Managing sustainability in fruit production

Abstract

Belgian fruit growers are faced with a growing need for sustainable development. Therefore, it is important to integrate sustainability in their business management processes. This research applies and evaluates a self-analysis tool for entrepreneurs, called the ‘sustainability scan’ on 11 fruit producing holdings in Belgium. This scan distinguishes 23 sustainability themes, divided according to the 3P-framework (‘People’, ‘Planet’, ‘Profit’). The fruit growers are asked to indicate the themes that are relevant for their business. The results reveal that the sustainability themes related to certification audits, such as the use of pesticides and fertilizers, food safety, etc. are indicated as most relevant by the majority of the respondents. Also some business themes, such as ‘added value’, ‘external orientation’ and ‘chain management’ are important. A significant lower score is assigned to themes such as ‘competition, fair trade and corruption’ and ‘governance’. Only a limited number of respondents is taking actions to improve ‘labour circumstances’ or to add to ‘emancipation and human rights’. In a next step, for each of the selected themes 8 management processes are evaluated: (i) stakeholder dialogue, (ii) vision, (iii) setting goals, (iv) taking measures, (v) delegating responsibilities, (vi) monitoring, (vii) providing performance and (viii) transparency. The results indicate that on the average less than 4 of the 8 management processes are taken into the account by the respondents (‘People’ : 3,5 – ‘Planet’ : 3,6 – ‘Profit’ : 3,3). Most attention is given to the management processes ‘taking measures’ and ‘providing performance’ in the domains ‘Planet’ and ‘Profit’. Remarkable is that the strategic management processes ‘stakeholder dialogue’, vision’ and ‘setting goals’ are neglected by the majority of the fruit growers. Furthermore, also themes like ‘delegating responsibilities’, monitoring’ and ‘transparancy’ are ignored or overlooked. One can conclude that managing sustainability will need more attention in the future.