Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Weekly podcast: Climate risks to worker health in commodity supply chains

Epidemiologist Jason Glaser, CEO of La Isla Network, talks about the risks for any company with commodity supply chains around high temperatures and agricultural worker health. While these have been researched in tropical regions for some time, climate change impacts mean that agricultural workers in more temperate zones are now at risk. There are some simple strategies to follow – but, as Glazer argues, significant collaboration is necessary, now.

And, forests expert Simon Lord and Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb debate some of the challenges around reforestation and forest restoration.

Host: Ian Welsh

How a community development approach can deliver for smallholder farmers

Eunice Oduro, project manager at anti-poverty NGO CARE, and Samuel Apana, Cargill’s cocoa sustainability lead in Ghana, talk with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about the long-term collaboration project between Cargill and CARE to improve the livelihoods of smallholder cocoa farmers in west Africa. Among the issues the collaboration has targeted include increasing yields and farm incomes, empowering women farmers and encouraging younger farmers to stay in the sector, and people-centred community action plans.  

For more information on the Decade of Impact in Cocoa Communities report click here

How to work with uncertified palm oil farmers

Samuel Avaala, general manager of Benso Oil Palm Plantation in Ghana, talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about how the business uses the Accountability Framework to help engage non-certified suppliers so they align with BOPP’s no deforestation, no damaging of peat lands and no exploitation commitments. They talk about how the framework can be complementary to membership of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil’s certification scheme.   

This is latest in a series of content supported by the Accountability Framework initiative. The Accountability Framework – set up by a coalition of 24 members to accelerate progress and improve accountability for ethical supply chains in agriculture and forestry – has recently passed the second anniversary of its launch. A number of the coalition members have recognised the achievements of the past two years – click here for more information.

 

 

Weekly podcast: Can food really be climate-positive?

This week: Daniel Baertschi, food and agriculture sector lead at Quantis, discusses how making the right choices for food companies – thinking about regenerative agriculture practices and a strong focus on soil health – can make significant impacts on reducing carbon emissions. While urgent action is required right now, the necessary changes to food production processes may take, he argues, a generation to become a reality.

Plus: growing spat over detail of EU climate plan; Science Based Targets initiative fully shifts to 1.5C trajectory; FSC drops Indonesian palm oil’s Korindo; and, Greenland cancels all oil and gas sector development, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh  

Challenges to the seafood sector from a changing climate

At Innovation Form’s recent Future of Food conference, Erin Priddle, northern Europe regional director at the Marine Stewardship Council, Tracy Cambridge, responsible sourcing director for Europe at Thai Union, Mark Zimring, director, large scale fisheries programme at The Nature Conservancy and Dave Robb, SeaFurther sustainability programme lead at Cargill, discuss with Ian Welsh how the seafood sector should respond to growing market concerns about the impact of climate change, overfishing and biodiversity loss.

Among the discussion they consider how fishing quotas and fishing management plans should be set in the face of shifting wild fish stocks and increasing demands from consumers. They also talk about the role of aquaculture and of certification.  

Weekly podcast: Barry Callebaut and Cargill on how data drives value chain traceability

This week: Taco Terheijden, director, cocoa sustainability at Cargill, and Nicko Debenham, vice president and head of sustainability at Barry Callebaut, talk with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about how companies can have positive impacts in supply chains through enhancing traceability and the data necessary to achieve this. The discussion, focusing on the cocoa sector, was recorded at the recent Innovation Forum Future of Food conference.

Plus: UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Paris-style goals; insurance sector’s new net zero alignment; independent governance body to be established for voluntary carbon markets; and, the US gets tougher on companies with China forced labour risks, in the news digest. 

Host: Ian Welsh

How natural climate solutions deliver effective GHG reductions

At the recent future for climate action conference, Marie-Pierre Bousquet Lecomte, science-based targets implementation director at Danone, Robert Horster, global sustainability lead for agricultural supply chains and food ingredients at Cargill, Conor McMahon, climate delivery manager at Nestlé, and Joshua Tosteson, president, Everland, joined Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb to talk about how to implement natural climate solutions. While many of these have been around for a while, their alignment within climate change strategy, combined with better collaboration and focus is now where best practice is.

Apparel sector’s ‘massive’ forced labour policy-practice gap

Felicitas Weber from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about some of the key conclusions from the recently-published latest Know the Chain benchmark into the forced labour risks in big apparel sector companies and investors.

The good news is that all the companies benchmarked have improved their performance at least a little. The less good is that there remains generally a significant difference between what companies say they should be doing compared with what they are doing in practice – with luxury brands not typically performing well.

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Weekly podcast: Solving the traceability challenges for uncertified palm oil

This week: Samuel Avaala from Benso Oil Palm Plantation in Ghana, talks about how to work with suppliers to improve traceability and transparency from non-certified sources, to tackle deforestation and ensure sustainable supply. The discussion includes how initiatives and tools, including the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and the Accountability Framework help, and the need for careful alignment of farmer incentives so the entire value chain benefits.  

Plus: new food eco labelling scheme, backed by Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Sainsbury’s and others, to cover all environmental impacts; southeast Asian working group on standards for corporate communications on sustainability; and, PepsiCo backing PET bottles with unlimited recyclability, in the news round up.    

Host: Ian Welsh

Sir Ian Boyd on food sector efficiency challenges on the road to COP26

Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb talks with Sir Ian Boyd, professor of biology at the University of St Andrews, and former chief scientific adviser to the UK government on food, environment and rural affairs. They discuss why food production is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise and the massive challenges around resource inefficiencies, and why techniques like controlled system farming might become essential to unlock food sector efficiency. And they debate the pros and cons of regenerative agriculture.

Please note: this interview was recorded in late May.