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Paper short abstract:

As sustainability has evolved into a prominent buzzword, the paper interrogates and problematizes the concept's diverse framings, meanings and implications in the context of diverse stakeholders within the value chains and production network literature.

Paper long abstract:

Sustainability is manifesting itself as an increasingly prominent buzzword across global and regional value chains and production networks literature. Mechanisms such as the proliferation of voluntary private standards and certifications, fair redistribution of value generated and environmentally efficient technological advances demonstrate its omnipresence, but also show that sustainability seems to be driven by a variety of motivations including ethical awareness, supply security and risk aversion. Given the term's malleable meanings, diverse stakeholders across varied contexts use 'sustainability' without problematizing what it is or is to entail: this not only causes divergent opinions as to what it stands for, but also affects the intended implications for production and trade in value chains and production networks. There is thus a need to interrogate the meanings, assumptions and framings of sustainability in a value chains and production network context, thereby abetting improved understanding of the intended implications for various stakeholders.

This paper performs a meta-study of existing value chain/production network research. It seeks to review motivations for inserting sustainability into production networks, problematizes non-existent or diverging definitions of sustainability, and highlights how different framings filter into outcomes. Through a typology categorizing the links between sustainability and value chains/production networks, it reviews existing literature while also making an original contribution through its proposed categorisation. It also asks how its findings are relevant against the backdrop of the growing polycentricity of trade, arguing that unpacking the implications of sustainability's many framings and facets is essential amid ever-growing complexities in trade and production relations.