- Versione
- Scarica 2
- Dimensioni file 504.78 KB
- Conteggio file 1
- Data di Pubblicazione 29 Aprile 2026
- Ultimo aggiornamento 29 Aprile 2026
Drivers and Barriers Associated with Value Chain Initiatives
Drivers and barriers associated with value chain initiatives
The need to accelerate the transition towards sustainability in food provisioning and consumption is both urgent and complex. The urgency stems from the detrimental effects of current food systems on the environment and on socioeconomic conditions. The complexity lies in the way the agri-food system, in all its guises, is configured, including production intensification and monoculture, concentration of corporate control across agriculture and the food industry, consolidation of retail and distribution systems, and the unsustainable consumption patterns these structures reinforce.
In recent years, niche business developments have emerged as key drivers of sustainable development. Often enabled by developments in socio-technical innovations, these alternative business and value chain models have appeared as potential solutions to market failures by introducing new products, services and/or processes. A positive sustainability influence calls for a substantial contribution to progress these initiatives by scaling up and out to exert both significant market influence and broad social or political influence. However, the potential of these niche sustainable value chains/business models to considerably disrupt the market and society substantially, is still unclear.
The study draws on seven innovative agri-food value chain initiatives across Europe, each representing a distinct niche business model that employs alternative operational and governance mechanisms to promote sustainability. Using a practice-based approach to value chain analysis, the study examined how sustainability is introduced, enacted, and sustained across the value chains through social practices. This summary report presents the key findings on the drivers and barriers to promoting sustainability in value chain operations, and their implications for the ability of sustainable business initiatives studied to effectively deliver sustainability outcomes. A full report will be made available in due course.
The findings indicate that clearly articulated sustainability visions and goals act as a lever for embedding sustainability within value chain operations. However, sustainability objectives cannot remain confined to business-level strategies; they must be enacted through coordinated practices across the value chain to generate tangible and intangible outcomes. A key factor in catalysing sustainability innovations in value chains lies in the role of the leading initiative/entrepreneurs in identifying and positioning innovation (technological or social) within the chain. These actors’ function as ‘sustainability practice brokers’ by channelling sustainability innovation ideas and shaping their adoption across the chain (e.g., how they are introduced across the chain), and build critical social bridges through effective collaboration both horizontally and vertically throughout the chain to enable sustainability-oriented transformations.
The study revealed a set of dynamic and interconnected practices across the value chain that are relevant for constructing and maintaining sustainability. These are grouped into three thematic categories: cooperation, improving and relational governance. These practices serve as key drivers of sustainability innovation by structuring change processes and shaping the chain operational activities of the actors involved.
Cooperation practices such as information sharing and network-building, facilitate stakeholder engagement and collective agency. Improving practices support experimentation, innovation co-creation, shared learning and skills development, which strengthen both knowledge capital and social capital. Relational governance practices, including codes of conduct and effective communication, play a functional role through reinforcing trust, establishing relationships based on shared expectations in the value chain, and promote positive history of collaboration.
These practices contribute to the construction and maintenance of sustainability in the value chain context by nurturing various forms of socio-technical, socio-economic and socio-cultural developments, including generating secure market opportunities for producers, building knowledge capital through stakeholders’ capacity building, and strengthening social capital.
Despite these enabling practices, common barriers persist across the value chains, particularly, limited financial resources and the inability to drive significant shifts in market and consumer demand, emerge as key constraints, which pose significant risks to scalability, replication, and long-term viability.
In conclusion, the study offers useful actionable guidelines for businesses to enhance their internal value chain operations to effectively unlock sustainability transitions. Also, the study provides insights for potential policy interventions to support the scalability and/or replication of these small sustainable business models.
The following aspects can be recommended for businesses:
- Cooperation and collective action across the value chain are essential to address systemic sustainability challenges. This translates into shared responsibility toward achieving a common goal.
- Governance structures: Businesses should invest on building mutual trust and relational capacity across the value chain among actors. This is essential to boost social ties that enable engagement in continuous improving practices, i.e., co-creation practices, to maintain and continually develop innovations overtime. The presence of formal or informal governance mechanisms within the chain is essential to provide guidelines for actors and in governing relationships to build trust-based relations.
- Network building and mobilisation across diverse range of external stakeholders can help overcome the limitation of resources and knowledge capital commonly encountered by these ‘niche’ businesses.
Policy recommendations
Public policy schemes should prioritise support for sustainable entrepreneurial businesses at the local level by providing funding opportunities to invest in regional/local supply chain and value chain infrastructure upgrade, capacity building, and invest in marketing, thereby boosting visibility, recognition, and long-term competitiveness.
- Government leadership and endorsement: essential to support SMEs sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives visibility by recognising their sustainability efforts, thereby granting businesses legitimacy that extends beyond purely economic considerations.
- Value chain infrastructure gaps: policy effort should prioritise investments in these infrastructures at the local and regional level to improve sustainable SMEs supply chains operational efficiency and reducing transaction costs.
- Public funding design: Policy frameworks should move beyond short term funding and instead provide stable, medium to long-term financial support for sustainable agro-food SMEs. Such support should be flexible to provide the stability and adaptability needed to implement ambitious innovative projects. This will help ensuring continued viability and scaling of these business models. For example, public funding schemes are needed to enable these initiatives to cover marketing and promotional costs over a defined period. This is essential to enhance visibility, consumer awareness, and market demand.
- Support sector leadership: promote public-private partnerships (PPP) and provide stable financial support to sustainable value chain leaders or lead firms. These actors are pioneers and entrepreneurs who play pivotal role in coordinating stakeholders and mobilising collective action across supply chains. These actors are often acknowledged as essential for innovation and promoting sustainable development but often remain institutionally unsupported. Investing in these PPP represent an opportunity to strengthen the social infrastructure across supply chains, which enhances the relational and innovation capacity needed to unlock more sustainable change across socio-technical, socio-economic, and socio-cultural domains. These shifts are essential to enable system change.
