Building a roundtable for a sustainable hazelnut supply chain

Abstract

Considering the increasing awareness of the sustainability issues in the hazelnut sector in Turkey as well as its leading role in the international market, this paper provides a thorough qualitative analysis of the potential of creating a roundtable for sustainable hazelnuts, and the key success factors to consider. This is done by combining insights from the most relevant stakeholders in the hazelnut sector and the existing literature on partnerships for sustainability. The research findings show that there is potential to create a roundtable for sustainable hazelnuts. The issues in the sector are highly complex, there exist multiple interdependences among stakeholders, and potential solutions can be achieved through joint interventions. This research equips practitioners with relevant information that allows them to better understand the potential and the formation phase of a multi-stakeholder partnership for the sector, facilitating the process and increasing its chance for success in case there is a desire to create such an organization. Meanwhile, a more practical and sector-specific perspective is provided to the existing literature, particularly to that on the formation process of partnerships. In addition, the methodology followed in this paper indicates a clear and systematic approach to analyze the potential of other partnerships' formation which can be applicable to different settings.