Global decisions vs. local realities: Sustainability standards, priorities and upgrading dynamics in agricultural global production networks

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) in global production networks have grown significantly in prominence. Existing research has largely assumed that VSS are create linear upgrading or downgrading outcomes, and has studied VSSs from the point of adoption in the GPN, rather than a broader range of stages in their lifecycle. To address these limitations, and building on literature around power and disarticulations in GPNs, we develop a novel constellation of priorities (CoP) model to unpack the diverse and often diverging boardroom ( Northern lead firm) and local (southern suppliers) priorities involved in such standards.. Through in-depth fieldwork on horticulture in Kenya and cocoa in Nicaragua, we find significant divergences in priorities between farmer groups in both countries and lead firms in UK and Germany. Significantly, these differences are prominent around the environment., We illustrate that diverging priorities caused contestations, leading to simultaneous economic and environmental downgrading, and social upgrading.