Food Transport & Product Lifecycle

A New Approach to Food Transport

• Chris Brown, Head of Ethical and Sustainable Sourcing, ASDA

Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development

The 2006 Defra commissioned report, co-authored by Paul Watkiss, underlined the impacts of food transport, but also highlighted the wider trade-offs and ambiguity in the food miles debate. It also suggested some potential policies to address the environmental impact of food transport. In this presentation Paul will summarise the report findings, thereaction and subsequent work in this area,and how policy initiatives and industry thinking has moved on as a result. Paul will also discuss why, despite the findings, the term food miles continues to be widely used?

• Paul Watkiss, Director, Paul Watkiss Associates

Conclusions and Recommendations from Food Industry Sustainability Study Champion Groups on Food Transport and Energy and Climate Change

• Andrew Dunn, Head of Food Industry Sustainability Strategy Team, Food Chain Program, Defra

New Zealand Producers Response

The food producers of New Zealand are actively interested in environmental trends within the UK food industry. In response to the growing awareness of the impact of climate change New Zealand food producers are developing accurate lifecycle assessments for the production and transportation of their produce. In this presentation, live from Auckland, a New Zealand Producer will outline their response to this challenge.

• Dave Pearce, Chief Winemaker, The New Zealand Wine Company (makers of Grove Mill and Sanctuary wines)

Food and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: What are the Impacts and What would a Less Greenhouse Gas Intensive Food Chain Look Like

• Tara Garnett, Director, Food Climate Research Network

Product Life Cycle Case Study

• Henry King, Senior Environmental Manager, Unilever UK

A Life Cycle Approach to Cider

• Richard Heathcote, Sustainable Development Manager, Bulmers

The Food Miles Debate – Dump or Adopt?

While it is clearly insufficient to simplifying the environmental impact of food production, retail and consumption to a unit of length, the term food miles does have growing resonance.
Should the industry adopt a flawed but communicable term rather than confuse consumers with the complexities of the issue?

How else can the industry calculate and communicate climate impact of individual products?
Can the industry cater for the increasingly sophisticated consumer with growing demands for diverse, year-round products, grown organically and produced locally? Can they have their organic cake and eat it?

• Chair: Tara Garnett, Director, Food Climate Research Network
• Gundula Azeez, Policy Manager, The Soil Association
• Julian Gairdner, Food Miles Campaign Director, Group Arable Editor, Farmers Weekly
• Ellen Gladbers, Climate Change Project Manager, Tesco
• Guy Watson, Founder and Owner, Riverford Organic Vegetables
• Sarah McLaren, Senior Adviser, Landcare Research, New Zealand

 

Operational Response

• Chair: Chris Brook-Carter, Director of Publishing, Just-Food, Aroq Ltd

Case Study: Greening the Grocer – The World’s Most Environmentally Friendly Store

• James Dorling, Development Manager – Non Food, Environmental and .Com, Tesco Stores

Case Study: Maintaining an Environmental Ethos across 189 Stores in Numerous Countries

Founded in 1980 as one small store in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market is now the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods, with 189 stores mostly in North America. Their company ethos is based on a commitment to sustainable agriculture.

Part of their mission statement reads – “We believe in a virtuous circle entwining the food chain, human beings and Mother Earth: each is reliant upon the others through a beautiful and delicate symbiosis”. In 2007 Whole Foods will open London’s largest food retail space. In this presentation Kathy Loftus will outline how Whole Foods Markets can maintain this ethos on a large and international scale.

• Kathy Loftus, National Energy Manager, Whole Foods Market, USA

Discussion with Expert Panel

• Bill Wright, Corporate Energy and Environment Manager, John Lewis & Waitrose
• James Dorling, Development Manager – Non Food, Environmental and .Com, Tesco Stores
• Kathy Loftus, National Energy Manager, Whole Foods Market, USA

Labeling and Marketing

Food retailers now recognize the brand value is tied to climate change action and are coming up with innovative ways to market their credentials to consumers. From labels on air freighted food to compostable packaging and biodegradable carrier bags, supermarkets are now catering to consumers who want to buy ethically. The next big challenge, of course, is carbon labelling which could take years to sort out as experts begin to try and measure the ‘embodied energy’ of individual products. In this session, we will look at how the race to be green is manifesting in new labelling and marketing techniques.

