A regular blog about (un) sustainable business. A focus on practical stuff, not blue sky pretentious waffle. Around 6000 regular readers, surprisingly.
Last year, in an effort to bring together companies, scientists, investors, NGOs, regulators and other experts on agriculture, technology and innovation, we created a conference about it. No surprises there I suppose, given that’s what we do at Innovation Forum. We’re trying to ask the tough questions, and get some answers. here’s some of what we’ll…
Duncan Pollard, in a follow up post to this earlier one, reflects on corporate no-deforestation commitments below: “It would be a brave company to abandon its no deforestation commitment any time soon. But maybe we are inching our way there. There were some persuasive arguments made by Chris Wille on Toby Webb’s blog recently, and…
The debate continues. Deborah sent me some comments on my original post: “1000 days to go…the six most difficult questions for consumer brands around ‘zero’ deforestation palm oil by 2020” and I asked her if we could run them as a separate post. So here’s her views below, with links to the other pieces and…
When I penned my original recent post: “1000 days to go…the six most difficult questions for consumer brands around ‘zero’ deforestation palm oil by 2020” some of the text should have been attributed to Duncan Pollard at Nestle. It was a genuine mistake on my part, but I should have re-written it even though the…
It’s important for global investors to learn to address and model supply chain risks if they wish to achieve financial outperformance, argues Gabriel Thoumi, director of capital markets at Climate Advisers. He makes the points well, alongside NSF’s Meredith Reisfield at a recent event in the US. ValueWalk Video: Managing Investor Expectations & Risk – How to…
Last week I published this post about what brands might do as zero deforestation approaches are seen to need re-working, given we are 1000 days or so away from some big stated deadlines. That post is linked below, as is a response by Anita Neville from Golden-Agri Resources. Now, again below, is some further commentary…
While investors recognise the risks in the palm oil sector, there are some key things they can do to engage with the industry more effectively. Toby Webb meets with Abigail Herron, global head of responsible investment at Aviva Investors, and Clara Melot, SPOTT engagement and impacts manager at ZSL, to discuss how palm oil is…
Most readers of this blog, I would suggest, enjoy a glass of wine on occasion. If you don’t, my condolences. Writing about sustainable wine is a hobby of mine, and my wine blog allows me to go and visit winemakers all over the world. Andrew Felluga, who I interview below, points out that grape growers…
Palm oil is much in the news again early in 2018, with headlines appearing such as: EU heading for ‘zero palm oil’ in transport by 2021 Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand ready to retaliate on EU palm oil ban Palm oil: Malaysia can argue for exclusion from European ban Proposed ban on palm oil: Felda to…
Josh Prigge, CEO of Sustridge and most recently sustainability head at Fetzer Vineyards, says there’s no doubt that studying sustainable wine has benefits for other business sectors. Josh has spoken at a couple of Innovation Forum conferences in the last few years. I found what he had to say highly interesting, and I was curious about a…
Happy New Year to all readers, and I hope you had a restful festive break. I was in rural Somerset with the family, where it rained a lot, but the local food and (mostly imported) wines were superb. Part of my New Year resolutions (along with more gym, fewer carbs and glasses of wine in…
Sabine Benoit and Julia Hartmann at the Surrey Business School at the University of Surrey have been researching consumer perception of sustainability in supply chains (video here) They have been researching the question of whom consumers hold responsible and blame in case of irresponsible supplier behaviour and the subsequent reactions in consumer behaviour. The publication that’s the foundation of…
Here’s a Q&A with Nicky Amos and Dr Rory Sullivan, editors of the new book The Business of Farm Animal Welfare and architects of the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare. 1) Why is animal farm welfare a significant business issue today? Who does it actually affect? Nicky Amos: The reasons why companies should care about…
Here’s an upcoming event from us at Innovation Forum and Bonsucro, on the above topic. We’ve run this twice before, and last year’s conference was generally regarded as pretty good. It’s packed with big companies and key NGOs, and I hope you can join us. Here’s a bit more on the conference, and the brochure…
Cocoa has been in the news a lot in recent years. It’s one of those soft commodities that everyone cares about and feels they have a stake in. Who doesn’t like chocolate? I spent a few days in the forests of Ghana, back in 2010, with executives from what is now Mondelēz (then Cadbury/Kraft) some years…
I'm Toby Webb, founder of Innovation Forum, a sustainability focused research, publishing and events business. I've also been a lecturer on Corporate Responsibility at Kings College London and at Birkbeck, University of London for eight years. I work with large companies all over the world and sit on the sustainability advisory board for Walgreens Boots Alliance. From 2006-9 I lead the development of UK CSR policy, resulting in the Responsibility Deals framework. I can be contacted at Tobias DOT Webb AT innovation-forum.co.uk
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