2Sustain

Danone, Unilever, Heinz and Nestlé are the most sustainable large food producers in the world, according to new research released earlier this month by Bank Sarasin.

The study, Food and sustainability: Will the seed bear fruit? highlights three central sustainability themes that affect food producers:

• health and nutrition
• sourcing more raw materials from sustainable agriculture
• committing to fair working conditions.

And although the report found that many large food producers are developing sustainability strategies, Bank Sarasin concluded that most companies still have plenty of ground to cover on the path towards sustainability.

For example, the food industry as a whole faces significant challenges regarding the procurement of raw materials from sustainable sources. The world’s largest food producers purchase a significant share of global harvests –up to 20 percent of the world’s coffee, more than 10 percent of its tea, tomatoes and peas, and about 5 percent of its palm oil. Companies that have worked to secure large volumes of their raw materials from sustainable sources ranked high on Bank Sarasin’s matrix of sustainability criteria.
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Last week, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living Plan, which includes more than 50 social, economic and environmental targets. According to CEO Paul Polman these goals represent “new ways of doing business which will ensure that our growth does not come at the expense of the world’s diminishing natural resources.”

Specifically, Unilever wants to: (more…)

The demand for certified sustainable palm oil is continuing to grow, and last week Cargill announced that it will supply Unilever’s European operations with 10,000 metric tonnes of segregated refined palm oil, certified by the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Unilever, one of the world’s largest buyers of palm oil, plans to be using only sustainable palm oil by 2015. Already this year, over 35 percent is RSPO-certified, indicating that the company is well on its way to achieving that goal. (more…)

Last Wednesday, a day after Greenpeace released a new report airing fresh allegations that the Indonesian paper firm Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) is “wreaking environmental havoc” in rainforests and peatlands, French retail giant Carrefour announced that it has suspended sourcing of APP products.

APP is part of the Sinar Mas group, and the Greenpeace report, titled How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet, maintains that the paper company is destroying Indonesia’s rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands so that it can feed its Sumatran based pulp mills, which then export pulp and paper products to a variety retailers worldwide. (more…)

Unilever is now the first global FMCG company to commit to sourcing all of its paper and board packaging from sustainably managed forests or recycled material within a clearly defined timeframe.

Last week, the company announced that it wants to source 75 percent of its paper and board packaging from sustainably managed forests or from recycled material by 2015, rising to a goal of 100 percent from these sources by 2020.

Of course, Unilever is already a recognized leader in sustainable packaging. The company is a founding member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and since 1995, has reduced its total waste (kg/tonne of production) by 73 percent. (more…)