Call for abstracts to NESS workshop: Governing global trade - Facilitating effective policy mixes from the local to the global

The 17th Nordic Environmental Social Science (NESS) Conference will be hosted by Uppsala University in Sweden, 9-11 June 2026. The conference brings together scholars across research fields for meeting and discussing interdisciplinary knowledge co-production and co-creation for sustainability. Read more about the NESS conference and abstract submissions to workshops here. Abstract submissions to the NESS conference is open until 8 December 2025.

Focali members call for abstracts to NESS Workshop 6: “Governing global trade: Facilitating effective policy mixes from the local to the global”

European countries are deeply embedded in the global economy, which often results in the outsourcing of environmental impacts to other regions. In response, a wide range of governance interventions has emerged to promote the sustainability of European supply chains. These include voluntary certification schemes, corporate commitments, binding human rights and environmental due diligence laws, and environmental provisions in trade agreements.

Despite these initiatives, multiple challenges persist. Policies often face limited legitimacy or support in producer countries, political pushback and dilution within Europe due to geopolitical tensions and competitiveness concerns, insufficient transparency and traceability along supply chains, as well as delays and gaps in implementation. Another challenge is to meaningfully incorporate the lived experiences of actors in producer countries into policy design and implementation, ensuring that these policies are responsive to on-the-ground realities. Beyond the shortcomings of individual instruments, the central challenge lies in designing a coherent policy landscape that fosters synergies and complementarities across different interventions, while avoiding conflicts and governance gaps.

Key questions include:

• What are the limitations of individual governance instruments, and how can these be addressed through well-designed policy packages?

• To what extent can experiences from different sectors such as mining, agriculture, and textiles, as well as from different countries and governance levels, provide transferable lessons?

• What implementation gaps persist in Nordic countries, and how might they be closed?

• How can scientific evidence inform policy debates in a European political climate that has become increasingly resistant to mandatory supply chain regulations?

This workshop invites fully drafted manuscripts that offer both theoretical and empirical contributions on the environmental governance of global supply chains, drawing on diverse cases, sectors, and national contexts. We seek comparative insights across these experiences while also aiming to identify policy mixes that can most effectively tackle sustainability challenges associated with global supply chains. Submissions using a wide range of methodological approaches are welcome, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research.

Convenors
Johanna Coenen, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, Sweden
Martin Persson, Physical Resource Theory, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Malaika Yanou, Physical Resource Theory, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

All convenors of this workshop are members in the Focali reserch network and part of the new Focali Work Stream: “The EU Deforestation Regulation – from policy to impact” 

Read more about all workshops at the NESS Conference here

Photo: From Canva