• Chair: Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive, LEAF

Case Study: Looking Beyond the Label

• Mike Barry, Head of CSR, Marks & Spencer

Carbon Labeling – Work in Progress

• Anne-Marie Warris, Global Product Manager – Climate Change, LRQA

The Next Step – Carbon Labelling Debate

Is it possible to label individual products’ carbon footprints? How do you begin? After all the effort, will consumers really buy based on carbon calories?

• Euan Murray, Strategy Manager, The Carbon Trust
• Mike Barry, Head of CSR, Marks & Spencer
• Anne-Marie Warris, Global Product Manager – Climate Change, LRQA

Video Part 5–>

I have absoloutely no idea where the people at Celsias found the link to this but all the presentations from the CCR London event can be downloaded from here.

Offsetting Options

All You Wanted to Know About Offsetting But Were Afraid to Ask

• Abyd Karmali, Managing Director, ICF International

Offsetting Plus

• Rob Rabinowitz, Managing Director, Pure
• Rob Challis, Global Head of Corporate Responsibility, Man Group

Discussion with Expert Panel
Is offsetting just a “get out of jail free card” – does it count?
Impact of government standards on the offset industry
How can you be certain your offsets are removing GHGs from the atmosphere?
What is additionality and do I need to worry about it?
Why do offsetting costs vary so much across suppliers?
Why can’t I offset with projects closer to home?
What are the merits of different kinds of offsets?

• Chair: Simon Propper, Managing Director, Context
• Phil Levermore, Managing Director, Ebico
• Mike Mason, Founder, Climate Care
• Dick Sisman, Founder, Ticos
• Jonathan Shopley, Chief Executive Officer, The Carbon Neutral Company

Emissions Trading & Other Measures for Low Energy Intensive
Companies and Organisations

 
DEFRA Update

Following the Energy Review, the Government published a consultation on a new emissions trading scheme – the Energy Performance Commitment – alongside other measures, to deliver 1.2MtC/year (4.4MtCO2/year) carbon savings by 2020 from around 5,000 large non-energy intensive business and public sector organisations. This presentation will provide an update on the policies aimed at addressing energy use emissions from these organisations.

• Philip Douglas, National Climate Change Policy Division, DEFRA

A Worked Example of a Potential EPC

• Ray Gluckam, Consulting Group Director, &
• Caroline Doble, Technical Manager, Climate Change Policy & Compliance Team, Enviros

Discussion with Expert Panel: The Emissions Trading Debate
How might this work?
What lessons have been learnt from the EU ETS and voluntary trading schemes that can be employed in this future scheme?
How can companies and organisations prepare?
Is this legislative approach the best method to obtain the proposed emissions reductions?

• Chair: Mark Kenber, Policy Director, The Climate Group
• Philip Douglas, National Climate Change Policy Division, DEFRA
• Ray Wilson, Risk & Governance Director, Barclays Facilities Management
• Dave Farebrother, Assistant Director, Environmental Services, Land Securities
• Martin Wiles, Energy and Environment Manager, Bristol University, Convener, Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges

Benchmarking, Reporting, Potential League Tables

 
Reporting Report Card: Why Climate Change Disclosure is So Poor

• Rory Sullivan, Head of Investor Responsibility, Insight Investment

 
Case Study: Benchmarking for the Hotel And Catering Industries

• Peter Roberts, Project Manager, Hospitable Climates

Discussion with Expert Panel:
What lessons can be learned form UK ETS, and EU ETS?
Will benchmarking, reporting and league tables be sectoral?
How much will all this cost?

