Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

One Acre Fund: successful agro microfinancing at scale

Brian Heese, director, investor relations, One Acre Fund, explains to Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb how the fund works and why it has grown from working with 2,000 to 600,000 farmers, principally in eastern Africa. With a 98% repayment rate on the loans One Acre Fund makes to farmers, it is a model that has proved it can work successfully in different markets and at scale.

Weekly podcast: Why companies simply aren’t doing enough on deforestation

This week, Greenpeace forest campaigner Richard George debates with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about what companies have and have not been doing over the past few years on tackling deforestation, and why simply having good policies and commitments really isn’t enough. And, in our news digest: new UK retailers pledges on plastic packaging, questions about a palm oil lobby group targeting Iceland and why forests are vital for Melbourne’s water supply.

Hosted by Ian Welsh

There’s modern slavery in your supply chain: what next?

Insights from Nestlé into how to tackle uncovered slavery, and debate about how companies should approach forced labour scandals

The reality is that most complex supply chains will have modern day slavery within their operations. So, while companies need to do all they can to prevent slavery and forced labor issues in their operations and supply chains in the first place, what should they do if or when modern slavery is uncovered? In this webinar, Nestlé’s Jack Scott explains how the company uncovered modern slavery within its supply chain. He highlights the sorts of internal debate companies have when modern slavery is found and discusses what companies should do when they find it. He is joined by Verité’s Lydia Long and Michael Quayle of Freshfields Bruckhause Deringer, and the discussion is led by Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh.

Weekly podcast: Pirelli’s sustainable rubber policy and CottonConnect on apparel supply chains

In this week’s podcast Pirelli’s group sustainability officer Eleonora Pessina on why Pirelli is engaging with its stakeholders to develop more sustainable rubber supply and CottonConnect CEO Alison Ward on how collaboration is positively impacting apparel supply chains. In the news roundup, what brands are doing in Bangladesh five years on from Rana Plaza and European circular economy legislation agreed by the EU parliament.

Weekly podcast: how Mars engages with complex supply chains

Emerging modern slavery risks, Amazon deforestation, the key agenda points for the apparel sector, and energy majors targeted (again)

In this week’s podcast from Innovation Forum, Verisk Maplecroft’s Alex Channer on how to effectively map modern slavery risks, and Francesca New from Mars on how to engage smallholder suppliers, plus in the news round up why Amazon conservationists have welcomed a Brazil supreme court ruling, what apparel sector leaders need to think about, modern slavery in Gulf construction and is Friends of the Earth going to sue Shell?

Hosted by Ian Welsh

 

How technology enables impact measurement in responsible supply chains

What are the major challenges companies face in understanding and quantifying their impact?

With examples of new technologies that companies can use to see results from their sustainability efforts in their supply chains, panellists in this webinar discuss how tools and techniques have allowed companies to manage important data that advance their sustainability programmes more effectively and better understand how to get a return from their sustainability investments.

Hear key insights on how these innovative tools can better align business priorities with sustainability priorities in interesting and scalable ways.

Panel:

Karimah Hudda, global sustainability lead – procurement, Mondelez International

Katie Hoard, global manager of agricultural development, Anheuser-Busch InBev

Heather Pfahl, global senior socio-economic impact manager, Mars Incorporated

Daniele Giovannucci, president and co-founder, Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA)

Introduced and moderated by: Ian Welsh, Innovation Forum

Weekly podcast: the future for gene-editing, TripAdvisor for recruiters and a plastics breakthrough for Unilever

In the new Innovation Forum podcast this week: detailed discussion on gene-editing's role in developing more sustainable agriculture, and new market opportunities for the soy sector. Plus, in the news roundup, why investors urgently need more transparency on carbon risk, a new recruiter-rater initiative to help counter modern slavery, why UK retailer Iceland is cutting out palm oil, and some possible game changer technology for recycling PET plastic backed by Unilever

New weekly podcast: news and views from Innovation Forum

In this week's podcast, hear from former UK environment secretary John Gummer – now Lord Deben – on modern slavery in public procurement and plastic packaging. Plus a round up of sustainable business news and future content coming from Innovation Forum.

How to speak to your suppliers’ suppliers on modern slavery

Richard Batten, global chief corporate responsibility officer at real estate services business JLL, explains to Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh what an effective supply chain mapping process looks like. The challenge is often to know where to look for the ‘red flag’ slavery and forced labour risks – companies have to accept that modern slavery is their supply chains, and the task at hand is to uncover it and then remediate.

The state of play in circular business: Apparel sector case study

2018 has been tipped to be the year sustainability goes mainstream within the apparel industry. Advances in tech innovation have opened up sustainable business models that deliver, not just on sustainability goals, but on the financial bottom line as well. 

However, the $3 trillion apparel industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and remains the second largest industrial polluter, second only to oil. The current linear business models prevalent in the industry are creating huge volumes of waste. This has pushed brands to look for ways to move away from the take, make, dispose linear models and strive for more circular supply chains. 

The implementation of these models have presented numerous challenges, but brands are making progress. In this webinar, we will discuss the latest approaches to applying circularity throughout the business, whilst touching on the challenges in scaling up those small scale initiatives currently in play. 

We discussed: 

- Circularity is inching its way into the fashion industry, but how close is it to mainstream application? 
- Is a circular business model realistic at the scale required for large apparel brands? 
- How can the industry effectively work together to move away from a take-make-dispose model? 

With: 

- Claire Bergkamp, head of sustainability and ethical trade, Stella McCartney 
- Anna Maria Rugarli, senior director, sustainability and responsibility, EMEA, VF Corp 
- Traci Kinden, project manager, circular textiles, Circle Economy 

Hosted by Tobias Webb, founder, Innovation Forum