Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Business has lost its purpose, says Prof Andy Hoffman from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, talking with Ian Welsh. He says that, in the face of crises such as climate change and income inequality, a restructure of how companies regard success is now required.

Hoffman argues the case for corporate legacy, meaning and purpose and not just pursuit of profit above all else, and embedding environmental and social issues across business school curricula – not in sustainability siloes.

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Neste’s Lars Börger, Covestro’s Lynette Chung, Unilever’s Marika Lindstrom and Werner Bosmans from the European Commission debate with Toby Webb the developing practical solutions to the challenge of new materials and what they are made from and, specifically, the innovations that they hope to see in 2021. To listen to the full extended discussion, click here.

Plus: why we need a pandemic-level reduction in GHG every two years; $8tn of investment pledged to go net-zero; eBay’s certified refurbished circular economy solution; and, Burger King UK eliminates more single use plastics, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

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In the first of a new quarterly podcast series, Textile Exchange CEO La Rhea Pepper talks with Innovation Forum founder Toby Webb about how organic cotton practices can help transform the sector as a whole. They debate the case for a soils-first approach and how regenerative agriculture can be a real game-changing solution for cotton and for producer communities more broadly.

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This week: Silke Peters from the sustainable agriculture supply chain initiative at GIZ talks about the challenges involved in developing effective multistakeholder collaboration to help smallholder farmers across different commodities. And, in the run up to this year’s conference, another chance to hear how Cargill CEO David MacLennan opened 2020’s Future of Food USA event, in conversation with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb.

Plus: why Boohoo’s links to forced labour might mean a US import ban; UN assessment highlights need for Paris agreement action; and why deforestation news from Indonesia isn’t that good after all, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

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Alison Ward, CEO of CottonConnect, talks with Ian Welsh about the durability of cotton supply chains and why apparel brands can gain from working directly with producers to really develop transparency. Representing 75% of all cotton farmers, and with the livelihoods of 350 million people at stake, working with smallholders in particular leads to gains for brands and everyone in the value chain. The keys are helping farmers to diversify their crops, and gain access to markets and finance.

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This week: Andy Hoffman, professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, on why business has to evolve to embrace sustainability across functions and accept that profit is only one measure of success. Business may be the problem, he argues, but is also clearly the solution.

Plus: H&M and Ikea developing new low impact fibres from forests; Sainsbury’s to take back and recycle plastic films; palm oil’s SE Asian deforestation impact down 58% year on year in 2020 says Chain Reaction Research; and, AB InBev takes up $10.1bn sustainability-linked loan facility, in the news digest.

Host: Ian Welsh

Jessie Cato, natural resources and human rights programme manager at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, talks with Ian Welsh about the significant human rights risks that exist in the supply chains of low carbon technology manufacturers.

As demonstrated by the BHRRC’s tracker of companies producing six transition minerals – lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, zinc and manganese – required for the manufacture of electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, brands in the low-carbon sector need to take care to ensure transparency in their supply chains. A failure to do so could impact the speed at which their customers can reach their net-zero ambitions.

This week: Hear Musim Mas’s Olivier Tichet outline his ‘magic ingredients’ for landscape level solutions for agricultural commodity supply chains: everyone must be involved; all parties must be committed to change; and, there must be acceptance that change takes time.

Plus: new commitments from BNP Paribas on Amazon soy and beef sourcing; a concerning increase in land grabs by the extractive and agriculture sectors from indigenous peoples says the Forest Peoples Programme; PwC says that listed companies out-perform privately-owned firms on sustainability commitments; Maersk’s ‘carbon neutral’ ship by 2023; and Jaguar all-electric by 2025, in the news digest.   

Host: Ian Welsh

Sarah Rogerson and Emma Thomson from Global Canopy talk with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about the conclusions of the latest Forest 500 report. 2020 no-deforestation targets were universally missed, and the new research highlights a lack of deforestation commitments from investors and the finance sector in general, particularly in North America.

Forest 500 also shows that perhaps recent focus on palm oil has led to more commitments in that sector than, for example, soy and other commodity supply chains with significant deforestation risk.

This week: Alison Ward, CEO of CottonConnect, discusses how brand buyers can work with cotton producer communities to access markets and finance, and how to identify and mitigate some of the serious human rights risks in the broader apparel sector.

Plus: Nestlé and Shell plot their routes to net zero emissions; H&M and others working on new circular fashion partnership in Bangladesh; and CDP uncovers $120bn of potential supply chain environmental risks, in the news digest.  

Host: Ian Welsh