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dc.contributor.authorSharpe, Rosalind
dc.contributor.authorBarling, David
dc.date.accessioned2019-03-06T11:53:59Z
dc.date.available2019-03-06T11:53:59Z
dc.date.issued2019-06-01
dc.identifier.citationSharpe , R & Barling , D 2019 , ' ‘The right thing to do’: ethical motives in the interpretation of social sustainability in the UK’s conventional food supply ' , Agriculture and Human Values , vol. 36 , no. 2 , pp. 329-340 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09924-3
dc.identifier.issn1572-8366
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2299/21185
dc.description© The Author(s) 2019
dc.description.abstractThis paper explores the role of ethics and responsibility as drivers of a transition to a more sustainable agri-food system, by drawing on an investigation of the governance of social sustainability in the UK’s conventional food supply. The paper investigates how and why various non-state actors in the conventional food supply construe certain social obligations as being part of the remit of the food supply; whether ethics plays a motivating role; and the extent to which their activities are linked to sustainability. The paper uses data collected via two surveys of diverse entities in the conventional food supply, the first a survey of public-facing websites, the second a series of in-depth interviews. The entities ranged from primary producers, manufacturers and food service operators to consultancies, standard-setting organisations and advocacy groups. The study finds that actors view a variety of socially focused or socially beneficial activities as legitimate governance concerns for the conventional food supply, and that ethics plays a role in motivating or justifying these activities. However, the activities are inconsistently associated with sustainability, a finding that may undermine the use of sustainability programmes as tools for driving ethical agendas. Moreover, the dominant business framing of the conventional food supply means that ethical considerations are often expressed in terms of more instrumental priorities. Social sustainability or responsibility actions can be justified on moral grounds as ‘the right thing to do’ but usually have to be backed up in more pragmatic terms as a way of ‘doing well by doing good’.en
dc.format.extent12
dc.format.extent696298
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofAgriculture and Human Values
dc.subjectEthics
dc.subjectFood sustainability
dc.subjectSocial sustainability
dc.subjectAgronomy and Crop Science
dc.title‘The right thing to do’: ethical motives in the interpretation of social sustainability in the UK’s conventional food supplyen
dc.contributor.institutionSchool of Life and Medical Sciences
dc.contributor.institutionCentre for Future Societies Research
dc.contributor.institutionCentre for Climate Change Research (C3R)
dc.contributor.institutionDepartment of Clinical, Pharmaceutical and Biological Science
dc.contributor.institutionCentre for Agriculture, Food and Environmental Management Research
dc.contributor.institutionFood Policy, Nutrition and Diet
dc.contributor.institutionAgriculture, Food and Veterinary Sciences
dc.contributor.institutionDepartment of Biological and Environmental Sciences
dc.contributor.institutionWeight and Obesity Research Group
dc.contributor.institutionGeography, Environment and Agriculture
dc.description.statusPeer reviewed
dc.identifier.urlhttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062591119&partnerID=8YFLogxK
rioxxterms.versionofrecord10.1007/s10460-019-09924-3
rioxxterms.typeJournal Article/Review
herts.preservation.rarelyaccessedtrue


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