Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Apparel companies’ role in overcoming barriers to circularity

At Innovation Forum’s recent sustainable apparel and textiles conference Toby Webb was joined by Anurag Gupta, managing director at Usha Yarns, and Madeleine Michell, social conscience communications officer at Toast. They discussed how to overcome the barriers to circularity, and in particular how companies can facilitate and simplify recycling infrastructure to persuade companies to take part.

Weekly podcast: How to plot a realistic and robust route to net zero

This week: Krishna Manda, vice-president for corporate sustainability at textile sector fibre manufacturer Lenzing talks about what an effective net zero strategy looks like. This includes getting interim targets right, aligning incentives across the business and with suppliers, and how to avoid tensions between short term targets and long term goals.  

Plus: Brazilian cerrado green bond scheme for farmers backed by Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Barry Callebout; Stockholm University study shows all rainwater contaminated; big apparel brands’ offcuts firing polluting brick kilns; and, University of Oxford rates impacts of 57,000 UK food and drinks product lines, in the news digest.  

Host: Ian Welsh

 

Fast fashion has ten years left. If so, what’s next?

Zalando’s CEO Robert Gentz has stated that the apparel industry must “abandon the fast fashion business model within the next ten years”. The steep environmental costs of the take-make-waste system are obviously incompatible with the recent net-zero pledges of countries, cities, and businesses. If this is the start of the end of fast fashion, what does the apparel business model of the net-zero future look like? 

In this opening panel from Innovation Forum’s recent sustainable apparel and textiles conference, leading sustainability professionals from across the apparel industry debate the business model transformation required and what sustainable growth looks like. 

Session panel, led by Innovation Forum's Toby Webb:

• La Rhea Pepper, CEO, Textile Exchange
• José Arguedas, head of corporate responsibility and sustainability, River Island
• Liz Hershfield, senior vice-president of supply chain and sustainability, J Crew Group
• Lucita Jasmin, director of sustainability and external affairs, APRIL

Regenerative agriculture: do believe the hype?

James Ede, group sustainability lead for starches, sweetners and texturisers at Cargill, and Andrew Voysey, head of impact and carbon at Soil Capital, talk with Ian Welsh about why regenerative agriculture has become so much a part of the food sector’s decarbonisation plans. They discuss how regen agri brings together the opportunities to deal with carbon emissions, as well as water use, soil health and biodiversity risks. What’s crucial, they argue, is the need for verified data that provides farmers and their customers with the evidence they are progressively cutting carbon emissions and other impacts.

Weekly podcast: Agri-sector entrepreneurs backed by Tesco and WWF

This week: Representatives of the winning projects from WWF and Tesco’s Innovation Connections programme for agricultural supply chain entrepreneurs, receiving up to £150,000 each, talk about their projects and how they will impact at scale. Talking with Ian Welsh are Casey Woodward, founder and CEO of AgriSound, Branston agronomy director David Nelson, Oliver Kynaston, carbon calculator manager at Farm Carbon Toolkit, Chirrup project lead Conrad Young, and Future by Insects chief executive Evelyn Peters.

Plus: concerning new road development in the Amazon; indigenous rights impacts from land speculators; India’s new carbon market for heavy emitting sectors, and UK retail chain Morrisons goes carbon neutral in its egg supply chain, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

How direct law enforcement prevents deforestation in Cambodia

Dr Suwanna Gauntlett, founder and CEO of anti-deforestation NGO Wildlife Alliance, talks with Ian Welsh about how protection of forests on the ground is essential to halt deforestation in Cambodia. They discuss the drivers of deforestation in the country, not least from speculators clearing forest for illegal land sales. In addition, they talk about how REDD+ projects provide carbon market finance that enhance indigenous people’s livelihoods through economic development as well as funding for professional law enforcement personnel.

Green agriculture: how fertiliser partnership makes perfect

Birgitte Holter, head of green and low carbon fertilisers at Yara, and Claes Johansson, head of sustainable development at Lantmännen, talk with Ian Welsh about how their collaborative approach is enabling lower emission fertilisers for fossil-fuel-free food supply chains. The creation of green ammonia using hydrogen from electrolysing water, using renewable electricity, is the key process that Yara has developed in partnership with Lantmännen.

How the palm oil sector is shifting from environmental to social sustainability

Ian Suwarganda, head of policy and partnerships at Golden Agri-Resources, speaks to Ian Welsh about going beyond compliance with new due diligence regulations, to transform entire supply chains for better worker safety and wellbeing. They discussed the role of government and the value-driven consumer, and reasonable expectations for consumer-facing brands in supply chain transformation.

Plus: emissions from power generation to decline by 0.3%; Brazil’s Supreme Court rules Paris Agreement a human rights treaty; IMF launches a new gender strategy; and Dow and Mura Technology partner to scale advanced plastics recycling in EU and US, in the newscast.

Why net zero could be too narrow a target

At IF's Future of Climate Action Conference, Rob Cameron, global head of public affairs and ESG engagement at Nestlé, spoke to Ian Welsh about why companies need to continue to focus on carbon, take immediate action at scale, and the potential benefits from regenerative agriculture. He argued that there will be no transition to a low carbon economy unless it is a “just transition”, and put the case for always following the science in corporate action on climate change.  

How to address leakage and establish baselines in deforestation projects

Josh Tosteson, president of Everland, outlines a new plan to tackle deforestation at scale through rapidly developing new REDD+ forest projects in threatened landscapes around the world, and accessing the unprecedented levels of climate finance via the voluntary carbon markets. He also addresses the main criticisms of REDD+ projects; how to prevent deforestation from simply leaking outside the project boundary, and how to establish baselines to measure deforestation reduction.