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Abstract
Food businesses feel the call for sustainable development (SD). This paper about the Finnish and Swedish food
system actors about their understanding of and activities towards sustainability shows that there is
commitment for solving aspects of sustainability and different strategies to do this. However, the food
businesses also seem to get entangled with various dilemmas regarding sustainability, and to perceive
contradictions between economic, environmental and social issues; however, these situations may also turn
synergistic.
The businesses studied expressed commitment to sustainable solutions interpreted by their sustainability
strategies. The first identified strategy was a 'self‐made' effort, whereby businesses absorbed economically,
environmentally and socially 'positive' ideas and implemented them in their activities. The second strategy was
based on labels and included the certification of the environmental and/or social quality management system,
the use of particular labelled products and local food. The third strategy for critical co‐operation within the chain
meant learning about one’s food networks in co‐operation with other network actors, experts or brokers. These
strategies seemed to impact differently on the sustainable development of the organizations on the one hand
and the chain level on the other. Label based strategies offered more visibility than ‘self‐made’ strategies, which
may, however, support extensive sustainability efforts or remain narrow saving strategies implying the risk to
miss the opportunity for chain level development. As a rather rare approach, the critical co‐operation strategy
may upgrade sustainable developments both on the organizational and chain level. Participatory research
supporting creative and contextual sustainability developments was suggested as a promising future option for
food businesses to aim at organizational and system wide SD.