Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Weekly podcast: Cocoa’s agroforestry potential

This week: Sebastiaan van der Hoek, forestry advisor at Cargill, talks about how agroforestry can benefit the cocoa sector, and help the business deliver its sustainability goals, including the Cargill Cocoa Promise. He welcomes the high profile that nature-based solutions had at COP26 and the traction they are gaining more generally.

Plus: global energy intensity improved in 2021 says IEA’s latest Energy Efficiency Report; carbon neutral eggs at Morrisons; Patagonia’s community energy sourcing; and, GRI and CDP collaborate on biodiversity, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh   

How a nature-based solution can help save Papua New Guinea’s forests

At the Global Landscapes Forum in Glasgow during COP26, the Hon Gary Juffa, governor of Oro province in Papua New Guinea, and Tony Simons, executive director of CIFOR-ICRAF, the body formed by the merger of the CIFOR – Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry, spoke with Ian Welsh. 

They discussed a new Resilient Landscapes initiative supported by the national and local governments in Oro province showcasing the importance of nature-based solutions, preserving biodiversity while helping indigenous communities realise the value of their landscape. 

How can carbon accounting accelerate action within the forest and land use sector?

Achieving the Paris Agreement targets requires a radical transformation of the world’s food and land use systems. The land sector alone can deliver at least 30% of the mitigation required to reach net-zero.

In this context, companies with a land-use footprint must embrace interventions to conserve and restore forests and other natural ecosystems in the landscapes they source from as part of their climate strategies. To help scale up these investments, carbon accounting frameworks that provide the right incentives are key.

This hour-long webinar assessed what’s required to drive urgency and transformation in the food and land use system. We discussed:

• What is the role of carbon accounting rules to incentivize the right actions for transformation?
• The challenges that need to be addressed to make these incentives work in practice
• The challenges and opportunities for companies with a land-use footprint to invest and scale up natural climate solutions at a landscape level

Our panel:

• Michele Zollinger, global sustainable sourcing for pulp and paper, and climate lead, Nestlé
• Scarlett Benson, co-director of knowledge generation for the food and land use coalition (FOLU), SYSTEMIQ
• Sandra Genee, head of value change initiative, SustainCERT
• Tilmann Silber, strategy lead climate and nature, Barry Callebaut

Moderated by Toby Webb, Innovation Forum

Weekly podcast: How better data can drive sustainable apparel supply chains

This week: Tara Luckman, advisor to the US Cotton Trust Protocol, and Dr Mark Sumner from the school of design at the University of Leeds, talk about the impacts of a lack of transparency in apparel production, and cotton in particular. They discuss the importance of data, and how the sector can move away from mass balance approach to supply chain sustainability and monitoring, and deliver proper traceability.

Plus: review of the themes that emerged at the Innovation Forum sustainable landscapes and commodities conference.

Host: Ian Welsh  

ConferenceWatch2: forest and nature positive approaches in action

Ian Welsh reports from the second day of the 2021 sustainable landscapes and commodities conference. Among the main discussion points were how landscape approaches are being implemented now, and the challenges encountered; how to properly engage smallholder farmers and other grower communities in corporate decision making; and, how to find sustained finance, at scale, to drive change.

ConferenceWatch: sustainable landscapes and commodities

Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh reports on the opening day of the 2021 landscapes and commodities event. Highlights include analysis of the impacts of the outcomes from COP26, what transformational change means in practice for key commodity landscapes, and how evolving corporate procurement policies can deliver on targets.

Coming up on day two are open discussions on landscape restoration, regenerative agriculture and ecosystem services payments for farmers. Plus debate on whether the priorities of business and campaign groups are diverging.   

Weekly podcast: Has business finally got it on climate change?

This week: Lord Deben, chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, reflects on the outcomes from the COP26 meetings and how momentum can be carried forward over the coming months. A standout from Glasgow, he argues, was the enthusiastic involvement of leaders from big business driving progress forwards.

Plus: PepsiCo targets access to nutritious food; European retailers not doing enough in farmed fish supply chains, says Changing Markets Foundation; and the fashion sector needs $1tn investment to get to a 1.5C pathway according to Fashion for Good and Apparel Impact Institute, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

Tackling palm oil’s challenges in west Africa

Victor Tamanjong, assistant technical manager for Africa at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, outlines the history of the palm oil sector in Africa, and the more recent growth of certified crop. He discusses how to engage smallholder farmers with the benefits of certification and adopting a more sustainable approach in general – including market access, training, increased yields and farm income. As in many palm oil growing regions, land tenure is a major challenge – but an approach that respects local land-holding customs is proving to be successful. With Ian Welsh.

Why economic empowerment is the route to farmer community resilience

Peter Williams, president of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, talks with Ian Welsh about how funding for developing world grower communities can best focus on economic empowerment, alongside health, food systems, environmental and health matters. They also discuss why better climate resilience is essential, and how this can be achieved.

Weekly podcast: Stop deforestation to halt pandemics

This week: Nigel Sizer, executive director of the preventing pandemics at the source coalition, talks about the relationships between deforestation and pandemic prevention, and why taking action to preserve forests is an essential human health imperative.

Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb summarises a session focusing on what the apparel industry can learn from the food sector – at the Textile Sustainability Conference 2021 in Dublin – featuring Tina Owens, senior director, food and agriculture impact at Danone North America, Dave Fitzgerald, head of responsible sourcing at Kellogg, and forest and agriculture expert Simon Lord.

And Narni Brooke-Adil gives an update on all the news about the upcoming Innovation Forum sustainable landscapes and commodities conference from 30^th November to 2^nd December – and details of an exclusive podcast listeners discount on event passes.

Plus news of the EU’s due diligence deforestation regulations; new Value Chain initiative from Gold Standard and SustainCERT to help companies plot their route to scope 3 net zero; and, US $1tn infrastructure investment and jobs legislation signed into law by President Biden.

Host: Ian Welsh