Our global food system faces a critical challenge: ensuring food security for a growing population while minimising environmental impact. To achieve this, a significant transformation of our food sustainability practices and supply chains is crucial. This challenge took centre stage at the "Revolutionising Food Sustainability and Supply Chains" panel discussion at Reset Connect 2024, sparking exciting ideas for the future of our food system!
The global food system is a primary driver of climate change: a recent study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization highlights the food system's role in generating approximately one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Intensive agricultural practices contribute significantly to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions while the sector's substantial water consumption also exacerbates water scarcity.
To address these issues, a new regulatory landscape is emerging, with for example the EU's Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requiring companies trading in specific commodities, including soy, palm oil, and cattle, to prove that their products are deforestation-free. This far-reaching legislation applies to both EU-based and international companies trading in the EU, targeting both legal and illegal deforestation sources within the EU and globally. Businesses face significant challenges in meeting regulatory requirements like the EUDR and calculating their carbon footprint due to limited visibility within their supply chains. Accurately tracking environmental impacts and ensuring compliance requires granular data and robust traceability systems, which are often lacking.
Addressing these challenges and build more a sustainable food system will therefore require that businesses and stakeholders work together to develop innovative solutions and improve transparency throughout the supply chain and reduce their impact. The panel at Reset Connect brought together a diverse group of leaders, each actively driving food systems transformation from their unique vantage point. From pioneering sustainable and regenerative farming practices by strengthening the link between organisations and farmers (Soil Capital) to reimagining supply chain logistics (Move to -15C Coalition), the speakers represented various stages of this critical journey. We have also seen other examples of positive stakeholders engagement in the food industry like the use of incentives by organisations to encourage their farmers to reduce their environmental impact, by offering financial rewards for measuring and reducing their carbon footprint.
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