Integrating Sustainability Goals in Innovation Processes: Applying a Decision Support Tool in a Dual-Purpose Chicken Case Study

Abstract

The innovative dual-purpose chicken approach aims at contributing to the transition towards sustainable poultry production by avoiding the culling of male chickens. To successfully integrate sustainability aspects into innovation, goal congruency among actors and clearly communicating the added value within the actor network and to consumers is needed. The challenge of identifying common sustainability goals calls for decision support tools. The objectives of our research were to investigate whether the tool could assist in improving communication and marketing with respect to sustainability and optimizing the value chain organization. Three actor groups participated in the tool application, in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The results showed that there were manifold sustainability goals within the innovation network, but only some goals overlapped, and the perception of their implementation also diverged. While easily marketable goals such as ‘animal welfare’ were perceived as being largely implemented, economic goals were prioritized less often, and the implementation was perceived as being rather low. By visualizing congruencies and differences in the goals, the tool helped identify fields of action, such as improved information flows and prompted thinking processes. We conclude that the tool is useful for managing complex decision processes with several actors involved.

Are Dual-Purpose Chickens Twice as Good? Measuring Performance and Animal Welfare throughout the Fattening Period

“…The five key factors were found to be availability, willingness to pay, actions by NGOs, initiatives of retailers, and the introduction and communication of new concepts. This outline would be transferable to dual-purpose chickens extended by the idea of the agro-ecological and sustainable conservation of native breeds [33][34][35].…”

Towards Digital Innovation: Stakeholder Interactions in Agricultural Data Ecosystem in Croatia

“…Expanding on the initiatives of open data ecosystem readiness and the ability to identify the different ways in which stakeholders share data, build sustainable practices and systems is crucial to the successful adoption and implementation of innovation. Successful integration of sustainability aspects into innovation requires the collective participation of different stakeholders, matching objectives among stakeholders, and also their expertise as well as specialized roles for clear transfer of added value within the ecosystem [68,70,71].…”

The Need for an Alternative to Culling Day-Old Male Layer Chicks: A Survey on Awareness, Alternatives, and the Willingness to Pay for Alternatives in a Selected Population of Dutch Citizens

“…At the same time, when more information is provided about the alternatives, the decision for one or the other may not be so easy (9). Zoll et al (11) developed a decision support tool for the case of a dual-purpose alternative to CMC in Germany, which could be used when targeting the Dutch society. Based on our outcome and the results of surveys in the past in the Netherlands and other EU countries, it appears that the majority of participants in these studies respond to the knowledge on CMC by disagreement and are strongly in favor of an alternative to CMC.…”

“…There are three alternatives that are currently used to varying degrees in the egg industry, while others are still being further refined. The three alternatives are in-ovo sex determination (3), keeping the roosters of dual-purpose breeds for meat production (11)(12)(13)(14), and rearing roosters of layer breeds for processed meat products (15).…”