Corporate responsibility through value chain collaboration : the case of the Swedish soy dialogue

Sammanfattning: An increasing world population places ever growing demands on the Earth’s capacity for food production. Soy is an agricultural commodity of great importance in the global food system, but it is also accompanied with several severe sustainability challenges. Voluntary initiatives aiming to promote more responsible soy production exist and some companies who use soy in their operations have participated in efforts for more responsible sourcing. However, the uptake of these practices by businesses is limited while the production of soy is projected to double by 2050. A rare positive example of companies collaboratively setting targets for responsible soy on their consumer market is the Swedish soy dialogue. It consists of 27 companies and organizations from different parts of the Swedish food industry, who in 2014 issued a declaration of intent stipulating they would source 100 percent responsibly produced soy by 2015. The dynamics forming this value chain collaboration are yet unexplored. The aim of this study is to explain how value chain collaborations for more responsible sourcing can be formed and identify what the perceived enabling factors in such a process are. A qualitative case study of the Swedish soy dialogue was conducted and addressed the research questions of how the collaboration was formed, why actors chose to engage, and what the key perceived enabling factors in the formation process were. Themes guiding the empirical study were derived through an initial literature review. The empirical data was mainly collected through semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the dialogue. The organizations included represented different value chain perspectives and were WWF Sweden, LRF Dairy Sweden, Lantmännen, Arla Foods, HKScan Sweden, Martin & Servera and Coop Sweden. The results of the study demonstrate that many factors influenced the forming of the Swedish soy dialogue. There were both main drivers and supporting drivers for engaging in the dialogue – overarched by a problem realization and an aspiration to create a level playing field between actors in the value chain. Key activities leading up to the official declaration of intent, where actors publicly committed to more responsible soy, were mapped and explained – divided into the phases of outreach, collective learning and joint action/innovation. Several factors influencing and enabling the formation process were found. These are related to the categories; network design and organizational structure, relationships between stakeholders, stakeholder characteristics and institutional conditions. The collaborative network unites different types of actors from the entire Swedish value chain, where some execute the commitment and others have a supportive role. It is not a closed network, but aspires to promote a wide adoption of more responsible sourcing of soy among Swedish market actors. Diverse aspects have explanatory value for how the Swedish soy dialogue was formed, signalling that a holistic approach is warranted when studying collaborations addressing sustainability challenges. An important insight is the necessity of recognizing the context surrounding an initiative, since this can affect the conditions for the enablers which are possible to influence. However, everything cannot be planned since network formation often involves complex dynamics and the Swedish soy dialogue has demonstrated a flexible and evolving structure. National initiatives, such as this example, are part of a larger context of initiatives promoting responsible soy. How these different efforts can complement each other and what purpose they fill is worth reflecting upon. National initiatives represent a promising way forward for increased market dispersion of sourcing responsible soy, and the Swedish soy dialogue can hopefully serve as an inspirational example for the future.