A theory of change of supply chain transparency for sustainability

The goal of initiatives aiming to improve the public transparency of supply chains for sustainability governance is typically to estimate and reveal the exposure of certain actors (e.g., companies, consumers, countries) to specific production systems and their associated environmental impacts. However, this is only an intermediate goal. The underlying objectives of revealing exposure are typically (i) to attribute causal impacts to specific actors and actions in value chains, (ii) to identify those actors that have leverage over these impacts, and (iii) to assign responsibility for these actors to address these sustainability issues, and (iv) to hold them accountable for fulfilling their responsibilities. 

These dimensions are distinct and present important nuances, but are inherently interrelated. However, in the discourses and documents on supply chain sustainability governance, including from actors operating in this domain (private companies, civil society, public actors, academics and think tanks), the relationship between exposure, causality, leverage, responsibility and accountability is very rarely rigorously defined and articulated in an explicit theory of change. 

The objectives of this article are (i) to unpack these different concepts as relevant to supply chain transparency and sustainability governance, and (ii) from that, to build a more explicit and structured theory of change of the role of transparency initiatives in achieving sustainable supply chains, and (iii) based on that theory of change, to identify implications and ways forward to improve the design and implementation of transparency initiatives. We argue for the importance of indicators of exposure, causal attribution, leverage, responsibility; the need to consider each of these concepts as gradients, e.g. with higher and lower levels of responsibility and leverage; and to look for the blindspots, e.g., actors that are not currently identified as being responsible or having leverage but that might do.