B Lab Forces for Good Podcast: How Can Business Support Sustainable Food Production?
The way we farm, process, package, and transport food is driving environmental degradation and climate change. So how do we fix our foodways?
Sustainable food and agricultural systems are critical to human well-being and the health of our planet. Yet, environmental degradation, climate change, hunger, poverty, economic inequality, and the impacts of war all contribute to a complex of interconnected challenges that put our foodways in crisis. How can business be driven to make decisions that mitigate food waste and loss, fight hunger, and address the growing threats of climate change?
This episode aims to answer the following questions:
- What aspects of business practices intersect with foodways? (i.e., supply chains, food waste, packaging, plant based vs animal products)
- What are the positive climate impacts of business working toward sustainable foodways?
- How can consumers discern which products are ethically and sustainably sourced?
Guests:
- Julie-Anne Finan, Manager of Multinational Standards and Certifications, B Lab Global
- Stephanie de Heer, Vice President Marketing & Communications, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, formerly Global Director, Marketing and Communications, Rainforest Alliance
- Celine Barral, Chief Sustainability Officer and Corporate Communication, Bonduelle
Listen to this episode across all major platforms and find excerpts below.
What aspects of business practices intersect with foodways?
Julie-Anne Finan, Manager of Multinational Standards and Certifications, B Lab Global: We are really looking at the impact that you as a company in your operations have on stakeholders in relation to environmental and social issues. So having that awareness and that transparency into your supply chain is key to be able to determine which issues that are material and which issues you need to be taking action on.
A key shift that over the last couple of years is this transformation from work on sustainability being a voluntary value add to being requirements, a license to operate. If we think about food systems, the food industry, and we think about a topic like food safety, there’s really there’s no room for error there. That’s a license to operate. You need to have food safety systems in place by legislation. And especially in markets like Europe there’s a lot of legislation coming out around sustainability. So it’s no longer becoming something that’s optional for companies. And companies are realizing that this is something they really need to be aware of and to have the transparency on.
There has been a shift in awareness of the companies’ impact. What is the accountability and the responsibility that a company has when it comes to how their packaging is handled? Not only replacing that with more recyclable and more sustainable alternatives, but also looking at different methods of re-use and the circular economy.
What are the positive climate impacts of business working toward sustainable foodways?
Stephanie de Heer, Vice President Marketing & Communications, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, formerly Global Director, Marketing and Communications, Rainforest Alliance: We need to motivate companies to do even more work. By no means are we there yet. We’re on a good path, but we need to move quicker. We need to do more, and we really need to change. And if consumers demand responsibly produced products and demand to know where their products come from, that will bring a change. It’s the public pressure that will bring companies to even raise the bar further.
We need to reward companies that take responsibility, buy from those companies that are taking responsibility, know where their products come from, that are mindful of their environment and the impact they’re having on the ground. If we collectively favor those companies, then we can redefine the value of sustainability and actually not reward mass production, but reward those that choose wisely and grow through there. As citizens have the power to do that.
What we do is really look at the supply chains from beginning to end, because all of those factors are important to include in the journey toward more sustainability. The farmers that we work with are really feeling the effects of climate change. They’re the ones that are already having to mitigate and adapt to the current effects. So we are trying to, on the one hand, help them produce differently, mitigate climate change. But at the same time, we also have to make sure that they’re more resilient toward the the shocks than the nature shocks that we see more and more.
How can consumers discern which products are ethically and sustainably sourced?
Celine Barral, Chief Sustainability Officer and Corporate Communication, Bonduelle: This (sustainability) mission, putting it in our article of association, which is the case for almost two years now, led into a deeper reflection on how to articulate this positive impact agenda inside the company, what are the key programs we want to accomplish. Very quickly, the company looked at B Corp as a way to drive and accelerate those programs and have an external recognition of this journey.
For a big company like Bonduelle, it’s not easy to transform because it’s thousands and thousands of people, a lot of business unit everywhere, a lot of teams to embark. Spreading this inside the company and, of course, outside to our stakeholders is very important for the transformation we want to reach. And it’s a question of speed. The faster you go in explaining and spreading this message, the faster you will transform yourself. It’s quite exponential. Why you embark on the B Corp journey is as important as the process itself.
The whole company is engaged in that bigger journey. But we split the work into different waves to give space, to give a little bit of a sense of achievement as well, because you need victories to raise the company up. I It’s a long journey, a challenging one. But if we pace it correctly, if we put the right energy in explaining what it is and why we do that, I think people will perceive very quickly the benefit for the whole system. What I’ve learned is being simple and open on the topics of sustainability is accelerating a lot the way people are embracing the sustainability journey. That is instrumental to transform the way people in the company are infused with the sustainability agenda, how they approach it, and how they become an agent of change.
Listen to this episode now across all major platforms.
This article was originally published at https://www.bcorporation.net. B The Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
