Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Plastic pollution: design products so they can be made again

Sara Wingstrand, new plastics economy research analyst from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, talks to Ian Welsh about plastics and the essential transition from a linear to a circular economy. They discuss why plastic is a resource and how circular economy principles can develop a restorative economy by design. Wingstrand argues that business models need to change, and companies need to think about how they can eliminate single use plastic products. She highlights how some companies are changing to have re-use business models, focusing on the service they provide and new ways to deliver it.

Why palm oil is about more than deforestation

Anita Neville, Golden Agri-Resources’ vice-president of corporate communications and sustainability relations, talks with Ian Welsh about GAR’s new ‘Extraordinary Everyday’ series. This aims, through story-telling, to highlight aspects of the palm oil sector beyond the bad news around deforestation and ecosystem destruction that dominates the news agenda. Neville outlines why GAR wants to talk about some more positive aspects of the industry, and how compelling narratives can help palm oil companies both engage consumers but also provide reassurance and confidence for other stakeholders including the financial community.

Weekly podcast: why engaging the C-suite requires more than ‘greed and fear’

This week: Daniella Foster, senior director for global corporate responsibility at Hilton, and Jennifer Marsman, principal software development engineer at Microsoft, talk with Ian Welsh about how to piece together the narratives for future-proofing business models. They discuss the business cases that really make sceptical board directors sit up and help drive forward smart solutions. Foster and Marsman debate how to get beyond the obvious answers and make billion-dollar savings.

Plus: why California will require women directors on corporate boards; initiatives on gender empowerment, modern slavery, and food and land use at the UN General Assembly; and, changing public attitudes to plastics, in the news digest.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Weekly podcast: how business can really cut plastic use, and the key deforestation questions

This week: insight from the recent Innovation Forum webinar on the business challenges in developing realistic alternatives to plastic packaging, with Iceland’s Ian Schofield, Surfdome’s Adam Hall and CupClub’s Safia Qureshi. Plus an in-depth discussion between Greenpeace forest campaigner Richard George and Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb on where the business and deforestation debate is going and why progress has been slow. And news of the new World Benchmarking Alliance, palm oil trader Wilmar pushing back against deforestation allegations and more supermarket pledges on plastic us, in the regular roundup.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

How sanctions are nudging business on forced labour

Stephanie Brown Cripps global sanctions counsel, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, talks with Ian Welsh about how governments – particularly the US – are increasingly using sanctions as tools to influence corporate behaviour on human rights and modern slavery. Brown Cripps outlines some of the civil and criminal penalties that can be imposed on business, and they discuss how companies can become inadvertently in breach of sanctions regulation.

Weekly podcast: why there’s been a transformation in corporate action on modern slavery

This week: Phil Bloomer, executive director of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, on why companies just can’t afford to have modern slavery in their operations or supply chain, not least because the investment community is now properly addressing human rights risks. And highlights from Innovation Forum’s recent business and materiality webinar featuring Fiat Chrysler’s Bill Hall, Kellogg’s Amy Braun and the Erb Institute’s Terry Nelidov. Plus, $6.4tn worth of asset managers focusing on beef and deforestation, big brands still linked to dirty palm oil according to Greenpeace and how insects are spreading plastic microfibres, in the news roundup. 

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Webinar: what will a sustainable rural community look like in 2030?

Sustainable rural economies are critical to the sustained success of global agri-businesses. After all, smallholder farming accounts for the largest share of food production worldwide. However, these farmers and their local communities lack opportunities to improve their income, food security and livelihoods. To drive resilience and safeguard supply, business must work to deliver positive social outcomes for rural communities.

Leading this webinar discussion on what business can do to ensure sustainable agricultural communities, focusing in particular on palm oil supply chains, are:

Anita Neville, vice president of corporate communications and sustainability relations, Golden Agri-Resources

Rashyid Anwarudin, principal sustainability officer, Sime Darby

Ruth Thomas, director, strategy and operations, Global Agribusiness Alliance

Introduced and moderated by Ian Welsh, Innovation Forum

 

Diageo's business case for social and environmental impact engagement

Harriet Howey, global sustainability reporting executive at Diageo, explains to Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh how the company measures return on investment on its programmes across water and other resource use, gender empowerment, and its social and environmental impacts in general. Howey outlines how the business develops the right KPIs to ensure value from investment and bottom line financial benefits, and also why it has developed an in-depth social impact assessment framework.

Weekly podcast: designing plastics to be used again, and palm oil’s human stories

This week: Sara Wingstrand from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation on how better plastic product design can help business develop essential more-circular value chains and systems. And Golden Agri-Resources’ Anita Neville on why the palm oil industry should engage stakeholders through better, relatable, story-telling.

Plus the $26tn to be made from sustainable development, a tree-ownership initiative for Ghana cocoa farmers, H+M’s technology that can separate cotton and polyester and better news for human rights in Qatar, in the weekly news roundup.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Deforestation: can we separate the food and fuel debates?

Speaking at the recent RSPO meeting in Paris, Mickael Blais from the French Alliance for Forest Preservation and Toby Webb, Innovation Forum, discuss how different commodity supply chains – including palm oil, rubber and soy – can work together to impact deforestation. They debate the challenges around separating the crops-for-food and crops-for-fuel debates given the different pressures on each.