Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

Recorded during a Q+A session at Innovation Forum’s recent ethical trade and human rights conference, Elaine McKay, international affairs director at JTI, speaks with Toby Webb about the challenges around child labour in agricultural supply chains. They discuss the need for brands to get to know their grower-suppliers, and how shorter supply chains and vertical integration can help. As McKay point...

This week: Some early pointers from Innovation Forum’s new smallholder farmer research group – involving Clinton Foundation, COLEACP, CottonConnect, GIZ, Golden Agri-Resources and Nestlé – from Dr Peter Stanbury. And, another chance to hear from Fairtrade America’s Stephanie Westhelle about working to ensure long-term sustainability in the west African cocoa sector. Plus: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Danon...

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...

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...

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 20...

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...

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 o...

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 defor...

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 indivi...

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 plas...

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 b...

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...

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 f...

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...

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.

This week: Alison Ward, CEO of CottonConnect, on challenges for smallholder farmers emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, and why they must develop financial and agricultural resilience, alongside continual access to new markets. Plus: why poverty alleviation can cut deforestation; 100 economists urging an end to the carbon economy; challenges for plastic recycling from low oil prices; and, Unileve...

Franco Costantini, managing director Control Union UK, talks with Ian Welsh about why a shift to regenerative agriculture practices is a route to long term sustainability for farming. He argues that current approaches will mean that top soils fail to support crops within 60 years, which is why improvements such as stimulating biodiversity, better carbon sequestration and increasing soil organic ma...

This week: Cargill’s Truke Smoor explains the motivation and science behind the company’s newly announced 2030 water targets. And Mariko Thorbecke from Quantis on why ever-more food producers are working with nature to develop regenerative agriculture programmes.   Plus: UN FAO identifies the countries likely to experience food security post pandemic; the $10tn potential green economy rebound, say...

Sarah Carpenter, manager for business and human rights at Assent Compliance, explains to Ian Welsh why proper engagement means listening to suppliers. She outlines some methods to counter the challenges reaching out beyond tier one suppliers, and how to ensure training is anchored within a wider programme of engagement that is relevant while also respecting the diversity of supply chains.   Assent...

This week: Franco Costantini, managing director of Control Union UK, on the growth of regenerative agriculture and how food producers are switching to more holistic farming techniques, encouraging greater soil organic matter, biodiversity and carbon dioxide sequestration. Plus: how the Loop platform is helping consumers cut single-use plastic footprints with Tesco in the UK; Coca-Cola European Par...

Stephanie Westhelle, development manager for sustainability and partnerships at Fairtrade America argues that it’s hard to see how cocoa supply chains can be viable in the long term if farmers are compensated by less than $1 a day in a sector worth over $150bn a year. She discusses how poverty, gender inequality and child labour risks can be tackled, and why these are closely linked to the defores...

This week: Sarah Carpenter, manager for business and human rights at Assent Compliance, on how to tackle the challenges of taking supplier training to scale, and how to develop effective codes of conduct. Plus, in the news digest: deforestation rates increased during pandemic, says Rainforest Action Network; Look Behind the Label takes Boohoo to task on UK supply chain modern slavery; and could sp...

Ryan Lynch, practice director, sustainability, at BSI talks with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about what food sector companies can do to drive action on climate change. They discuss the policy and regulation that can help, skills that companies need to develop and how to tackle existing constraints preventing adoption and scale. As Lynch comments, the one thing to note regarding these big challeng...

In this hour-long session, co-hosted with the Accountability Framework initiative, hear on-the-ground insight from commodity producers – palm oil in Ghana and cocoa in Cameroon – about how the pandemic is impacting their supply chain sustainability efforts and what they are doing to stay on track with their commitments. Panellists: Samuel Avaala, general manager, Benso Oil Palm Plantation Roland B...

This week: Stephanie Westhelle, development manager for sustainability and partnerships, Fairtrade America, on challenges for developing farmer incomes in the cocoa sector to ensure long-term producer community viability. Plus: UN Global Compact reveals big sustainable development goals shortfall; soy sector reaffirms commitment to protect Brazil’s Cerrado; Rainforest Alliance certification shakeu...