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The purpose of the paper is to critically evaluate the applicability of bio certification in farmers' activity to reduce unfair trading practices in the food supply chain. The secondary purposes are describing the economic reasons of using bio certification and perspectives of using web trading platforms among food producers.

Data collection included face-to-face interviews with 15 Austrian and German farmers who operate on bio food markets as well as a quantitative survey regarding their assessment of unfair trading practices. This study presents both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Bio certification is more likely unable to eliminate or mitigate unfair trading practices in the food supply chain, however bio certification is able to increase efficiency of farmers together with other web tools.

The study is the first to empirically investigate the applicability of bio certifications, its advantages and impact on unfair trading practices in the food supply chain. It focuses on small and medium-sized food producers and farmers. The research also reveals the perspectives of using web trading platforms in farming activity.

The objective of this paper is to discuss some scientific challenges related to the production and use of biomass for transport, heat and electricity.

Specific attention is paid to the environmental assessment of liquid bio‐fuels for transport and to the discussion of causes of uncertainties in the assessment. Three main topics are taken as examples, in order to illustrate the complexity of environmental assessment of bio‐fuels and the difficulty in reducing uncertainties: agro‐environmental impact of bio‐ethanol (from sugar cane) in Brazil and bio‐diesel (from palm oil) in Malaysia. These two tropical countries were selected because of their role as leaders at world level and their strong export potential to the European Union), N₂O (Nitrous Oxide) emissions related to crop cultivation for bio‐fuels and land use change; and GHG emissions and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of bio‐diesel from palm oil in Malaysia. These three topics are discussed and complemented by considerations about biomass conversion issues.

The quantification of the degree of the sustainability of the production and use of bio‐fuels for transport is to a large extent related to the choice of farming practices during the feedstock production and their corresponding environmental impact.

Recommendations are formulated so as to reduce scientific uncertainty, for example through the development of internationally‐agreed sustainability certification systems with corresponding verification measures, or further research on emissions and indirect land‐use change.

The value of the paper on bio‐energy research challenges is related to the combined analysis of European and tropical constraints in the field of biomass.

ISO 9000 standards for quality system management are involving a higher and higher number of enterprises and organizations. This paper presents a detailed analysis of certification diffusion in Italy and in some European countries with similar economic structures. Benchmarking and evolution forecasts are based on the “logistic model”, traditionally used for studying biological growth phenomena. The presentation is supported by many empirical data, which show that, in many countries, the phenomenon is going to be close to saturation. Finally, some considerations about new developments, after the present “certification era”, are proposed.

There is a growing academic literature exploring the fair trade movement but, to date, there has been little explicit discussion of accountability within the movement. This paper aims to cast the development of the fair trade movement within a shift from trust‐based relationships to standards‐based systems. The authors particularly aim to focus on the dominance of an external accountability approach being used for Fair Trade Labelling Organization International (FLO) certified products versus an internal accountability approach being adopted through organizational self‐assessment of World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) members.

While this is predominantly a conceptual paper, the authors draw on primary research with northern and southern fair trade organizations (FTOs). Five southern FTOs were interviewed along with three northern FTOs.

The paper illustrates the conflict that Power expressed about trust increasingly being placed in formalized “rituals” of auditing rather than in organizations. Standards‐based certification has played a crucial role in mainstreaming fair trade food which reduces the trust relationship to a label and relies on market‐based mechanisms of “ethical consumerism” to signal (dis)content with the operations of the certification system. By contrast, organizational self‐assessment under development by WFTO, which has proven popular amongst southern FTOs, fitting their organisational culture(s) and contributing to organisational learning and democracy, creates greater accountability to internal stakeholders such as producers.

This paper draws direct comparisons between the FLO system of certification of products and the WFTO process of self‐assessment of organizations. It demonstrates that the WFTO system builds on the movement's tradition of democracy and trust. Producers, southern FTOs, and northern FTOs must demonstrate their democratic principles throughout the supply chain up to consumers. Conversely the FLO system governs the products themselves and largely leaves the participants, other than producer groups, free of demands for corporate social responsibility and organizational learning.

With the rapid growth and increased consumption of biofuels worldwide, and the multitude of policy decisions supporting this expansion, growing concerns about the biofuels sustainability have arisen. Therefore, the European project “ITAKA”, aiming at supporting the development of aviation biofuels in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner, has devoted considerable effort to take sustainability into account, in a quantitative and qualitative manner. This paper aims to calculate a robust assessment of a life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) for the entire ITAKA value chain.

The calculation for the produced bio jet fuel has been set up using the roundtable on sustainable biomaterials (RSB) European Union (EU) renewable energy directive (RED) methodology, through the online RSB tool. This pathway includes feedstock production, feedstock processing, biofuel production, biofuel distillation and all transport steps involved.

A significant reduction in GHG emissions has been demonstrated, up to 66 per cent emission reduction if one considers a mature pathway for the entire ITAKA biofuel chain.

The camelina oil produced can be sustainable according to RSB and RSB EU RED schemes if the practices defined in the project are applied.

Application of different frameworks (actual vs theoretical) to the ITAKA value chain has aimed at testing and demonstrating the commercial application of the sustainability standards in Europe and the readiness of biofuels in Europe as a major means to decrease GHG emissions in aviation.

This paper aims to explore how the Italian wine industry discloses corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and quality certifications and the corresponding determinants via websites. The study also aims to investigate the relationship between CSR practices and financial performance. The information consistency between the quality certificates reported on corporate websites and official database statements is also explored. Lastly, the paper investigates how the relationship between the size of wineries and CSR disclosure changes according to firms' geographic location.

