Measuring means knowing equals action
The recent Australian Conservation Foundation report into food companies and what they are doing to assess the nature-related impacts of their operations was sobering. But such a lack of knowledge is not restricted to nature, instead applying to all aspects of operations. So how can companies become more aware of their impacts and is it going to hurt.
The benchmark assessed companies on 37 sustainable practice indicators across four themes: Risk Assessment and Disclosure, Nature Targets, Strategy and Action, and Governance.
For lead author, Bonnie Graham, the most surprising finding was that most of Australia’s top 20 food companies didn’t have traceability back to farm level. Nine had some, but seven of those did so for less than 25 per cent of their commodities.
“That the majority don’t have traceability back to the farm level is a big concern because it is such a foundational step. Companies cannot assess their impacts and dependencies or manage nature-related risks without first knowing who their suppliers are or which ecosystems and biomes their value chains interact with. They have no way of putting strong policies and systems in place to mitigate any damage that is occurring at that level,” Graham said.
Resolving excess inventory is another area where many companies fall. Excess food inventory tech platform, Yume, was created by Katy Barfield, who wanted to find a better solution than sending it to landfill or animal feed. Barfield said she had no idea how piecemeal, inadequate, and inefficient some of Australia’s largest food producers’ systems were when it came to dealing with edible food surplus.
“In nearly all cases, excess inventory is a silent killer of performance, taking a lot of time from people who don’t have it and are poorly resourced to deal with it. It’s manual, fragmented, and inefficient because it is not part of a company’s core business,” Barfield said.
For companies using Yume’s tech platform to sell surplus stock, it was being told how much it was costing the company that pushed the lever for change. Those using Yume for more than 12 months have reported a 128 per cent increase in the volume of excess stock sold, a 149 per cent increase on the net return, and 30 per cent more being donated.
“Our threefold value proposition is that we increase net return and gross margin and reduce write off. We improve processes and efficiencies, which reduces costs. And finally, we’re helping businesses to operationalise sustainability,” she said.
And at the National Food Waste Summit last week, the phrase “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” permeated every session.
Years of research, trials, pilot programs, education, and access to expert advice have revealed issues and opportunities never considered. Sector Action Plans – waste management plans for specific sectors in the food system – show that one size does not fit all when trying to tackle big problems.
End Food Waste Australia will be launching its consumer campaign later this year, created entirely off evidence-based research. It turns out, when looking at food waste in the home, there are 20 different behaviour responses. One size fits all programs are not going to cut it.
Graham talked about this in the nature reporting system.
“Given Australia has at least 89 unique ecological bioregions, a one size fits all approach using country-level traceability data only cannot be relied upon,” she said.
The complexity and enormity of these issues are not lost on anyone, and the actions needed to solve them like so.
Employees need to be adequately resourced and upskilled to deal with issues, the risks need to be a board level priority, with sufficient board expertise in place, and foremostly, leadership must engage thoroughly and lead from the top.
