Understanding business model sustainability in food production systems through Life Cycle Thinking

The sustainability of global food systems represents a critical challenge across developed and developing countries, considering its long-term environmental, economic and societal impacts. Business models (BM) play a vital role in shaping the food system and provide opportunities for boosting sustainability in food production. Socio-economic impacts are more complex to be assessed through quantitative measures; therefore, methods for social sustainability assessment need to be further explored for a reliable quantification of socio-economic impacts. Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) is adopted to investigate the sustainability of BM in food systems in different global regions, and can be combined with additional methodologies to encompass the complexity of socio-economic drivers and impacts in food system sustainability. This work seeks to address the following research questions: (1) How can LCT be applied to assess the sustainability performance of BM in food production? (2) How can BM be designed to foster sustainable practices in agricultural production? (3) What are the main socio-economic factors that are connected to the sustainability of food BM in different regional contexts? Three scientific works (the thesis’ chapters) collaborate to address these questions transversally. First, an assessment framework is developed to assess social handprints generated by City Region Food System initiatives on stakeholders’ well-being. Second, a case study of a horticultural farmers’ cooperative in Costa Rica drove the analysis of life cycle environmental and economic costs connected to agroecological practices to improve the cooperative’s BM sustainability. Third, Costa Rican coffee farmers were reached to understand the psychosocial and behavioural factors driving the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices in coffee production, and to unveil a social impact pathway towards farmers’ well-being based on statistical modelling. Together, these studies allow to examine the subject of sustainable BM from diverse perspectives, offering valuable implications for enhancing the socio-economic sustainability of agricultural practices.