• Chair: Alan Knight, Head of Standards and Related Services, AccountAbility
• Marc Brammer, Director of Research, Europe, Innovest Strategic Value Advisors
• Anne-Marie Warris, Global Product Manager for Climate Change, LRQA

Organisational Climate Response
The recent DEFRA consultation has brought into focus the climate change response from organisations that are not responsible to shareholder or customers. Some such organisations are blazing a trail when it comes to forward thinking, innovative response to the challenges of climate change. In this part of the program we will examine how leading organisations are facing up to the issue.

 Shrinking the Footprint : The Church Responds to Climate Change

• Alexander Nicoll, MCIPR, Head of Internal Communications, The Archbishops’ Council Church of England

Climate Proofing London

• Simon Mills, Head of Sustainable Development, City of London

The NFL and Climate Change: American Football Responds

• Jack Groh, Environmental Manager, NFL

Delivering a Sustainable Legacy

• Samantha Heath, CEO, London Sustainability Exchange

Climate Change Communications

The Ten Rules of Climate Change Communication

• Malin Jennings, Vice President, Fleishman Hillard
• Sophie Pim, Senior Consultant, Fleishman Hillard

 
Getting Employees and Customers Engaged

• Lucy Shea, Senior Partner, Futerra

From 29th to 31st of may business leaders, environmental advisors, management experts and a few bloggers attened the Corporate Climate Response conference in London (UK). There was an official blog of the event, it can be found here. I recorded all three days on my personal camcorder, hence the less than perfect sound. Having said that i think that there where many interesting developments to come out of the conference and i think this information is well worth sharing. This post give an outline of the events of day one along with full video coverage. The next two days will be posted shortly. All of my posts relating to the event so far can be found here.

The Business Case Behind Climate Change

Some companies are taking the lead in responding to climate change simply because it makes good business sense. Whether it’s saving money through energy efficiency and waste minimization or capitalizing on consumer appetite for low-carbon products, there is now a business imperative behind global warming initiatives. But how much do you have to spend to see a reasonable return? Marks and Spencer puts that figure at £200 million while Burts Potato Chips puts it at £36K. In this opening session, we will look at how four leading companies have discovered the bottom line benefits of early action.

• Richard Gillies, Director of Store Development, Marks and Spencer
• Jason Leonard, Head of Environment, Standard Chartered Bank
• Dr. Chris Tuppen, Head of Sustainable Development and Corporate Accountability, BT
• Jonty White, Director, Burts Potato Chips

Carbon Footprint and Supply Chain Management

Case Study: Driving Efficiencies down the Supply Chain
Dr. Chris Tuppen, Head of Sustainable Development and Corporate Accountability, BT

Case Study: Product Life-Cycle Emissions: Low Carbon Shampoo
Andrew Jenkins, Sustainable Development Manager, Boots

Discussion with Expert Panel:

Assessing and monitoring your climate impact. Reducing carbon and saving on energy bills Determining the energy use of your product or services’ full life
How much of the supply chain impact are you responsible for?
What are the costs and business implications of taking life cycle responsibility?

• Chair: Emily Farnworth, Leadership Group Manager, The Climate Group
• Terence Ilott, Head of Business and Consumers,DEFRA
• Euan Murray, Strategy Manager, The Carbon Trust
• Francisco Ascui, Principal Consultant, EcoSecurities

Effective Business Response – the role of Management Systems

• Carbon and Climate change – the current fad?
• Global, regional and local factors influencing corporate strategy. Trusting governments to set the drivers?
• Development of EMS – we’ve been here before
• A typical mid-size business EMS
• Business Efficiency vs Energy Efficiency!

Andy Harrop, Managing Director, CRA

Employing Renewables

Case Study: Reducing Emissions through Combined Heat And Power
Phillip Piddington, Director, Combined Heat and Power Association

Case Study: Sky Blues Go Green: The First Wind-Powered Football Stadium
Pete Bradshaw, Social Responsibility Manager, Manchester City Football Club

Discussion with Expert Panel:

What are the feasible and cost effective renewable options?
Does it matter where your renewable energy comes from?
Does it always cost more than non-renewable sources?
Is there enough renewable energy to go round?
How does renewable energy complement offsetting and emissions trading?
How can you go 100% renewable, globally?
How easy and cost effective is it to put solar panels on the roof and a windmill in the car park?
What you need to know before purchasing or investing in renewable energy?

