Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Antonio Brunori, secretary-general of PEFC Italy, explains to Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh how the Forests for Fashion initiative helps fashion brands develop transparency in their pulp-based fibre supply chains.

The apparel sector’s growing demand for viscose means increasing deforestation risks for the sector – but PEFC’s chain of custody approach helps the industry source certified-sustainable supply.

Mark Everard, ecosystems services expert and associate professor at the University of the West of England, explains PVC’s sustainable future to Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb.

Everard outlines how the vinyl sector has engaged with five key sustainability challenges for over the past couple of decades, and they debate why the developments have been rather under the radar.

This week: Tamara Ansons, behaviour science consultant at Ipsos, on new research that shows how younger consumers are engaging with corporate sustainability issues. And Niels Wielaard, founder of Satelligence, on how using remote sensing data can help brands with tropical supply chains reduce deforestation risks.

Plus: 50m hectares more deforestation says Greenpeace, plastic ingestion dangers, and UK legislates for net-zero emissions, in the news digest.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Click here for more detail about the Ipsos-Innovation Forum research. We’re looking for new partners to work with to develop more research that is really valuable for business. Interested? Click here to get in touch.

Peter McAllister, executive director, Ethical Trading Initiative, and Ian Welsh discuss trends in how companies are engaging with modern slavery in supply chains, and why forced labour keeps appearing in new places.

McAllister argues the case for transparency and normalising in consumer eyes that there are going to be problems and it’s how they are fixed that’s important. He outlines why businesses should adopt a due diligence approach to track labour migration, and how to ask the right questions internally for companies and when engaging with suppliers.

Tensie Whelan, director, NYU Stern Centre for Sustainable Business, and former president of Rainforest Alliance discusses with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb her work helping future business leaders embed sustainability in operations and demonstrate the causality of the relationship between good ESG performance and economic return. Whelan argues that company accounting is currently designed to value capital assets and not take account of some of more intangible indicators of company value such as IP or sustainability of operations.

This week: David Wilkinson, head of agriculture procurement at PepsiCo, on the technology that, at scale, is growing efficiencies in-the-field in the brand’s supply chains. And Libby Bernick, managing director of Trucost Corporate Business, S&P Global, on why market mechanisms currently don’t reflect the true cost of food, and the role of better data management in solving this.

Plus: Waitrose trials packaging-free refills, labour challenges in Pacific tuna supply chains, and endemic low wages in the apparel sector, in the news digest.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Andreas Streubig, director, global sustainability, at Hugo Boss discusses with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh how the fashion business organises its supply chains, developing more transparency. Streubig argues the case for sector-wide platforms and pre-competitive collaboration to deal supply chain challenges, and to combat the risks of a fragmentation of approaches.

Customers, he says, are ever-more aware of sustainability issues but that these are not yet significantly influencing buying decisions.

Justin Pariag, head of sustainable business at Dutch retailer De Bijenkorf, talks with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about how such a business can influence the sustainable apparel movement.

They discuss the role of department stores in driving sustainable change through engagement with both end consumers and the brands. Pariag argues that story-telling is crucial to engage the former with products that are more sustainable.

This week: Mariano Lozano, CEO of Danone North America, speaks to Toby Webb about making the business case for real change in agriculture practices. And Jill Wheeler and Duane Martin from Syngenta talk with Ian Welsh about specific commodity supply challenges and innovations that can provide solutions.

Plus: plastic waste gets political in the Philippines and Malaysia, river antibiotic pollution, and innovation in food supply in Singapore, in the news digest.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Vanessa Di Cuffa, UK people change director, ABP Food, talks with Ian Welsh about how modern slavery legislation has driven behaviour change in the meat industry in the UK, and in particular on point-of-recruitment risks.

She argues that transparency and establishing personal relationships with supply chain workers are crucial. They also debate how to get around the forced-labour challenges for food sector companies when traditional business models focus on driving down costs.