Sustainability in the Coffee Sector: A Literature Review

This chapter presents the results of a scoping review on sustainability in the coffee sector. Scoping reviews allow broad research questions to be explored and are useful as a way of gaining a bird’s-eye view of a topic and identifying knowledge gaps (Khalil et al., Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing 13:118–123, 2016). In this project, the scoping review involved mapping previous studies on sustainability in the coffee sector to provide a comprehensive overview of this broad field of research, prioritizing breadth over depth rather than looking for exhaustiveness or completeness. The review was guided by the following questions: What themes are currently being studied? What insights does the literature have to offer regarding sustainability in the coffee supply chain? To what extent do studies focused on the coffee supply chain explore challenges and critical issues? The findings revealed that the literature is quite fragmented, crossing different disciplines. However, five research areas were identified: (a) the consumer’s perspective; (b) voluntary and private coffee standards and certifications; (c) firms’ strategies and practices; (d) sustainable supply chains; (e) miscellaneous. Although some studies mentioned issues and challenges faced by different actors in managing sustainability, no article explicitly addressed the topic of sustainability tensions in the coffee supply chain. Thus, a gap in the research literature emerged.