Joint Research Conference “Sustainability in Global Value Chains” will be Held on Dec. 7, 2021

As an associated event of the Forum on Globalization and Industrialization “Rewiring Global Production Networks for Sustainability”, the online research conference “Sustainability in Global Value Chains (GVCs)” will be held on December 7, 2021, in cooperation with the Kiel Centre for Globalization (KCG).

The conference will start at 9am (CET) with welcoming remarks by Prof. Dr. Amrita Narlikar (President of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)) and Hiroshi Kuniyoshi, Ph.D. (Deputy to the Director General of the United Nations of Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)).

Prof. Paola Conconi, Ph.D. (Université Libre de Bruxelles and CEPR) will give a keynote speech on “Trade Protection along Supply Chains”.

There will be three parallel sessions (in addition to one parallel flash session with three sub-sessions) where young and experienced scholars specializing in supply chain research will present their current research covering various aspects related to sustainability in the global value chains:

• Parallel Sessions 1: Trade in GVCs, reshoring and resilience / Sustainable governance of GVCs
• Parallel Sessions 2: Greenhouse gas emissions, trade and GVCs / Mega trends and the future of sustainable and resilient GVCs
• Parallel Sessions 3: Actors in GVCs: Traders households and firms / Governance and corporate social responsibility in garment value chains

KCG Researcher Finn Ole Semrau (Kiel Institute for the World Economy & KCG) will present his ongoing research titled “On the Drivers of Clean Production: Firms’ Global Value Chain Positioning” in the session “Greenhouse gas emissions, trade and GVCs”. His research contributes to the understanding of the relation between a firm’s GVC participation and environmental performance by shedding light on the role of stakeholders’ demand in foreign markets. He finds that firms in downstream GVC position – being closer to final consumption – produce in a relatively cleaner manner compared to firms in upstream GVC position.  His analysis additionally finds that with strong exposure to stringent market-related environmental policy in export destination markets negatively moderates the relation between GVC upstreamness and dirty production, linking to the importance of regulation-push, demand-pull and learning-by-exporting for dirty producers in upstream position, characterised by a higher distance to the technology frontier.

The research conference is organized by the Research Network Sustainable Global Supply Chains in cooperation with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Kiel Centre for Globalization (KCG). The newly created research network is a joint initiative by the German Development Institute (DIE-GDI), the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA Hamburg), and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). The network is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The conference agenda and registration information can be found here.