SUSTAINABILITY IN HORTICULTURAL CHAINS

Sustainability, people, planet and profit are currently modern issues. Our societies are asking for products and services that are produced and delivered in sustainable ways. However the concept of sustainability is very broad and has to be made more concrete at this time. With a top-down/bottom-up approach the concept of sustainability, a set of sustainability aspects can be identified that have the support of the various stakeholders and that can be determined with the use of indicators. The availability of information/data and the organisation of information to use indicators is a main aspect in the determination of sustainability aspects. Analyses of chain information systems showed that these systems provide several linkages that can be helpful in the assessment of sustainability. However, chain information systems are currently most applicable for determination of the environmental dimension of sustainability and readily linked to a product, much like an environmental Life Cycle Assessment. To realize such a combination, information in chain information systems have to be transformed, by model or database, to create the right information output. The social dimension is not very easily determined; it is more concerned with processes instead of products. As such the determination of social sustainability requires additional research.