Abstract
In the last decades, the focus of studies on cocoa value chain (CVC) has changed from the low income of farmers and the shortcomings of the educational and financial systems to the incorporation of innovations, supported on sustainability principles. However, classical theories based on economics are insufficient to understand sustainability phenomenon, and the investigation in the field is still dispersed. This study represents one first attempt to synthesize findings on the topic, in line with the triple bottom line (TBL) scenarios. TBL provides a useful framework to understand the social, economic, and environmental aspects along the CVC. This chapter performs a systematic literature review on sustainability scenarios applied to CVC, each one representing one of the three dimensions of sustainability. At the final, an agenda for future research on the topic is suggested, uncovering a set of future study propositions.
TopIntroduction
Sustainability has emerged as a factor of growing importance among society and businesses, following the imperative matter of sustainable development raised by the World Council of Economic Development (WCED, 1987). Hence, many countries are pursuing it in their diverse value chains, aiming to adopt strong measures which target the growing environmental pressure and its long-term risks such as flooding, drought, political instability, social unrest and depletion of natural resources (Giddens, 2015). Nevertheless, assessing social and environmental impacts is not new (Norman and MacDonald, 2004; Richardson, 2004) and TBL (triple bottom line) has greatly contributed to incorporating sustainability into the business agenda (McDonough and Braungart, 2002).
Although the TBL construct is explicitly based on the integration of the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability, this concept is inconsistent in its literature. Several studies used sustainability to primarily refer to the environmental dimension (Yan et al., 2009). Others used the concept to refer to its social dimension (Bibri, 2008), while some used it to refer to all three (Marcus and Fremeth, 2009). Conversely, TBL places equal levels of importance on each of the three dimensions, which brings greater balance and coherence to the construct of sustainability (Elkington, 1997; Epstein, 2008; Harmon et al., 2009; Savitz and Weber, 2006). Other sustainability-related studies showed an imbalance in the level of importance distributed among the three dimensions. The importance of the economic dimension was limited (Collins et al., 2007), though many studies included it when referring to sustainability (Collins et al., 2007).
Additionally, some authors argue that the economic, environmental, and social aspects do not sufficiently cover the entire concept of the TBL related-sustainability construct (Wu et al., 2016). They proposed four additional aspects, to further promote discussion on the issue: operations, resilience, long-term and stakeholders. Tseng (2017) emphasized that sustainability issues are characterized by their high complexity and uncertainty and Isil and Hernke (2017) contributed with a critical evaluation of the TBL paradigm. To promote the quality and success of the solutions, it is essential to integrate qualitative information, quantitative data, and social media into the TBL discussion (Wu et al., 2018). The TBL can evolve in different ways independently from the object of study (Tseng et al., 2020). In each case, balancing the TBL toward sustainability, involves viewing it as an essentially dynamic and multidimensional concept (Alvarez et al. 2016).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Value Chain: First described by Michael Porter, in 1985 is a concept which describes the full chain of a business's activities in the creation of a product or service – from the initial reception of materials all the way through its delivery to market, and everything in between.
Sustainability: Focuses on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It is composed of three dimensions: economic, environmental.
Circular Economy: Is a new restorative or regenerative model which disruptly change the way the societies and business are organized. It is based on three principles, eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials and, regenerate nature.
Ecosystem Services: Are the aspects of ecosystems utilised to produce human well-being. This aren't only the final services of the ecosystem, including ecosystem organization, as well as process and/or functions provided that they are consumed or utilized by humans either directly or indirectly.
TBL: Introduced by Elkington in 1997, is a sustainability-related framework which captures its essence throught measuring the impact of an organization's activities in three dimensions, social, environmental and economic.