Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Why vibrant rural economies drive agri-sector strength

Ruth Thomas, director of the Global Agribusiness Alliance, talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about the GAA’s new digital platform designed to connect SMEs with sources of finance. Thomas argues that agri SMEs are the economic backbone of many developing economies and can be a powerful force for integrating and empowering women and young people. And they discuss the need for better visibility and transparency to ensure SMEs are able to take advantage of available sources of investment.

Global Agribusiness Alliance is a sponsor of Innovation Forum’s sustainable landscapes and commodities conference series.

Weekly podcast: How to get closer to suppliers to tackle child labour

This week: Elaine McKay, international affairs director at JTI, talks with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about why getting to know farmers in a supply chain is a key to understanding their labour challenges and eliminating child labour. The problems are complex, McKay argues, but engaging with them is part of meeting Sustainable Development Goal targets.

Plus: a new science-based targets standard on the horizon; Facebook and Google go carbon neutral; CDP highlights apparel sector water failings; and, New Zealand to require financial sector reporting on climate risks, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

Weekly podcast: Innovative finance for critical agri-SMEs

Ruth Thomas, director of the Global Agribusiness Alliance, explains why agri-sector SMEs need better access to sources of finance, and how a new GAA digital platform can help companies and growers across agricultural value chains.

Plus: big oil’s plastics gamble; Nestlé’s progress to 100% recyclable packaging goal; fast fashion set for twice Paris emissions targets; and, $154bn investment in deforestation-risk companies, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

How to get beyond commodity silo thinking in a landscape

Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC, talks with Ian Welsh about why it’s important for smallholder to be assured that they are able to develop best practices and then better access to markets.

They discuss when and why it makes sense for larger growers to assist their smallholder farmer neighbours to achieve landscape-level certification. And they debate the importance of getting past thinking about individual commodities in silos and developing a more holistic approach, and how this can positively impact smallholder farmer business models.  

PEFC was a sponsor of the recent Innovation Forum sustainable apparel and textiles conference. 

Weekly podcast: Cargill’s Dave MacLennan on the dramatic evolution of sustainable business

This week: CEO of Cargill Dave MacLennan talks with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about key supply chain challenges and how the company is evolving to tackle them, with a focus on sustainability and the use of technology. They also discuss some of the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on global commodity markets.  

Plus: Unilever’s new €1bn investment to eliminate fossil fuels; the impact of plastic pollution on soil health; Greenpeace on modern slavery in the SE Asian tuna sector; and, CDP and WWF reports into continuing deforestation challenges in South America, in the news digest.  

Hosted by Ian Welsh

How smallholder farmer resilience drives market access and income

Alison Ward, chief executive of CottonConnect, talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about why building financial and agricultural resilience, and better market linkages, are crucial factors in developing the future for smallholder farming models.

They also discuss how pandemic response measures can help secure supply chain security – in cotton and elsewhere – and how the relationships between brands and growers may change for the long term.

CottonConnect was a sponsor of the recent Innovation Forum sustainable apparel and textiles conference.

Weekly podcast: Why focus on best practice is the route to market access for farmers

This week: Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC, on how taking a landscape approach to cooperation can benefit smallholder farmers and help them compete with larger competitors, and why certifying organisations need to be nimble to adapt to shifting market pressures.

Plus: proposed new forest protection laws for UK-operating companies; what the fashion sector can do to meet 1.5C emissions targets; and, Coca-Cola, Colgate Palmolive, Kimberley-Clark, and others, sign new US Plastics Pact, in the news digest.  

Hosted by Ian Welsh

Weekly podcast: Smallholder farm living incomes, and Atlantic plastic pollution crisis

This week: Yuca Waarts from Wageningen University on the business interventions that can really help smallholder famers.

Plus: the new study that suggests Atlantic ocean plastic could be ten times worse than feared; why retailer refill schemes are taking off; how active restoration helps forest regenerate 20 years quicker; and, Unilever’s new project to trace palm oil and soil all the way to the farm, in the news digest.

Hosted by Ian Welsh  

Can we feed the world while saving the planet?

Mariko Thorbecke, senior sustainability consultant and food sector lead at Quantis, discusses with Ian Welsh how the growth of regenerative agriculture is driven by the need to increase agricultural productivity while achieving net zero emissions by 2050. She outlines the importance of practices that break existing agriculture cycles, particularly those that are heavily fossil-fuel based.

Quantis was a sponsor of Innovation Forum's recent future of food event series. 

What a context-based approach means for corporate water targets

Cargill’s global water lead Truke Smoor explains to Ian Welsh how the company established its new 2030 water targets. She outlines the thinking behind Cargill’s context-based approach that reflect the severity of water challenges in individual watersheds, and the importance of developing science-based targets.

Cargill was a sponsor of the recent Innovation Forum future of food conference series.