Corporate Supply Chain Responsibility: Drivers and Barriers for Sustainable Food Retailing Olga Chkanikova * and Oksana Mont The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, Sweden ABSTRACT The paper aims to provide a systematic overview of the drivers and barriers for food retailers to implement corporate supply chain responsibility. The research is based on a literature analysis and semi-structured interviews with food retailers, with primary focus on Swedish conventional supermarket chains. The paper contributes to the existing body of research by providing the food retailers’ own perspective on the factors that trigger addressing sustainability concerns in their supply chain and by providing a taxonomy of drivers and barriers. As a result, a number of additional factors that influence the launch of responsible supply chain practices have been identified. Interestingly some of these factors are beyond the trivial driver-barrier dichotomy. This paper is of interest to food retailers who aim to design sustainable supply chain strategies and justify associated investments, and for policymakers who aim to support retailers in their transition towards sustainable practices. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 20 February 2012; revised 25 September 2012; accepted 5 October 2012 Keywords: corporate responsibility; supply chain; food retailers; drivers; barriers Introduction I N RECENT YEARS, THE ROLE OF RETAILERS IN THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DEBATE HAS BEEN WIDELY DISCUSSED. RETAILERS ARE seen as a vital change agent towards sustainable food systems. Due to their size, consolidation of the bargaining power and strategic placement at the intersection between different supply chain actors food retailers are in a position to enforce the sustainability agenda both in production and consumption practices (Ytterhus et al., 1999; Jones et al., 2005b; CIAA, 2009). Lately retailers have revealed the signs of ‘agency’ towards responsible supply chain practices by launching a diversity of sustainability initiatives (ERRT and EuroCommerce, 2010). Despite retailers’ efforts to curb sustainability impacts in their supply chain operations, the retail sector faces a number of challenges in bringing about positive changes towards higher level of sustainability (Hall, 2001; Johnson, 2004). Recent reports on monitoring European retailers’ environmental commitments revealed that sustainability initiatives are still marginal, fragmented, and unsystematic (BIO Intelligence Service, 2009; European Commission, 2010). In order to assist the retail business in successful implementation of sustainability in their supply chain operations, the important question to be understood is what motivates and hinders corporate practitioners in launching a variety of environmentally and socially responsible practices. Providing a comprehensive overview of these factors would raise *Correspondence to: Olga Chkanikova, The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, PO Box 196, Tegnersplatsen 4, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden. E-mail: olga.chkanikova@iiiee.lu.se Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Corp. Soc. Responsib. Environ. Mgmt. (2012) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/csr.1316