Kristin Sippl is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Negotiations, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. She studies how people and organizations make pro-social decisions in the realms of ethical consumption and environmental sustainability governance. Projects explore the diffusion of fair trade and eco-labeling programs (voluntary sustainability standards) to non-traditional sectors, such as luxury and illicit goods; the determinants of effective activism; the evolution of social enterprises; and conceptions of ethical cannabis. She has particular expertise on the link between mercury pollution and gold mining. Kristin earned her Phd in Political Science from Boston University in 2016 and was previously a business analyst at Target Corporation. She now co-organizes the Boston hub of non-profit Civic Series.
Kristin Sippl is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Negotiations, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. She studies how people and organizations make pro-social decisions in the realms of ethical consumption and environmental sustainability governance. Projects explore the diffusion of fair trade and eco-labeling programs (voluntary sustainability standards) to non-traditional sectors, such as luxury and illicit goods; the determinants of effective activism; the evolution of social enterprises; and conceptions of ethical cannabis. She has particular expertise on the link between mercury pollution and gold mining. Kristin earned her Phd in Political Science from Boston University in 2016 and was previously a business analyst at Target Corporation. She now co-organizes the Boston hub of non-profit Civic Series.
This is a quick and easy news article on the link between poverty, mercury pollution, and gold mining. It explains the problems in the jewelry industry as well as public and civil society attempts to address them.
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is both a subsistence livelihood for millions of people and the leading source of mercury pollution globally. The United Nation’s 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury aims to address this challenge, but such public regulatory initiatives often struggle with effectiveness. This article explores what private and civil society actors can do to support or complement the Minamata Convention and reform ASGM more generally. Accordingly, it asks three questions: which private and civil society actors are advocating for improved governance of mercury and gold, what methods are they using, and what further research is needed to understand their current and potential governance contributions? To answer these questions, the article uses a transnational advocacy network framework to analyze original data compiled via hyperlink analysis, reviews of regulatory texts, and attendance at the Minamata Convention negotiations. The article finds significant differences between the types of actors comprising each advocacy network, and provides case studies of the leading private and civil actors that lobby, partner with, and bypass public actors to achieve their advocacy goals. Acknowledging the difficulty of governing global supply chains, the paper concludes by identifying four areas of future research needed to help governors achieve their potential.
This article uses a behavioral economics lens to identify the challenges the United Nation's Minamata Convention is likely to face in addressing the problem of mercury pollution from gold mining.
This article reviews Auld's use of historical and rational-choice institutionalism to explain the proliferation of certification programs in the coffee, fisheries, and forestry sectors.
To maximize persuasive power, ideational entrepreneurs should craft a 'creative type' persona, use discourse strategically, and offer useful resources.
Southern responses to Northern-led certification programs are understandable and largely predictable if the ideas, interests, and power of key actors are accurately assessed. When alignment and power are high, Northern programs will likely succeed. When they are low, they will likely fail. When they are at medium levels, Southern actors will likely launch competing programs and producer participation might be low but will likely skew South. This paper presents a case study of Southern responses to Northern certification of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), which are emblematic of the latter, medium-level state. It details four key Southern responses: cooperation, competition, low uptake levels, and program revision via supplementation. The Southern-led Alliance for Responsible Mining first cooperated with Fairtrade International, then built enough capacity to compete with it. Miners’ and programs’ interests aligned on income and deforestation, but diverged on chemicals and legality, leading to low uptake. The Alliance responded by launching a second sustainability standard called the CRAFT Code in 2018. Whereas certification rewards the use of best mining practices, the CRAFT Code rewards avoidance of the worst. By focusing on conflict and relaxing their stance on legality, mercury use, price floors, and the use of third-party audits, the Alliance created a program that aligns with the majority of actors’ interests and is likely to experience broad uptake but limited effects.
While much is known about transnational climate governance, less is known about transnationalism's contributions to the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper helps balance the literature via comparative analysis of the potential contributions of two voluntary sustainability certification programs for artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM): Fairtrade International and the Alliance for Responsible Mining. Assessment of four necessary conditions for SDG contributions (goal alignment, rule strength, uptake patterns, indirect effects) suggest weak contributions to date. First, only the weakest versions of standards are being adopted, and only by miners above the poverty line prior to certification. Second, adoption levels are low, and rates of decertification almost as high as certification. Third, awareness raising among consumers and partnerships with public actors are equally weak. Yet programs do align well with the SDGs and have potential. To improve, programs should consider uniting, becoming more “producer-friendly,” and consider the role within ASGM governance systems they are best suited to play (which may be none at all). Findings contribute to debates on the merits of increasing governance fragmentation and the role of political consumption in global problem solving. The ASGM case provides lessons about the diffusion of certification to new sectors, with the aim of guiding global resources towards their most efficient and effective ends.
This paper probes extant theory on product diversification in the empirical realm of fair trade and eco-labeling organizations (i.e., certification organizations). While much is known about diversification in for-profit firms, less is known about the more complex choices faced by hybrid organizations that balance social and economic objectives and curate symbolic, values-based portfolios. By process-tracing original interview data from three leading certification organizations, the paper finds that certification organizations prefer to diversify into product categories with three features: high levels of fit with the organization’s current clients, campaigns, and strategies; appealing market features, defined as highly integrated, predictable, low-risk supply chains and non-luxury status; and skillful activists who deploy discourse and resources strategically. Organizational fit and market features often drive decisions, but a product lacking these can still become certified if the product activist is skillful enough. The data did not fully support hypotheses on the primacy of exogenous opportunity structures and consumer values in diversification decisions. The findings contribute to the broader literatures on institutional entrepreneurship, market categories, and social movements. They also help activists and managers appraising this business and policy tool understand its potential and limits, guiding certification’s trajectory towards the markets it’s best suited to serve.
The marketing literature classifies products along a spectrum from utilitarian (e.g. rice) to hedonic (e.g. cannabis), and additionally using terms such as “luxury” and “illicit.” Research in business ethics has proposed a counter-intuitive mismatch between ethics and luxury, which has not yet been rigorously tested. This paper fills that gap by using a representative sample of roughly 2,000 consumers to conduct a survey experiment exploring consumers’ (potentially) divergent prosocial behavior in the face of varying product types. The findings will help activists, business leaders, and governments make efficient, effective decisions regarding their approach to the sustainability challenges posed by the luxury sector.
Work in progress exploring the consumer demand for and conceptualizations of social, economic, and environmental ethics in the emerging cannabis industry, and the private sector’s and civil society’s response. Draws on interviews and fieldwork from Portland, OR, Denver, CO, and (primarily) Boston, MA. Project will likely involve hiring of research assistants to help with Boston-based fieldwork, and is unfolding in close partnership with Elizabeth Bennett and other leading scholars in this subject area.
This book project updates the existing political consumption literature by providing overviews of the ethical options available in non-traditional but highly desired product categories currently ignored by mainstream research. The book takes the form of a self-help guide that walks the reader through the various stages of life and the ethical consumption options faced in each. The college years may focus on coffee, clothes, technological devices and school choices; young professional years on green jobs, yoga classes, wine, cannabis, and wedding paraphernalia; mid-life on houses, pets, sex toys and baby products; retirement on ethical travel. The project is still in the earliest possible phases. Meetings with publishers for feedback are scheduled.
