SDGs Labs <EU>

Bernhardt, Johanna /Aut.

Deporta, Tanya /contrib.

Rieckmann, Marco /contrib.

Jaeger, Larissa /contrib.

Scherak, Lukas /contrib.

Gruszka, Katarzyna /contrib.

Lindner, Line /contrib.

Campos, Susana Isabel /contrib.

Amaral, Carla /contrib.

Saldhena, Rita /contrib.

Grubnic, Danijela/ /contrib.

Peters, Suhita Osório /contrib.

WP 1 Report.

Common Knowledge Base and Need Analysis.

o.O. <Wien>

2020

ABSTRACT
The European agribusiness and food production sector is facing multidimensional sustainability challenges, among them are not only a growing scarcity of resources such as water, land, soil and the loss of biodiversity, but also a lack of work force and economic pressure due to the concentration of global markets. In order to meet these challenges in a globally coordinated manner, the world community agreed in 2015 on the framework of the 17 SDGs and the 169 targets. The agribusiness and food production sector is related to all 17 SDGs, as Rockström & Sukhdev show in their famous wedding ake graphic (Rockström & Sukhdev, 2016).

The following report presents the main findings of the expert interviews and the focus groups which were conducted with enterprises and business associations of the agribusiness and food production sector in the context of the project SDGs Labs. These findings play a vital role for developing the following parts of the project, in particular the SDGs Labs and the SDGs Academies, which aim at meeting the needs of practitioners in implementing the SDGs in business.

The interviews reflect a high awareness of the sustainability challenges which are perceived in the three dimensions of sustainable development, the ecological, the economic and the social, complemented by a fourth, the political-structural dimension.

Regarding the SDGs it turned out that they are better known amongst the interview partners and focus group participants as expected. Most of them find opportunities for business in the SDGs. They regard them as a source of inspiration for rethinking the own business, for changing perspectives and for treating sustainability issues in a more integrated way. Boundaries and limits are seen as well, in particular in translating them to business and breaking them down to an applicable practical level.

Interview partners and focus group participants see high innovation potentials in the SDGs and give examples for different types of innovation. Innovation potentials are seen in products, in processes, in technological and digital developments, in organisation and structure, as well as in marketing and in social innovation. Even though these innovations tackle sustainable development, they are often not directly linked to the SDGs.

The interviews as well as the focus groups revealed a clear need for support in better understanding and operationalizing the SDGs in business. There is a need for awareness building measures, for trainings and seminars to better understand each single SDG, and to receive an integrated view of the SDGs as a total. Concerning the pedagogics, it seems crucial to touch people in their emotions, thus, to work with playful, interactive methods.

A further need concerns exchange, cooperation and networks, where various types and settings of exchange are proposed – from small scaled focus groups with enterprises working in a similar business field over working groups on the SDGs in a certain geographical area over trans-regional exchange with enterprises from other countries to large scaled multi-stakeholder networks.

Furthermore, good practices are highly appreciated as useful inspiration how to translate the SDGs into concrete business cases. Finally, interview partners and focus groups participants stress the importance of pilots, whereby the understanding of pilots is different. Some refer to the pilot cases in the meaning of the innovation labs, others understand pilots in the sense of developing and testing tools and methods to apply the SDGs

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 8
1.1. The project SDGs Labs – Making the SDGs our business 8
1.2. Context of WP1 within the project SDGs Labs 8
1.3. Objectives of the common knowledge base and the needs analysis 9
1.4. Structure of the report 9

2. RESEARCH DESIGN & RESEARCH PROCESS 12
2.1. Desktop Research 12
2.2. Empirical Research 13

3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 18
3.1. Sustainability challenges in the agribusiness and food production sector 18
3.2. Sustainable Development Goals and business 20
3.3. Sustainability-driven innovations 22
3.4. Competencies for a sustainable business 24

4. REGIONAL CONTEXTS 28
4.1. Regional profiles 28
4.2. Partners of the expert interviews 32
4.3. Participants of the focus groups 35

5. SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES IN AGRIBUSINESS AND FOOD PRODUCTION 38
5.1. Awareness of Sustainability Issues 39
5.2. Ecological dimension 40
5.3. Economic dimension 43
5.4. Social dimension 47
5.5. Policy-structural dimension 48
5.6. Conclusion and outlook 50

6. ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE SDGs 52
6.1. Experience with the SDGs 52
6.2. Attitudes towards the SDGs 53
6.3. Opportunities of the SDGs 54
6.4. Boundaries of the SDGs 56
6.5. Conclusion and outlook 59

7. SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN INNOVATION 60
7.1. Definition of innovation 60
7.2. Innovation potentials the SDGs 61
7.3. Drivers and pre-conditions for innovation 65
7.4. Conclusion and outlook 66

8. NEEDS FOR SDGs-RELATED COMPETENCIES 68
8.1. SDGs-related competencies 68
8.2. Needs and expectations towards the project SDGs Labs 69
8.3. Cooperation with Higher Education Institutes 73
8.4. Support on a policy and structural level 73
8.5. Conclusion and outlook 75

9. SUMMARY AND OUTLINE 76
9.1. Sustainability challenges in the agribusiness and food production sector 76
9.2. Opportunities and boundaries of the SDGs 80
9.3. Innovation potentials of the SDGs 81
9.4. Needs and expectations towards the project SDGs Labs 82

10. LITERATURE 84
10.1. Theoretical background 84
10.2. Research design 85

APPENDICES
A) Practical guide for the expert interviews
B) Guiding questions for the expert interviews
C) Analysis frame for the expert interviews
D) Practical guide for the focus groups
E) Guiding questions for the focus groups
F) Analysis frame for the focus groups

↑ https://sdgs-labs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Report_WP1.pdf

26.10.2020