Motivations and Barriers of Using Emerging Technology in Eco-label Certification for Sustainability, from the certification companies’ perspective

Abstract: The demand for organic sustainable products has been growing exponentially in the past years, pressuring the industry to showcase the sustainable origin and conditions of their products to their consumers. Companies use certifications and eco-labels to show the sustainability behind their products, but the standards behind these certifications can be hard to understand as certification companies are struggling to communicate them to the end consumers. Emerging technologies such as QR codes, IoT and blockchain provide new options for increasing traceability and transparency in the certification industry, but these technologies are not widely adopted. This thesis investigates the current practices in certification companies by performing semi-structured interviews with different actors in the certification industry, to understand what are the motivations and barriers that companies see in the adoption of new technologies for transparency and traceability. Once motivations and barriers have been identified, the authors frame them into a motivational model and propose organisational strategies for these companies in order to overcome the barriers and produce change towards technology adoption, traceability and transparency improvement, and sustainability advocacy.Industry practitioners can use these technologies to increase the trust in their brands and to ensure the sustainability of their supply chains. Further, new emerging technologies can be seen as a tool to assess the companies’ strategic and tactical decisions to comply with their CSR policy, decisions that can eventually lead to an organisational change providing companies with a more sustainable perspective of their operations.