COLLABORATION -
FCF Fishery Company (FCF) has announced that its joint investment, Nambawan, and its associated fleet, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with PNAO/Pacifical as a commitment to maintaining Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) sustainability standards while trading tuna harvested from Pacific Island Nations (PNA) waters.Under the agreement, FCF will work with the PNA and Pacifical on criteria for certification and ensuring traceability and reporting from fish harvested to transportation, and processing into its semi-finished and finished products.
LEADERSHIP -
Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, also known as Sonoma County Winegrowers (SCW), has created a 100-year business plan to preserve agriculture in Sonoma County well into the 22nd century.
The time period of 100 years was chosen because it represents two generations before and the next two future generations — spanning from grandparents to grandchildren. The plan addresses such issues as innovation and research, natural resources, the regulatory environment, community engagement and marketing while building coalitions throughout the community in support of sustaining agriculture in Sonoma County in the long term.
COLLABORATION -
Mars, in partnership with UC Davis, launched the Innovation Institute for Food and Health, part of the university's World Food Center, at a day-long symposium on Wednesday. Laureates and other leading scientists discussed major challenges relating to improving global food security, sustainable agriculture and health for a growing world population.The Innovation Institute is being supported over the next 10 years with a pledge of $40 million from Mars and $20 million from UC Davis and aims to advance new discoveries in sustainable food, agriculture and health.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
On Tuesday, SumOfUs, an international consumer advocacy organization, released a new parody video — in conjunction with Doritos’ annual “Crash the Super Bowl” commercial competition — that calls out Doritos and its parent company, PepsiCo, for use of unsustainable palm oil in Doritos products and the subsequent destruction caused to Southeast Asian rainforests, species and communities.
The video, called “A Cheesy Love Story — The Ad Doritos Don't Want You to See,” has reached almost a million views across Facebook and YouTube since it went live on Tuesday.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Chipotle is walking its “Food with Integrity” talk with the decision this week to eliminate carnitas from the menu at about a third of its 1,800 U.S. locations, after discovering that one of its pork suppliers violated the company’s animal-welfare policies.“Without this pork, we cannot get enough pork that meets our Responsibly Raised standard for all our restaurants, and we will not be able to serve carnitas in some locations,” Chipotle said in a statement, though the company declined to name the supplier in question.
MARKETING AND COMMS -
As I stared at a seemingly endless array of packaged chicken parts in a high-end grocery store recently, a mother of two strode up to the refrigerated section and decisively grabbed a package that promised “All-Natural Free-Range” chicken. “Yes!” she exclaimed to her kids. “Here they are!”
MARKETING AND COMMS -
Stonyfield Farm has taken the transparency of its supply chain to a new level by creating a source map for each of its ingredients.The New Hampshire-based organic dairy brand worked with SourceMap to create a map detailing the location, farm conditions and history for each of its ingredients, ranging from the dairy farms that supply its milk to the peaches, pears and raspberries that flavor its products.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
A new report from WorldFish shows that resource-poor Bangladeshis can participate in commercial aquaculture, challenging conventional assumptions that this was not possible. The report also highlights that more of the very poor in Bangladesh are profiting from commercial aquaculture than was previously thought.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
More and more consumers are aware of overfishing and the effects plastic trash is having on the world’s oceans. Various companies are taking small steps in harvesting ocean garbage and recycling it while organizations such as the Marine Stewardship Council are raising awareness about the importance of sustainably sourced seafood. One problem, however, is still wreaking havoc on fisheries across the world. Unwanted and abandoned fishing equipment such as nets and pots, often called “ghost gear,” often still traps and kills fish and sea mammals long after their final use.
COLLABORATION -
Cargill Cattle Feeders, the cattle supply arm of the company's U.S. beef business, has entered into an agreement with Wichita-based consultancy Kennedy and Coe, in a joint effort to create a verified beef supply chain sustainability assessment program for Cargill feed yards.As part of the collaboration, Kennedy and Coe will leverage its extensive beef-industry and sustainability expertise and ResourceMax™ assessment service developed by its Vela Environmental division.Based on the successful development of benchmarking and measurement criteria, this type of assessment could eventually be expanded to include cattle production in collaboration with stocker operators, ranchers, as well as with Cargill's strategic feed yard partners.
