30 April 2020 - 15:00 - 16:00 CET

Stefano Ponte joins the GLOBE Webinar Series to discuss his new book "Business, Power and Sustainability in a World of Global Value Chains" (2019, Zed Books). Then, Dr. Axel Marx (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven) will offer some reflections and kick off the discussion ahead of the audience Q&A.

About the book: The interaction of sustainability governance and global value chains has crucial implications the world over. When it comes to sustainability the last decade has witnessed the birth of hybrid forms of governance where business, civil society and public actors interact at different levels, leading to a focus on concepts of legitimacy within multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs).

Based in over 15 years of theoretical engagement and field research, Business, Power and Sustainability draws from both labour-intensive value chains, such as in the agro-food sector (coffee, wine, fish, biofuels, palm oil), and from capital-intensive value chains such as in shipping and aviation, to discuss how sustainability governance can be best designed, managed and institutionalized in today’s world of global value chains (GVCs). Examining current theoretical and analytical efforts aimed at including sustainability issues in GVC governance theory, it expands on recent work examining GVC upgrading by introducing the concept of environmental upgrading; and through new conceptions of orchestration, it provides suggestions for how governments and international organizations can best facilitate the achievement of sustainability goals.

About the author: Stefano Ponte is a professor of international political economy at Copenhagen Business School and Director at the Centre for Business and Development Studies. His previous books include New Actors and Alliances in Development (2014); Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (2011) and The Coffee Paradox (Zed 2005).

Discussant: Axel Marx (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies) 
Moderator: Kari Otteburn (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies) 

Participation is free and the webinar can be joined from anywhere in the world.

ABOUT GLOBE:

Funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program, the Project “Global Governance and the European Union: Future Trends and Scenarios” (GLOBE) addresses the strategic priorities identified in the EU Global Strategy such as – trade, development, security and climate change – as well as migration and global finance, in order to identify the major roadblocks to effective and coherent global governance by multiple stakeholders in a multipolar world. GLOBE seeks to provide policy makers, academics and the general public with an analytical grip on the state of play in global governance, by developing new theoretical and methodological approaches. It also hopes to equip national and European policy makers with tools to identify constraints and opportunities in a set of global governance scenarios for 2030 and 2050.