Sustainability Buckets: A Flexible Heuristic for Facilitating Strategic Investment on Place-Dependent Sustainability Narratives

Abstract

This article presents a heuristic framework to help respond to gaps in knowledge construction in sustainability transitions. Transition theory publications highlight concerns ranging from contentious understandings of sustainability to the need for generalisable conceptual frameworks around how place specificity matters in transitions. The heuristic presented here is a flexible framework for developing place-dependent narratives of sustainability transitions grounded in investment choices. The sustainability buckets development resulted from the abduction and retroduction methods. It was also underpinned by a praxis-oriented mechanism from business (‘strategic investment buckets’), a transition theory conceptual framework (‘the multi-level perspective’—MLP), and a social sciences heuristic (‘sustainability cultures’). The sustainability buckets resulted from synthesising the critical literature with empirical findings drawn from two case studies in New Zealand. The heuristic proved helpful to navigate, organise, and code meanings and understandings of sustainability in the New Zealand agri-food context. It also helped facilitate dialogue with research participants from different backgrounds, such as government and business. The heuristic was designed to transform, remaining fit for purpose as transitions evolve. This article suggests the sustainability buckets could be used to enable investment opportunities for upscaling, reproducing, and transplanting transitions happening in distinct sectors and high-level systems.

Agrifood Sustainability Transitions in Firms and Industry: A Bibliographic Analysis of Research Themes

“…Food system transformation is a central principle in the sustainable transitions perspective. However, within the food system transformational literature, the concept of sustainability remains contentious and ill-defined (Ribeiro & Turner, 2021). Although there is some consensus as to the need for firms and industries to move away from the current unsustainable agrifood system, the notion of what represents a sustainable transition outcome has many definitions (McInnes, 2019;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021).…”

“…However, within the food system transformational literature, the concept of sustainability remains contentious and ill-defined (Ribeiro & Turner, 2021). Although there is some consensus as to the need for firms and industries to move away from the current unsustainable agrifood system, the notion of what represents a sustainable transition outcome has many definitions (McInnes, 2019;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021). Some sustainability outcomes include protecting the environment, supporting the development of alternative food networks, reconfiguration of value chains, reducing waste and addressing social equity (Bui et al, 2019;Davidson et al, 2016;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021).…”

“…Although there is some consensus as to the need for firms and industries to move away from the current unsustainable agrifood system, the notion of what represents a sustainable transition outcome has many definitions (McInnes, 2019;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021). Some sustainability outcomes include protecting the environment, supporting the development of alternative food networks, reconfiguration of value chains, reducing waste and addressing social equity (Bui et al, 2019;Davidson et al, 2016;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021). Marinova et al (2022) emphasise the importance of situating transitions within the historical context of the evolution of human society from huntergatherer to the farming of crops and livestock through successive transformations until the recent development of industrialised agriculture.…”

“…Furthermore, many of these organisations struggle to scale up and often have to deal with tensions between social and environmental concerns and economic viability. (Audet et al, 2017;Desa & Jia, 2020;Donati et al, 2023;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021).…”

“…Furthermore, rather than the transformation of the regime, the established food system may assimilate certain aspects of the alternative food systems without there being a fundamental transformation. For example, supermarkets may offer local produce, organic, fair trade and vegan options as a part of their product offering, co-existing with conventional products (Aschemann-Witzel et al, 2023;Audet et al, 2017;Bui et al, 2019;Davidson et al, 2016;Gonera et al, 2023;Marletto & Sillig, 2019;Ribeiro & Turner, 2021). Additionally, the role of the regime is acknowledged in the transformation process (Aschemann-Witzel et al, 2023;Gonera et al, 2023;Kuokkanen et al, 2018).…”