Gamechangerz in Food : how to realize sustainable impact?

In late 2021, during one of our Gamechangers events, we reflected on developments in the field of sustainability: how do you realize sustainable impact? Many food companies struggle with a multitude of smaller initiatives which creates a bottleneck to really make an impact. Together with GfK and Hessing, we came to the conclusion that if you want to make sustainability part of your strategy you must first set clear priorities.

Sustainability has been on the international political agenda for 50 years, but since 2019 awareness is rapidly increasing; partly due to the Lancet study, the climate agreement and the European Green Deal. An important development in this is that the food industry has a major contribution to make.
For example, the Green Deal stipulates that economic growth may be achieved without resource depletion. This means that European food security can only be achieved with a lower environmental and climate footprint and greater food system resilience.

This new reality requires companies to make sharp choices. More and more companies are using “Environmental, Social & Governance analysis” (= ESG) to measure their sustainability. Gwynt wanted to know which issues within this policy are central to companies and researched the ESG reports of 16 global food companies. This showed that CO2 reduction, gender equality and water intake reduction were cited as the highest priorities.

But even though sustainability is high on the agenda, many companies are still searching for implementation. In practice, it proves difficult to choose course with daily changing pressures from consumers, NGOs, government and supply chain partners. Many questions also remain about the economic feasibility and measurability of many sustainable initiatives. This is understandable because sustainability is “new” and comprehensive. Stakeholders and customers come with different requirements, and determining the right KPI and measuring it is still in its infancy. Moreover, collaboration in the chain is still difficult.

So before you can communicate to the outside world, there is a lot of work to do. Therefore, it is important to first develop a sustainable roadmap for your company from the right ESG objectives and the impact on your stakeholders. This can then be translated into a supported and pragmatic action plan appropriate to the company.

Recognizable? Don’t hesitate, get in touch and let Gwynt think along with your next step.