NEW METRICS -
Across the entire agricultural supply chain — from the farm to the store shelf — the challenge of meeting demand for a rapidly growing population, while conserving natural resources, necessitates a harmonized, science-based approach to measure and communicate sustainability in agriculture. On Friday, Field to Market®: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture announced a partnership with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) aimed at achieving this goal.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
On Wednesday, PepsiCo’s newly launched Pepsi True was pulled from Amazon.com after being overwhelmed by negative reviews from rainforest activists calling out Pepsi for its failure to adopt more responsible palm oil policies that will help end deforestation and modern slavery in South East Asia.The campaign, which comes one month after the celebrated launch of Pepsi True for exclusive sale on Amazon, involved thousands of activists and consumers from corporate watchdog SumOfUs.org and the Rainforest Action Network, who overwhelmed the product’s page with bad reviews urging the company to adopt better palm oil policies. Within a few hours of the campaign, Pepsi True was removed from the Amazon.com marketplace.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
India-based social enterprise Spring Health has announced plans to join the Business Call to Action (BCtA) and provide safe drinking water to two million customers in rural India by 2017 to improve the health outcomes of more than five million people in Eastern India by 2019.Spring Health is the Indian counterpart of US-headquartered Windhorse International, founded by entrepreneur Paul Polak with Indian partner Jacob Mathew and CEO Kishan Nanavati.
NEW METRICS -
Conservation impact investing totaled approximately $23 billion in the five-year period from 2009 to 2013, according to a new report by EKO Asset Management Partners and The Nature Conservancy’s NatureVest division.During the same period, private investments accounted for almost $2 billion of this market — an amount that is growing at an average of 26 percent annually, and is expected to reach more than $5.6 billion by 2018.
WASTE NOT -
As more and more organizations are finding ways to create fuel from waste — case in point: Italy is about to become the first country to require cars and trucks to run on biofuel made from agricultural waste — Chevrolet says its 2015 Bi-fuel Impala will be able to run on leftovers, table scraps and, oh, yeah, grains from brewing beer (welcome to the present, Back to the Future fans!).
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
On Thursday, the first full day of Flourish & Prosper: The Third Global Forum for Business as an Agent of World Benefit in Cleveland, Ohio, the morning’s plenaries and CEO panels explored how business can move beyond how social and environmental responsibility are thought of today, to a new mindset of "full-spectrum flourishing" where “companies prosper, people excel, and nature thrives.”
NEW METRICS -
The Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences announced its initial, successful fielding of the Vital Capital Index for Dairy Agriculture (VCI) with the Agri-Mark dairy cooperative, best known for its flagship brand of award-winning Cabot dairy products. Nearly 94 percent of the cooperative’s 1,200 member farms completed Level 1, the “Awareness” portion of the VCI.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has launched an updated version of its sustainable fishing standards, to come into effect on April 1, 2015.Developed over the past two years, Version 2.0 of the MSC’s Fisheries Certification Requirements incorporates the latest knowledge and understanding of the science and management behind sustainable fisheries and aquatic environments. The year-long consulting stage of the project involved input from experts and stakeholders worldwide, including fishing industry scientists, NGOs and MSC’s partners.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
Alongside Fair Trade Month, Fair Trade USA has announced the launch of several new Fair Trade Certified™ products across new categories, including home goods, apparel and coconut.In 2014, the third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in North America partnered with 109 new companies (for a total of 915), and helped launch 455 new Fair Trade Certified products into the North American market. The growth and increased availability of Fair Trade products empowers shoppers to choose items that make a positive difference — from ensuring that factory workers have safe working conditions, to helping farmers and workers improve their communities and environment.