IFE Manufacturing recently attended the UN Global Compact Network UK: Food Sector Exchange event at The Conduit members club in Covent Garden, where food and drink industry professionals gathered together to discuss some of the most important trends and challenges in building more sustainable food systems and ensuring equity across the global supply chain. 

The event kicked off with a discussion hosted by Balwinder Dhoot, Head of Sustainability and Growth at the Food & Drink Federation, and featuring panellists María Alejandra Pulido, EU Sustainable Agriculture Lead Manager at Climate Bonds Initiative, Sarah Cook, Head of Environment at the UN Global Compact Network UK, and Andy Turk, Human Rights Manager at Pilgrims UK. 

Speaking to IFE Manufacturing post-event, Pulido commented on the main takeaways of the session: "Voluntary certification against credible criteria can demonstrate compliance with the policy and regulations requirements for stakeholders. Transition plans provide a structured framework to help companies identify and guide their pathway to sustainable and more resilient supply chains.

"Shifting from mere legal compliance to implementing best practices is vital for corporate resilience to climate risks. The transition is underway: The transition has started and there is a growing understanding of how to deliver it involving a whole ecosystem of agri-food supply chain actors to support implementation.

"Innovative financing solutions and a collaborative approach are needed. Collaboration among all stakeholders along the value chain is key to avoiding carbon leakage, reducing costs, and accelerating the transition. The financial sector could play a scaling role with a series of sustainability-linked or green co-financing or cross-value chain solutions."

The wide-ranging debate entitled 'Enabling a just transition' addressed what role businesses can play in leaving no one behind in the transition to a more sustainable food industry, including aligning on what a just transition means in practice, and how the industry can integrate just transition practices into business as usual for all.

This was followed by a fireside chat between Dr Sally Uren, CEO at Forum for the Future, and Mike Hanson, Director of Sustainable Business at WSH International which examined how the industry can catalyse market-level change that unlock barriers to the regenerative transition and discussed the ever-evolving role of CSO in food and hospitality businesses as sustainability becomes more integral to how they operate. 

The final panel, entitled 'Next in sustainable food' saw Adele Jones, Executive Director at the Sustainable Food Trust, moderate the discussion joined by panellists Eleanor Besley-Gould, Director at Xynteo, Maria Carvalho, Head of Climate Economics and Data at NatWest Group, Khanh Mach, Sustainability Specialist at Quorn Foods, and Sandrine Ricard, Director Sustainability & Responsibility Communications at Pernod Ricard/Chivas Brothers. 

Each speaker presented a case study relating to their business and the panel assessed emerging issues facing the food industry such as regenerative agriculture and the impact on farming (SDG 15), waste (SDG 12), and the role of the food sector on healthy living (SDG 3), and sharing tangible solutions to address these challenges. 

Following the session Jones shared some of her key takeaways from the discussion: "Pre competitive collaboration is absolutely key to solving the sustainability issues we face. A degree of competition between companies is healthy but we must identify where honest collaboration is needed. We have to make this a financial no brainer, particularly for farmers.

"All the risk and neutral cannot fall on their shoulders - this will take investment from the private sector. Companies sharing where things have worked and where things haven’t is really important. Having forums like this where feedback can be shared is so key." 

Besley-Gould added: "This event for me drew focus on the profound need for urgency and for us as a food system us to move beyond policy and commit to real, collaborative action. We need to break down business silos and make sustainability everyone's role by equipping teams in applied sustainability principles and skills they need in order to tackle the looming deadlines of difficult to reach scope net zero targets within our complex food and agriculture supply chains. 

"It made it clear that only through innovative synergy and collective responsibility can we drive meaningful progress and ensure a sustainable future for food."

To keep up to date with all the latest news, interviews and industry trends relating to the future of food and food production, subscribe to the IFE Manufacturing newsletter.