This paper analyses CSR corporate communication via the websites of a sample of Italian wineries by adjusting the theoretical framework developed by Amran (2012) to the wine sector's peculiarities. Moreover, a cross-certification analysis and a moderation analysis were performed to fulfil the purpose of the research.

The analysis revealed the extensive use of CSR disclosure via websites. It was found that company size positively affects CSR disclosure and Quality Certification Disclosure (QCD), while geographic location slightly moderates the relationship between the two variables. In addition, a negative relationship between CSR disclosure and corporate financial performance and its reverse causality emerged. Moreover, for most wineries, information consistency between the quality certificates reported on corporate websites and official database statements was observed.

The study's main limitation is that the search process was performed during lockdown. Therefore, the examined issues could change in the near future due to the shift in priorities that the COVID-19 pandemic is determining.

The results can help managers implement CSR disclosure and QCD practices to enhance stakeholder legitimacy and enable their companies to compete in strongly competitive international markets.

The paper represents the first study investigating online QCD and its consistency in the Italian wine sector.

ISO 9001 certification is nowadays considered to be one of the most effective tools that can be adopted for guiding the management of Quality Systems. The stunning growth observed by these standards all over the world confirms a strong polarization of enterprises' interest in this practice. Owing to the wide incidence of this phenomenon, a deep investigation of ISO 9001 diffusion over time is of mandatory importance. The research here reported covers the development of statistical models in order to characterize the ISO 9001 certification evolution on a country basis, as well as worldwide.

Based on the pioneering results obtained by Saraiva and Duarte, an attempt is now made to: identify clusters of countries, according to their ISO 9001 evolution patterns; characterize the worldwide ISO 9001 certification evolution; identify which are the main evolution perspectives for ISO 9001 diffusion; identify significant variables that may influence ISO 9001 quality management systems diffusion; develop mathematical models in order to characterize the ISO 9001 certification evolution on a country‐by‐country basis.

The research carried out allowed one to analyze the worldwide evolution of ISO 9001 certification and suggest new prediction models for the diffusion of quality management systems certification at different geographical realities.

This paper covers the development of statistical models in order to characterize the ISO 9001 certification evolution on a country basis, as well as worldwide.

Fungus-resistant grape varieties (FRGVs) are the key to more environment-friendly wine growing. This paper aims to examine whether German consumers are willing to buy environment-friendly wines. The study focuses on reducing the amount of fungicides applied and the improvement of the carbon footprint, which are both related to the FRGVs . Furthermore, a cluster analysis leads to more insights into the consumer groups that are open to environment-friendly wine.

A choice experiment was conducted among 1,500 German wine drinkers with the following attributes: “reduction of pesticides”, “reduction of carbon emissions”,“familiarity with the grape variety”,“organic certification”, the slogan “better for the environment” and“price”. The individual-level, part-worth utilities were estimated using the Hierarchical Bayes method. The Ward’s method was used to cluster the individual-level, part-worth utilities. The participants’ wine involvement and environmentalism are used to further analyse the sample.

The most important attribute is “price”, followed by the “familiarity with the grape variety” and the “reduction of pesticides” and of “carbon emissions”. The least important attribute is “better for the environment”. The cluster analysis results in three clusters: the green-minded, the traditionalists and the price-minded.

The insights about the consumer acceptance of environment-friendly wines can be used to market these wines more effectively to consumers.

This is the first study that combines a choice experiment with attributes that are derived from the benefits of fungus-resistant grape varieties.

The study aims to determine whether audited organizations experience differences between external audits and official controls.

A survey among 100 organic food producers was conducted to explore differences regarding the usability of external audits and official controls. The survey was conducted in 2020 using the computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) method supplemented by the computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) method. Organizations processing organic farming products in Poland were chosen for the study.

Three primary benefits associated with external audits and official controls were identified, i.e. (1) enabling and initiating activities related to the improvement of the organization, (2) improving the financial performance of the organization and (3) enhancing credibility. For most organizations, the assessment of these features was at the same level for both external audits and official control. However, if these assessments differed, commercial audits were assessed at a higher level than official controls.

The study is limited to only one specific type of manufacturing organization and one European country.

The literature review shows some conceptual differences between audits and official controls, but the results of this study show that the business environment does not perceive these differences as significant. Thus, the value of the study is reflected in the conclusion that both external audits and official controls are considered useful and credible approaches to monitoring the quality within the organization, which allows us to state that external evaluation is generally seen as an opportunity to improve the performance of the organization.

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important in supply chains, particularly in those that function in highly competitive industries. The purpose of this paper is to understand more deeply the role sustainability plays within supply chains based on a qualitative study conducted in the New Zealand wine industry.

This research followed a grounded theory methodology which used in‐depth interviews with managers from wineries, retailers, and restaurants; observations of operations; and interpretation of field documents/artifacts.

The findings show that managers within the New Zealand wine supply chains are trying to find ways to leverage sustainability‐related competencies for competitive advantage in what is now a highly competitive industry. Within this context, the emergent theme of searching for advantage through sustainability involves: pursuing and leveraging sustainability; telling a story that involves sustainability; managing supply chain relationships around sustainability; and experimenting with sustainability initiatives.

The research is limited to the context and participants of the study. As a qualitative inquiry, findings are exploratory. The research implications, however, involve deeper studies into how wine industry firms in other nations and regions of the world are treating sustainability and searching for competitive advantages. Further validation of the models that emerge can be accomplished through future research, which would draw on aggregate data.

The approach and context within which sustainability is explored is unique. By seeking deep insights from managers on the cutting edge of sustainability initiatives, we are able to get close to strategic thinking and explore the impact on distribution relationships.