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Sustainability governance service providers: the role of third-party product certification in facilitating corporate life cycle management

  • ADVANCING SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE IN LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to analyze the role that third-party product sustainability certifications play in supply chain sustainability governance and hence the impact that they may have on facilitating corporate life cycle management (LCM). Particular emphasis is given to exploring the extent to which such schemes allow firms to outsource the work of communication, motivation, enablement, and control of sustainability-related information and performance upstream in the supply chain.

Methods

The research design is based on a comparative case study methodology. The corporate practices of sourcing the sustainability certified products in the food retailing and textile sectors are compared, to explain when third-party product sustainability certification reduces the corporate need to engage in collaborative relationships with suppliers, thereby reducing efforts associated with implementation of corporate life cycle management.

Results and discussion

In our study, we found evidence that affirms the role of third-party product sustainability certification in reducing corporate necessity to actively engage with coordination of sustainability issues upstream in the supply chain. However, we also identified a range of factors—the intention of the buying company, the supply chain context, and the design of the certification scheme—that influence the extent, to which third-party product sustainability certification replaces the corporate need for additional work to facilitate supplier compliance. Some of these factors, e.g., the design of the certification scheme, are new and have been underexplored in the supply chain management and value chain governance literature yet.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that corporate LCM practitioners should consider third-party sustainability certification as an instrument for the transfer of significant life cycle information along the supply chain and as a tool to facilitate corporate life cycle management. The extent to which third-party product sustainability certification would be able to facilitate corporate life cycle management depends not only on whether certification requirements are based on the LCA studies but also on the market scope of the certification schemes, the scope of the certification requirements, and the architecture of the certification management services. If these parameters are aligned with corporate ambitions and allow buyers to fully outsource the work associated with communication, motivation, enablement, and control of sustainability-related information and supplier performance, the life cycle management can be exercised by companies by simply choosing to procure sustainability certified products.

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Notes

  1. Sustainability governance service providers is the term suggested by authors and herein defined as organizations, platforms, or initiatives that provide companies with relevant assistance to implement environmental and social sustainability in product chains. Different forms of assistance include outsourcing the task of defining sustainability requirements, collecting and sharing LCA data, as well as providing companies with services to motivate, enable, and monitor/verify supplier compliance with product and process sustainability criteria. Sustainability governance service providers are diverse including International Reference Life Cycle Data system, Supplier Ethical Data Exchange platform (SEDEX), Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), and third-party product sustainability certification schemes. In this article, we focus on the latter type of sustainability governance service providers.

  2. Governance can be defined “as the process of defining, communicating and imposing compliance with process and product parameters along the value chain” (Hagen and Alvarez 2011, p. 4).

  3. For more information about the GlobalGAP standard, see http://www.globalgap.org/uk_en/.

  4. For more information about the UTZ Certified standard, see https://www.utzcertified.org/.

  5. For more information about the Fair-Trade standard, see http://www.fairtrade.net/.

  6. For more information about the Nordic Swan standard, see http://www.nordic-ecolabel.org/. Please note that this case study was performed in 2001, and the discussion refers to the nature of the standard at the time of the study.

  7. For more information about the Organic Exchange standard, see http://textileexchange.org/content/oe-standards. Please note that this case study was performed in 2004, and the discussion refers to the nature of the standard at the time of the study.

  8. In Peru, the ginner often acts as a service provider for farmers offering not only the service of ginning the harvested fibers but also technical advice throughout the growing season and sometimes also financial services through the extension of credit for purchase of farming inputs.

  9. Supply availability refers not only to volumes but also to price, quality, and ranges/variety of the sustainability certified products.

  10. For more information about Green Seal, please see http://www.greenseal.org/AboutGreenSeal.aspx.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, P. O. Box 196, Tegnersplatsen 4, 221 00, Lund, Sweden

    Olga Chkanikova & Beatrice Kogg

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  1. Olga Chkanikova
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  2. Beatrice Kogg
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Correspondence to Olga Chkanikova.

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Responsible editor: Kirsten Schmidt

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Chkanikova, O., Kogg, B. Sustainability governance service providers: the role of third-party product certification in facilitating corporate life cycle management. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23, 1383–1395 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-015-0865-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-015-0865-z

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