SUSTAINABILITY DIMENSIONS DRIVEN BY SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES IN ORGANIC CERTIFICATION:

AMAZONIAN AÇAÍ BERRY CASE

Resumo

This research aims to identify the sustainability dimensions driven by socio-environmental practices in
organic certification, and the impact of these practices on the operational performance of the dyad,
agro-industry and extractivist farmers. The sustainable supply chain management literature was used to
support the sustainability dimensions, identified through the socio-environmental criteria present in the
implementation of organic certification, which meets both government legal requirements and customer
pressure. Our sample is composed of 206 questionnaires. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Multiple
Regression were used for data analysis and representation. Organic certification for extractivist açaí berry
farmers is represented by four sustainability dimensions generated from factor analysis of the practices:
sustainable natural resources; sustainable human resources; sustainable awareness; and sustainable
regulation. All the dimensions had a positive, significant relationship with operational performance,
the greatest impact being on sustainable human resources. This paper contributes to the literature on
sustainable supply chains in four aspects. First, it considers the role of training human resources, which
is still at an early stage. Second, it presents the sustainability dimensions based on the demands of
customers and the government. Third, by advancing the discussion about the importance of certification,
in our case organic agri-food, it aims at implementation of sustainable practices, mainly for small suppliers
run by families with difficult geographic access, such as those in our research. Fourth, it emphasizes the
importance of the dyad relationship in developing sustainable suppliers.