Coffee has traditionally been a commodity product sold in a highly competitive and saturated global market. This lack of product differentiation has made coffee farmers very vulnerable to fluctuating prices. During the last decade, the coffee industry is undergoing a process of decommoditisation, offering an opportunity for farmers to differentiate their coffee in terms of sustainability and quality and to commercialise it more directly. However, smallholder farmers face productivity and transactional constraints that inhibit them from accessing these higher-value market segments. Intermediaries are needed to connect them with this new market. In this article, we present a cross-case study analysis of three 'connective businesses' that are facilitating direct trade relationships between smallholder farmers and speciality coffee roasters.

The potential for achieving transformation through partnerships is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, information on experiences that explore the processes that might generate systemic change is generally lacking. This article uses the Collaborative Value Creation (CVC) framework to analyze the transformational prospects of the Alianza Shire, the first multi-stakeholder partnership for humanitarian action in Spain. The partnership, which aims to develop innovative energy access solutions in refugee camps situated in the Shire region of northern Ethiopia is assessed from its creation in 2014 to the present with regard to four key partnership features: organizational engagement, resources and activities, partnership dynamics and impact. Our findings suggest that while the CVC framework is a useful tool for analyzing the evolution of a partnership to a transformative phase, additional information is required on the important role played by a partnership facilitator in assisting this process. This inquiry aims to build upon the CVC analysis by identifying and addressing some of the barriers faced by the Alianza Shire and other partnerships in attaining transformational outcomes and proposing two key enablers that can assist progression towards this: a facilitating organization that ensures the creation of collaborative shared value and an aspirational strategy for achieving significant systemic change.

Measuring the advances performed in the 2030 Agenda and the contribution of public policies remains a key issue. Budgets are acknowledged as one of the most powerful tools made available to administrations to push forward this contribution, and so several initiatives have risen to align budget items and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) performance at all levels. The aim of this paper is to go beyond simple alignment and statistically analyze the interlinkages between budget and SDG achievement data. We have used the Spanish local administrations budget, together with indicators used to measure the 2030 Agenda goals at the same level, and computed a correlation test in order to find where budget allocation has an impact. We have then looked further into the relevant impacts to split them into direct and indirect. The research found ca. 25% of the budget items with relevant statistical links to the SDGs, with the SDGs 11 and 15 being the least impacted and SDGs 1, 4, 7, 8 and 16 the most connected ones. This research aims to set the bases of an evidence-based decision-support tool for a more efficient and sustainable policy design.

There is an increasing awareness among all kinds of organisations (in business, government and civil society) about the benefits of jointly working with stakeholders to satisfy both their goals and the social demands placed upon them. This is particularly the case within corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks. In this regard, multi-criteria tools for decision-making like the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) described in the paper can be useful for the building relationships with stakeholders. Since these tools can reveal decision-maker's preferences, the integration of opinions from various stakeholders in the decision-making process may result in better and more innovative solutions with significant shared value. This paper is based on ongoing research to assess the feasibility of an AHP-based model to support CSR decisions in large infrastructure projects carried out by Red Eléctrica de España, the sole transmission agent and operator of the Spanish electricity system.

The transformation for sustainability requires a paradigm shift towards systems thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration, which entails, above all, a process of cultural change affecting individual mindsets, organizations and society as a whole. Sustainability in higher education institutions (HEIs) has been a recurrent research field in the past decades. However, little attention has been paid to the processes of internal and cultural change and, in particular, to the first steps to prepare academic communities for change. Understanding “readiness for change” as a core organizational competency to overcome continuous environmental changes and considering the diluted hierarchy at HEIs, this article proposes the adoption of dialogical and developmental approaches in a single action case, the SDGs Seminars at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. This methodology was used to diagnose organizational and individual readiness for change considering cognitive, affective and behavioural components, and to identify consequences in organizational structures and culture. Our findings reveal that reframing dialogical spaces in HEIs to experience a collaborative and sustainability culture can unlock change, breaking down organizational silos, reducing resistances and engaging academic communities in the cocreation of institutional strategies. Furthermore, the case suggests that acting at the group level has impacts both on the individual and institutional levels.