The concepts of short-termism and uncertainty avoidance from research in psychology, sociology, and organization theory can explain the phenomenon of organizational inaction on climate change. Antecedents related to short-termism and uncertainty avoidance reinforce one another at three levels—individual, organizational, and institutional—and result in organizational inaction on climate change. The article also discusses the implications of this multi-level framework for research on corporate sustainability