TRANS SUSTAIN competes for Best Paper Award at the IFAMA World Conference 2016

TRANS SUSTAIN team leader Professor Thomas Dietz traveled to Aarhus, Denmark, to present the paper “Understanding Coffee Certification Dynamics: A Spatial Analysis of Voluntary Sustainability Standard Proliferation” to participating scholars and practitioners at the IFAMA World Conference 2016.

The International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) is an international management organization that brings together current and future business, academic, and government leaders along with other industry stakeholders to improve the strategic focus, transparency, sustainability, and responsiveness of the global food and agribusiness system.

TRANS SUSTAIN’s work on mapping and analyzing current pathways toward voluntary sustainability standard participation for smallholder coffee farmers highlights the importance of international supply chain actors in advocating and rolling out sustainability schemes. These conclusions are highly relevant for researchers and industry members alike who pursue sustainable agribusiness value chains and food security for smallholder farmers.

The submitted research paper passed a rigorous selection process and was selected as a finalist in the Best Paper Award competition of the conference. This recognition underscores the value of TRANS SUSTAIN’s work toward the Conference theme “Food Security and Sustainability through Innovation”. On Sunday, June 19th, Professor Dietz presented the paper and its conclusions before a group of peers and judges and received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the findings. The winner of the IFAMA Best Paper Award will be announced on Wednesday, June 22nd.

As Best Paper Award Finalist, “Understanding Coffee Certification Dynamics: A Spatial Analysis of Voluntary Sustainability Standard Proliferation” will be published in the Special Symposium Edition of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, a top-rated journal with the highest impact factor among agribusiness journals.