Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Daniel Baertschi, food and agriculture sector lead at Quantis, argues the case for developing a whole-system approach to developing food supply that is less impactful. Talking with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh, he points out some practical steps in product diversification and ingredient sourcing that can make a big difference, including thinking more strategically around shortening supply chains and leveraging existing value chain relationships. Part of the solution is thinking about traditional farming practices while using the latest technology to preserve and enhance soil health and improve yields.

Quantis was a sponsor of Innovation Forum’s recent Future of Food conference series.

This week: Myles McCarthy, director for implementation and e-mobility at the Carbon Trust, talks about the big climate challenges for business in the run-up to COP26. He argues that while there are some big step-change targets being set across industries, the challenge now is in making the progress necessary at scale and pace, and developing the technology and models that will be required.

And, Toby Webb and Peter Stanbury discuss the next steps in Innovation Forum’s action research project into smallholder farmer resilience.

Plus: implications of IPCC’s latest report; New York pension fund reviewing fossil fuel assets; Lidl UK to be carbon neutral by 2022; Barry Callebout, Nestlé and Proforest develop sustainable coconut supply chain scorecard; and, new apparel transparency pilot involving Next, New Look and H+M Group, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

For an extended conversation between Toby Webb and Peter Stanbury on Innovation Forum’s smallholder resilience research, click here.

Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb and Peter Stanbury talk about why entire value chains have to be sustainable and that a narrow focus just on smallholder farmers in isolation is not the best approach. They discuss some of the factors that encourage more resilient rural development and farm income encompassing market forces – including a necessary move from just a “don’t cut down the forest” conversation to one encompassing ecosystem services and carbon sequestration, for example.

The Innovation Accelerator: Building resilient smallholder supply chains report can be downloaded here.

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

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

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.

 

 

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  

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.  

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

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.