Sustainability clustering of spices

The alignment of corporate activities and decisions with ethical expectations of the company's internal and external stakeholders in order to maintain the legitimacy and security of companies is increasingly coming to the fore. At the same time, more and more companies are also taking their responsibility for sustainable development seriously and engaging proactively. In this context, purchasing and procurement management has proven to be an important factor in making organisations more sustainable.

Pathways to a sustainable supply chain in the spice sector

As a report on sustainability hot spots in the spice industry shows (Schmid & Eberle 2018), there are multiple sustainability impacts that should be addressed by companies. However, further research is urgently needed to address this systematically.

The aim of this project is to identify ways for a more sustainable supply chain in the spice sector. For this purpose, initiatives and projects that already deal with sustainability impacts of spices will be analysed. In addition, spices will be grouped according to characteristics in order to prepare the different sustainability challenges and to identify barriers for purchasing. In phase two, further projects will be defined that focus on and test the implementation of sustainable purchasing or a sustainability assessment of individual spices.

University of Witten/Herdecke, Centre for Sustainable Corporate Management
Project leader: Dr Ulrike Eberle

Would you like to get a deeper insight into the research project? Contact us!