Taking into account retailers’ critical position in the value chain, their sector’s economic significance and environmental externalities, the institutional agenda and SDGs, dr. Lina Dagilienė presented the research „Sustainability of retailers in their supply chains: Evidence from Germany and Lithuania“ in EURAM-2020 conference track on “Innovation for Circularity, Green-tech, & Sustainability“, December 4th, 2020. The aim of the research is to explore drivers influencing retailers to shift to more sustainable business models. The key results show that retail chains in both countries create their sustainability agendas based on triple environmental-legal-financial concerns. However, different types of retail chains – namely premium retailers, typical retailers, and discounters – implement their sustainability discourse quite differently. Interestingly, retailers “shift” their responsibility to the customers rather than encourage themselves to make more sustainable choices. We observe a more passive and responsive role of retailing chains because of the inherent trade-off between revenue growth and sustainable consumption. The original contribution lies in exploring how retail chains adapt institutional competing logics and are influenced by multiple drivers when constructing their sustainability agenda.
