Sustainability Management in Agribusiness: Challenges, Concepts, Responsibilities and Performance

Nina Friedrich, Matthias Heyder and Ludwig Theuvsen

No 144979, 2012 International European Forum, February 13-17, 2012, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria from International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks

Abstract: mainly due to a widespread discontent with the industrialization of agricultural production and food processing and growing public pressure on agribusiness firms to implement more sustainable management practices. In this paper we present the results of an explorative empirical study of sustainability management in German agribusiness firms. The study shows that agribusiness firms have developed a broad understanding of sustainability management and perceive a multi-facetted spectrum of societal demands they have to meet. The most important arguments for implementing more sustainable management practices are that companies have to make sure that they are trusted by society in the long run and that the perception of a company by external stakeholders has become more and more important. The companies surveyed know quite a number of sustainability programmes and standards, but the number of companies that actually participate in these initiatives is much smaller. Nonetheless, the majority of the respondents feels that their company is more successful with regard to sustainability management than industry average.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; Research Methods/Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18
Date: 2012-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/144979/files/3 ... -Heyder-Theuvsen.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iefi12:144979

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.144979

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 International European Forum, February 13-17, 2012, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria from International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().