Business leaders 'unhappy' about changes to CRC

The government announced changes to the Carbon Reduction Commitment as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.  These changes see the cessation of the process whereby tax revenue generated from the carbon pricing scheme are recycled back in to green projects.  The £1 billion revenue generated each year will now be contributing to reducing the deficit.  Business is concerned as this was not communicated in advance and it was felt that it was more of a “stealth tax” than a contributor to improving upon carbon reduction or energy efficiency schemes.  It is understood that companies will now have to pay £12 per tonne of carbon dioxide they emit and this is likely to increase to £14 from 2013.

Water in Your Supply Chain

Around 100 people attended the IGD “Water in Your Supply Chain” conference on 21 October when IGD launched its new guide to water in grocery supply chains. This new guide is available free and is designed to help food and grocery companies assess the impact of, and better manage the water-related risks they face. It was put together by an industry working group consisting of major grocery retailers, manufacturers and primary producers, many of whom attended the conference.

A number of presentations were made that discussed the challenges and solutions facing businesses today as they try to reduce their water footprint. The panel of speakers agreed that the journey to reduce water risks within business had started but that there was still some way to go. One area touched upon was the interaction between farmers and their clients as well as amongst farmers themselves.

Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business for M&S; emphasised the benefits of providing a forum within which farmers are able to discuss their successes and learn from one another. M&S provide such forums with an annual sustainability conference to which their farmers are invited and with six additional events per year at which farmers can discuss the more practical elements of implementing improvements. Annie Graham, Head of Brand Sustainability for Sainsbury’s; provided an example of how one of their potato suppliers, Greenvale, had achieved particular success with their innovative root vegetable washing system, Project Cascade. The changes introduced resulted in a reduction from 55,000 gallons to 10,000 gallons of average daily water use.

Andrew Clark, Head of Policy Services at the NFU, emphasised the need to ensure that the buyers of farmer’s produce cooperated to ensure that a single set of guidelines and a single standard was set for them to follow. This was further supported by Dr David Tickner, Head of Freshwater Programmes for the WWF, who said that he believed that there were two main areas where business could effectively work together; firstly in the construction of industry wide metrics and the definition of certain standards and secondly by cooperating at specific locations where there is water scarcity or water risk, Lake Naivasha for example.

The Ethical Landscape – Preparing for change

In recent months there have been various trends emerging in food ethics:

· Accreditations organisations have broadened their reach to include many more parts the supply chain and are beginning to compete
· Consumers are beginning to question the validity of ethical marques (e.g. Free Range, Organic etc.)
· More businesses are creating greater competitive advantage through use of ethical marques
· Differentiation for “value” brands is more difficult in the current economic climate.
· Ethics in food has become subject to greater media scrutiny and government attention
· Many Foodservice businesses have developed sophisticated strategies around ethics in their supply chain
· New accreditation schemes for ethical food are emerging and existing accreditation schemes are developing

Our Objective is to provide the foodservice operators with an update of the ethical debate in foodservice and greater clarity around legislative and consumer trends ethical trading and to help the foodservice supply chain develop their strategy towards ethics in foodservice

The proposed content of the event will be:

Ethical Marques update; Ethical Sourcing update; Consumer and customer attitudes and trends; Ethical and cultural issues across the supply chain; accreditation for small producers and operators

For any comments of any input, please email events@footprint-forum.com

Low carbon is on the menu at launch of Otarian restaurant

The first global restaurant chain to carbon footprint every menu item to international standards has opened its doors in London. Vegetarian restaurant Otarian opened two locations this month (August) in Shaftesbury Avenue and Wardour Street following the opening of two restaurants in New York earlier this year. The carbon footprints of each menu item were measured by carbon reduction company Sustain and they appear alongside the footprint of a comparable meat dish. Working with food sustainability consultancy Eat England, Sustain carried out comprehensive ‘cradle to grave’ carbon footprinting, which calculates greenhouse gas emissions from each stage of the products’ lifecycles. This includes sourcing the raw materials for each ingredient, manufacturing, packing, transporting, cooking and disposal of the product. The calculations were performed according to PAS 2050 – the UK Government’s widely accepted carbon footprint specification. Jean-Yves Cherruault, environmental accounting manager at Sustain, said: “It’s a privilege to be involved in such a pioneering project and, judging from the success of the New York restaurants, the footprint is really helping customers get a better understanding of the environmental impact of each dish. It will be interesting to monitor how this impacts customers’ choices in the coming months.”

Price of bread to soar in global wheat shortage!

A quarter of the world's total wheat exports will be withdrawn from the market after Russia suffers from its worst drought in over a century. The move instigated by Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, could cause the price of bread to soar globally.

Though the British foodservice industry buys little wheat directly from Russia, most loaves contain a large proportion of imported flour. According to the Daily Telegraph, Premier Foods commented that the price of a loaf could possibly rise by as much as 10p.

Intelligent move to benchmark sustainability in foodservice

In a far reaching move, the publishers of Foodservice Footprint assembled a number of senior foodservice industry executives to discuss the groundbreaking environmental research and benchmarking programme, Footprint Intelligence. Having piloted the Beta version with Brakes, the roundtable discussion was held at Pret A Manger’s Victoria offices before the Footprint Forum general meeting on Thursday May 27th and involved representatives from Pret A Manger, Sodexo, Reynolds, Brakes and Llanllyr Source Water.

“For years the industry has been crying out for its current environmental impact to be measured,” Charles Miers, Managing Director of Foodservice Footprint commented. “With Footprint Intelligence the industry can work together towards improving standards year on year ”

Footprint Intelligence is working inclusively with the foodservice industry to benchmark the supply chain from farm and factory to fork. Nick Fenwicke-Clennell CEO of Footprint Media Group concluded: “Suppliers will be able to monitor their own improvements and our team will be able to guide them through the data capture process. The industry is diverse and so we will be working closely with businesses to analyse the impact by sector with the aim of improving environmental performance across all sectors of the foodservice industry.”

“This is not about accreditation but about industry benchmarking”, said Miers. “As the project develops, suppliers will be able to assess their performance against a sector mean and will be able to focus resources on those areas needing attention. The net result we hope will be a steady improvement to the industry’s environmental credentials”, he said.

For further information about Footprint Intelligence please contact james@foodservicefootprint.com

ARAMARK AIMS HIGH WITH BITC

ARAMARK, the award-winning managed food service company, achieves Bronze for the second year-running in the Business in the Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index 2009.

Designed to benchmark responsible business practice, the report is used by industry leading companies at the forefront of corporate responsibility to lead change. The CR Index supports companies to improve their social and environmental performance through a targeted and systematic approach.

Val Carter, Corporate Responsibility Director, ARAMARK, said, “Taking the key learnings from last year, when we also achieved Bronze status, ARAMARK has concentrated efforts on reducing its environmental impact and stepping up momentum in core strategic areas. These include the workplace with the implementation of the employee benefits programme; the marketplace with a commitment to local food sourcing; and environment management with the completion of the company’s two-year carbon footprint analysis report.

“Working with BITC to achieve certification solidified our commitment to corporate responsibility and further demonstrates the company’s credentials in this area; it’s a true mark of our leadership in the food service industry. Thanks to our dedicated team and customers we are already working hard on all areas to ensure 2010 will be another step towards a Gold Class CR programme.”

Further results of the Index have been featured within the Responsible Business supplement of the Financial Times today.