Since the beginning of the new millennium, initiatives known as roundtables have been developed to create voluntary sustainability standards for agricultural commodities. Intended to be private and voluntary in nature, these initiatives claim their legitimacy from their ability to ensure the...

L'artisanat alimentaire urbain occupe une place importante dans l'approvisionnement des villes africaines. Cela dit, la mise en marché de produits typiques reposant sur des savoirs contextualisés rencontre une suspicion de la part des consommateurs urbains. Des pratiques d'approvisionnement...

Since the mid-1990s a range of Southern social standard initiatives have emerged, including in the African horticultural industry. In this paper I analyse two Kenyan standard initiatives in the cut flower sector - a business initiative and a multistakeholder initiative. I investigate how...

Sustainability initiatives have proliferated in many industries in recent years. This has led to a plethora of standards that exist in parallel to each other seeking to address more or less the same social and environmental issues. Sustainability standards are not neutral tools but institutional...

Export of cut flowers from East Africa to Europe is an example of how tightened quality regulations and increasing concern with social and environmental issues have created a highly codified industry. For producers participating in value chains driven by large retailers, adopt-ing social and...