In recent years the agrifood sector has received great attention from scholars given the importance of sustainability strategies for its companies, also with a supply chain perspective (Barth et al., 2017; Stanco et al., 2020). Indeed, sustainability issues influence companies’ strategies that embed environmental and social practices in its business model, innovating it (Barth et al., 2017; Tell et al., 2016). However, few studies have systematically addressed this topic through the lens of business model frameworks (Geldres-Weiss et al., 2020; Donner and Radić, 2021). Through an exploratory approach, this study selected the largest 150 companies located in North-East Italy representing the different steps in the food value chain (agriculture, production and trade). We collected the sustainability reports published on the companies’ website and provided two level of analysis (Torelli et al., 2020): at a first level the material issues indicated in the report were matched with both the BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010) and the TL-BMC’s frameworks (Joyce and Paquin, 2016). In a second level, we created a linkage between the building blocks and GRI disclosures, to provide a set of indicators useful to monitor the sustainable business model of the selected companies. The analysis showed a low diffusion of sustainability reporting in the selected sample (only 26 reports were found and analysed). Moreover, the analysis revealed the difficulty in mapping the material themes as they are reported in a differentiated and sometimes vague way. The matching between material themes and business model frameworks highlighted the poor ability of BMC to host the material topics of food firms, while TL-BMC better intercepts sustainability issues, but with some limitations in the social dimensions. Finally, regarding KPIs, GRI framework does not cover all the sustainability aspects classified with a BM perspective (i.e., kpi for customers, sustainable products, distribution and logistics).
Exploring sustainability in agri-food sector: a business model perspective
Riso Vincenzo
;Cantele Silvia
2023-01-01
Abstract
In recent years the agrifood sector has received great attention from scholars given the importance of sustainability strategies for its companies, also with a supply chain perspective (Barth et al., 2017; Stanco et al., 2020). Indeed, sustainability issues influence companies’ strategies that embed environmental and social practices in its business model, innovating it (Barth et al., 2017; Tell et al., 2016). However, few studies have systematically addressed this topic through the lens of business model frameworks (Geldres-Weiss et al., 2020; Donner and Radić, 2021). Through an exploratory approach, this study selected the largest 150 companies located in North-East Italy representing the different steps in the food value chain (agriculture, production and trade). We collected the sustainability reports published on the companies’ website and provided two level of analysis (Torelli et al., 2020): at a first level the material issues indicated in the report were matched with both the BMC (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010) and the TL-BMC’s frameworks (Joyce and Paquin, 2016). In a second level, we created a linkage between the building blocks and GRI disclosures, to provide a set of indicators useful to monitor the sustainable business model of the selected companies. The analysis showed a low diffusion of sustainability reporting in the selected sample (only 26 reports were found and analysed). Moreover, the analysis revealed the difficulty in mapping the material themes as they are reported in a differentiated and sometimes vague way. The matching between material themes and business model frameworks highlighted the poor ability of BMC to host the material topics of food firms, while TL-BMC better intercepts sustainability issues, but with some limitations in the social dimensions. Finally, regarding KPIs, GRI framework does not cover all the sustainability aspects classified with a BM perspective (i.e., kpi for customers, sustainable products, distribution and logistics).
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