The Voluntary Coffee Standard Index (VOCSI). Developing a Composite Index to Assess and Compare the Strength of Mainstream Voluntary Sustainability Standards in the Global Coffee Industry

Dietz, Thomas; Auffenberg, Jennie; Chong, Andrea Estrella; Grabs, Janina; Kilian, Bernard

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.03.026

Cited by 60 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Few scholars explicitly investigate DT; however, extensive research considers standards and certification generally-and sustainable and ethical labeling in coffee specifically [1][2][3]5,14,[16][17][18][19][20]. As mentioned earlier, DT is a "top down" or "supply-driven" label developed by industry rather than by activists or farmers [16].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While coffee is largely consumed in Northern countries, it is produced in equatorial countries, often by low-income farmers. Numerous approaches to coffee sourcing standards aim to make the coffee industry more socio-economically and environmentally sustainable [1][2][3][4][5]. These include well-known, third-party certified labels such as Fair Trade, Organic, and UTZ, which aim to improve farmer incomes, produce coffee without the extensive use of chemicals, and source coffee in a holistically sustainable manner, respectively [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some roasters, however, such as Intelligentsia included paying above Fair Trade prices in their DT standards [21]. See Table 1 for a comparison between DT and Fairtrade International, the most common Fair Trade certification [1].…”

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confidence: 99%

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Coffee Roasters’ Sustainable Sourcing Decisions and Use of the Direct Trade Label

2019

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This paper analyzes motivations for coffee roasters to source directly from farmers and how roasters decide whether to use the Direct Trade sustainability label. Direct Trade is an uncertified label connoting an approach wherein roasters negotiate coffee price and quality with farmers without intermediaries, with purported farmer income benefits. We examine semi-structured interviews with 11 US roasters and three coffee stakeholders to identify motivations to source directly, provide customers sourcing information, and use or reject the Direct Trade label. We find that roasters directly source coffee primarily for quality reasons and communicate about sourcing because they believe customers would value coffee more if they understood their sustainable sourcing practices. However, the lack of a clear definition for the Direct Trade label, coffee roaster concerns about the label’s utility, and the threat of “free riders” disincentivizes label use. Without a shared label, customers face high costs for information about directly sourced coffee, which may limit the expansion of a sourcing practice that could benefit farmers.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coffee Roasters’ Sustainable Sourcing Decisions and Use of the Direct Trade Label

2019

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“…During the past two decades, various indexes have been proposed by individual researchers and international organizations [16,17,36,37], some of which were used for cross-country level of comparison of technological development [12,13,42,43]. At the same time, while choosing as the unit of analysis of the country as a whole, problems of intracountry differentiation remained outside of attention.…”

Section: Tendency For the Use Of Indexesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the future, the methodology for calculating the Global Competitiveness Index has been improved. Currently, his calculation is based on 12 "supporting elements" [26,36,37]. Increased coverage of countries for which the index is calculated.…”

Section: E the Technological Readiness Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the Level of Technological Development in the Field of Research and Development: The Regional ‎Dimension

Berezina,

Bochkovskiy,

Lebedev

et al. 2019

IJEAT

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The purpose of this study is to examine world. composite index, allowing to assess area at the subnational level. the proposed index, we compile existing gap between the Russian regions is estimated. In the cour technological development of research and developme - - development, as well as for individual "referent elements"; to conduct a comparative analysis of the Practical relevance: The necessity of developing a given approach is substantiated simul

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Multiplicity of sustainability standards and potential trade costs in the palm oil industry

et al. 2022

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The growing impact of the global production of agricultural commodities has created new regulations that aim at a more sustainable trade. Sustainability standards (SS) are essential tools for transnational trade governance because they increase the possibility of recognizing products from sustainable sources. However, there is currently a proliferation of SS in almost every industry. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to establish how standard interactions such as competition, cooperation, and overlap shape the impact of multiplicity on trade costs. We apply the framework to the palm oil industry by using the information on three aspects of SS schemes: the requirements, the institutional design, and the cooperation strategies. Our results indicate that the North–South multiplicity in the palm oil market is characterized by high overlap, but there exists a balanced co‐opetition in the standard market. As the cooperation strategies between the SS schemes are very shallow, there might be potential trade costs associated with the SS multiplicity in the palm oil industry. [EconLit Citations: Q01 Sustainable Development, Q17 Agriculture in International Trade, Q18 Agricultural PolicyFood Policy].

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The Voluntary Coffee Standard Index (VOCSI). Developing a Composite Index to Assess and Compare the Strength of Mainstream Voluntary Sustainability Standards in the Global Coffee Industry

Cited by 60 publications

References 41 publications

Coffee Roasters’ Sustainable Sourcing Decisions and Use of the Direct Trade Label

Coffee Roasters’ Sustainable Sourcing Decisions and Use of the Direct Trade Label

Assessment of the Level of Technological Development in the Field of Research and Development: The Regional ‎Dimension

Multiplicity of sustainability standards and potential trade costs in the palm oil industry

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