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In irrigated agricultural systems, the main source of uncertainty to irrigators relates to water supply, as it significantly affects farm income. This paper investigates farmers' utility changes associated with shifts in the probability density function of water supply leading to a higher water supply reliability (higher mean and lower variance in annual water allotments). A choice experiment relying on a mean-variance approach is applied to the case study of an irrigation district of the Guadalquivir River Basin (southern Spain). To our knowledge, this is the first study using parameters of these probability density functions of water supply as choice experiment attributes to value water supply reliability. Results show that there are different types of farmers according to their willingness to pay (WTP) for improvements in water supply reliability, with some willing to pay nothing (44.9%), others (28.6%) with relatively low WTP, and the remainder of farmers (26.5%) having high WTP. A range of factors influencing farmers' preferences toward water supply reliability are revealed, with those related to risk exposure to water availability being of special importance. The results will help to design more efficient policy instruments to improve water supply reliability in semi-arid regions.

Environmental sustainability in agriculture can be measured through the construction of composite indicators. However, this is a challenging task because these indexes are heavily dependent on how the individual base indicators are weighted. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature regarding the robustness of subjective (based on experts’ opinions) weighting methods when constructing a composite indicator for measuring environmental sustainability at the farm level. In particular, the study analyzes two multi-criteria techniques, the analytic hierarchy process and the recently developed best-worst method, as well as the more straightforward point allocation method. These alternative methods have been implemented to empirically assess the environmental performance of irrigated olive farms in Spain. Data for this case study were collected from a panel of 22 experts and a survey of 99 farms. The results obtained suggest that there are no statistically significant differences in the weights of the individual base indicators derived from the three weighting methods considered. Moreover, the ranking of the sampled farms, in terms of their level of environmental sustainability measured through the composite indicators proposed, is not dependent on the use of the different weighting methods. Thus, the results support the robustness of the three weighting methods considered.

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The main aim of this paper is to provide insights into how the business case for sustainability reporting (SR) in SMEs is perceived by two groups of experts (consultants and academics). In particular, we examine how these two groups prioritize a set of costs and benefits associated with this type of reporting. The study draws on the best–worst method, a multicriteria decision‐making technique. Interviews were conducted with consultants and academics to gather detailed information about their perceptions regarding the costs and benefits that may be derived from the implementation of SR in SMEs. Consultants identified “competitive advantage” and “reputation and legitimacy” as the most relevant potential benefits of implementing SR in SMEs, while academics identified the “economic cost” as the most important criterion to be considered in the decision‐making process. Experts' perceptions of the business case for sustainability may encourage nonreporting SMEs to engage in sustainability. The identified gap between consultants and academics in the prioritization of costs and benefits is especially relevant to the emerging field of SR in SMEs. The study addresses an important topic from across the social and environmental accounting literature, the business case for SR in SMEs.