Paper short abstract:

This paper explores ethical tensions surround issues of sustainability in dairy production networks, drawing on case study research from the Caribbean and UK.

Paper long abstract:

When we talk of sustainability we often think of environmental sustainability first and foremost. However, the ethical good of environmental sustainability interacts with other ethical goods of human nutrition, animal welfare and producer livelihoods. With rapidly changing patterns of food production and consumption across the globe, how do we conceptualise and balance these increasingly competing ethical goods and tensions, and what impact does this have on our understanding of sustainability? This paper draws on previous research on the dairy value chain in Trinidad and Tobago, and the wider Caribbean, and preliminary findings from current research in the UK industry to pull out some of the key ethical tensions in global dairy production networks and how different stakeholders at different locations within them construct discourses in relation to their sustainability.