Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

To ensure crop yields are optimised and inputs minimised, food brands and their suppliers need clear, unambiguous data. Analysing the right numbers can enable farmers to drive efficiencies and gives buyers and brands the transparency they need to ensure supply stability.

In this webinar, the participants discuss how to identify critical data points and ensure effective data collection, and assess how the right analysis can drive tangible benefits across the value chain.

Expert panel:

• Kate Shaffner, global sustainable agriculture lead, Kellogg Company
• Christian Bengtson, head of agriculture – EMEA, IBM Weather Business Solutions
• Dirk Jan Kennes, global strategist farm inputs, Rabobank
• Davide Ceper, vice-president, open farm and field data exchange, Yara

Hosted by Ian Welsh

This webinar was held in partnership with IBM, a sponsor of the recent Innovation Forum future of food conference series.

Dave MacLennan, CEO of Cargill, talks with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about the evolution of sustainability at the company and across the food and agriculture sector in the past few years.

Speaking at the start of the recent Innovation Forum future of food US conference, MacLennan highlights some of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impacts on commodity markets, and why he thinks that greater transparency will contribute to ever-more consumer interest in where food comes from and how it’s produced. They discuss evolving trust in brands and their suppliers, and how supply chain resilience has maintained food supply in very challenging circumstances.

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

This week: Golden Agri-Resources head of sustainability implementation Gotz Martin talks about finding solutions for viable smallholder farmer communities, and some of the obstacles that prevent participatory conservation planning, including land title questions, insufficient incentives, lack of government support and up-front costs.

Plus: over 1,500 net zero commitments from big business since 2019; brands accused of hypocrisy on plastic pollution in new Changing Markets report; and, innovators develop tyre microplastics solution, in the news roundup.

Host: Ian Welsh

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.

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

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

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. 

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

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.

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