Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Supply Chain Risk & Innovation: April2016

Ian Welsh and Tom Idle discuss what's coming up in the April issue of Supply Chain Risk & Innovation. 

Insight on brands including AkzoNobel, Golden Agri-Resources, Kellogg's, Dell, Novo Nordisk and more. We'll be discussing supplier mapping, big data and ethical sourcing.

Our new tech feature rounds up the technologies making supply chain sustainability easy, the sector profile is on the timber industry, and our long read is on modern slavery.

Supply Chain Risk & Innovation: March 2016

Ian Welsh and Tom Idle discuss what's coming up in the March issue of Supply Chain Risk & Innovation. News on CDP, Achilles, APP, The Body Shop, Fairphone, Amnesty International and more.

Can companies trust palm oil audits?

Ahead of our next forum on how business can tackle deforestation, we held a webinar addressing audit integrity in the palm oil industry.

In their recent report “Who watches the watchmen”, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its research partner Grassroots, highlight third party auditors that are carrying out methodologically flawed fieldwork and producing substandard, biased reports that fail to identify and mitigate unsustainable practices by oil palm companies.

The report argues that a lack of clear, mandatory, and enforceable guidelines has allowed auditors to omit or disguise serious flaws in the operations of plantation companies and in some cases even to collude with plantation companies to disguise violations of the RSPO standard.

In response to the report, the RSPO has established a task force to ensure full implementation of “quality, oversight and credibility of RSPO assessments”.

Our webinar will debate the need for reform of the RSPO system, to provide palm oil growers and auditors with clear, mandatory, and enforceable guidelines that will help auditors to do a better job. 

Speaking are:

• Jago Wadley, senior forest campaigner, Environmental Investigation Agency
• Scott Poynton, founder, TFT
• Paul Wolvekamp, deputy director, Both ENDS, board member of RSPO
• Andrew Ng, founder, Grassroots

Moderator: Ian Welsh, publishing director, Innovation Forum 

Supply Chain Risk & Innovation: what's coming up?

Innovation Forum's Ian Welsh and Tom Idle discuss what readers to Innovation Forum's new publication will learn from adidas, Ikea, HP, Apple, H+M, McDonald's and more in the next few issues of SCRI. Other highlights include an in-depth profiles of the apparel sector, how to engage smallholders in your supply chain and the right way to go about benchmarking your impact-reduction strategies.  

Webinar: Case study - Danone’s work on eliminating deforestation

As part of Innovation Forum’s global series of events in combating deforestation, we hosted a webinar with Vincent Crasnier, nature director at Danone and Stephen Donofrio, senior advisor – supply change project at Ecosystem Marketplace where they discussed Danone’s work on eliminating deforestation.

 

Danone has committed to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain by 2020, which will require effective cooperation from all along the company’s supply chain. Vincent will share his experiences, discuss the company’s progress so far, and outline the key challenges – and plans to overcome them – that the company is working on with its partners. This will include work on HCS, HVC, peatlands avoidance and mapping of supplier impacts, FPIC and reporting.

Brendan May from Robertsbridge on sustainable seafood challenges

ETI’s Nick Kightley discusses labour risks in seafood supply chains

The Ethical Trading Initiative’s Nick Kightley and Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh discuss labour risks in seafood supply chains, when auditing can add value, the importance of transparency and the potential of community groups.

Richard Donovan, Rainforest Alliance, on why it's time for deforestation commitments to be fulfilled

Rainforest Alliance's Richard Donovan and Innovation Forum's Ian Welsh debate business's progress towards zero deforestation, and why it's time to start preserving existing pristine ecosystems as well as restoring those destroyed

Miriaim Swaffer, Union of Concerned Scientists, on deforestation-free commodities

Miriaim Swaffer and Toby Webb discuss how businesses are developing commodity supply chains that are deforestation-free 

Fiona Wheatley, Marks & Spencer, on forest products in fashion's supply chains

Fiona Wheatley from Marks & Spencer and Innovation Forum's Ian Welsh discuss why consumers expect fashion brands to tackle deforestation's challenges, and how they are going about it