Muhammad Shahid
RESEARCH SUBJECT AND INTERESTS
- Food supply chains
- Social sustainability
- Cheese processing industry
- Continuous Improvement
My project title is ‘Assessing social sustainability in the UK food supply chains’. Sustainability is a burning issue in the business world since the Brundtland report "our common future" (1987). Later, Elkington (1997) described that sustainability has three main dimensions: 1) economic, 2) social and 3) environmental. My literature review shows that the social sustainability dimension has been overlooked due to a number of reasons.
Therefore, in my research project I have developed and apply the framework to assess social sustainability in UK food supply chains using the cheese supply chains as an example. I have compared three main methods to assess social sustainability: social impact assessment (SIA), social return on investment (SROI) and social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). In my project I have studied all three methods and compare them against each other and selected S-LCA to apply on cheese supply chains. The research methodology is advanced gradually based on different steps. In first step, a questionnaire has been sent to organic and non-organic cheese manufacturers to find out whether and how they are addressing social sustainability. In a second step, a framework is developed to assess social sustainability in UK cheese manufacturers. In a third step, the developed framework is applied on all selected cheese manufacturers and developed six case studies. In the final step, results are compiled to see the social sustainability in UK cheese manufacturers.
Supervisory Team:
Dr Ulrich Schmutz (Director of Studies)
Dr Liz Trenchard
Prof. Moya Kneafsey
BIOGRAPHY
I have completed my graduation in 2006 from The University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan. I had my post-graduation from The University of Nottingham, UK and since January 2014 I am continuing my academic studies with a PhD at Coventry University. The working title of my 3-year full-time PhD research is “Social sustainability in organic food supply chains in the UK”.
Languages:
English, Urdu and Punjabi