• Gary Freedman, Head of Business, Ecotricity
• Melanie Davis, Marketing Executive, solarcentury
• Phillip Piddington, Director, Combined Heat and Power Association

Energy Efficiency

Session Moderator: Professor Martin Fry, Associate Director, Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme, Chairman, ESTA, & Vice President, Energy Institute

Case Study: A Small Business Saves Big on Energy Costs
Dave Wheeler, Production Manager, Manchester Rusk Company

Case Study: Supply Chain Efficiency – How Far Can You Go?
John Fender, SHE Specialist, Chivas Brothers

Discussion with Expert Panel:
What are the most practical initiatives to reduce electricity consumption?
How much energy can an organization hope to save?
How can you cut energy use across various locations?
What is the key to getting employees and other stakeholders to cut down?

• Nick Eyre, Director of Strategy, Energy Savings Trust
• Martin Gibson, Program Director, Envirowise
• Mike Simpson, Technical and Design Director, Philips Lighting

The Challenge for SMEs

Case Study: Action Plan for an SME
Paul Haigney, Operations Director, Pasta King

Discussion with Expert Panel
How can SMEs gain access to capital for climate change initiatives?
How can you implement strategies without additional resources?
What are some of the easy steps that cost nothing?
When can one expect a return on investment?
How can you encourage employees to get on board?

• Chair: Erik Bichard, Director, National Centre for Business and Sustainability
• John Holbrow, Environment Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses
• Bekir Andrews, Environmental Business Manager,Groundwork UK
• Peter Spalding, Managing Director, Greenwich Environmental Management Services
• Trewin Restorick, Director, Global Action Plan
• Bekir Andrews, Environmental Business Manager, Groundwork West London

I have A LOT of video from the corporate climate response conference.

When this is online I will post it here along with some comments, particularly on the much discussed issue of carbon labelling.

For now, some background on the issue.

The Carbon Trust are the organisation in the UK (and possibly the world) who have done the most to study carbon labelling and work out the practicalities.

An explanation of carbon labelling and some case studies are available here.

A number of organisations have carried out consultations and studies on carbon labelling, these include:

Work by the Environmental Change Institute.

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/carbonlabelling_workshop.pdf

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/carbonlabelling_workshop_apx.pdf

Work by the Carbon Trust themselves.

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/Publicsites/cScape.CT.PublicationsOrdering/PublicationAudit.aspx?id=CTC616&RedirectDone=1

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/Publicsites/cScape.CT.PublicationsOrdering/PublicationAudit.aspx?id=CTC603&RedirectDone=1

More on carbon counting in general here.

The emissions from the conference where offset by The Carbon Neutral Company and travel emissions by Climate Care.

Climate Care is one of only two offset providers that i have actually offset with in the past. I like the type of projects that they carry out, i trust them and i like there whole ethos. The Carbon Neutral Company used to be called Future Forests but have now change from this, in part because of the slack that afforestation has received in the UK media and in part because they where becoming overexposed to risks related to replanting forests if anything killed them off. I think that speaks volumes.

There seemed to be very different views coming from the panel, and the audience had some very pointed questions. On the claim being used by some large businesses that they are going CarbonNeutral by virtue of buying green power there was a scathing attack from Mike Mason of Climate Care. There is double counting–Twice!

As these companies are bying green power and then selling the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) apparent double counting is obvious. Power companies are legally obliged to create a certain amount of green power. The ROCs represent this power, if they are not retired by the company purchasing the green power, then it simply isn’t green–no scarcity and absolutely no net effect. This trick has been picked up by many people.

What hasn’t been picked up however is a far more subtle kind of double counting. The UK government has emissions targets under the EU ETS. If reductions in the form of offsets are made, the government therefore has to put in fewer green policies! That might mess with your mind a bit but it is a serious concern, if the carbon offsetting business continues to grow then are the government having a free ride on consumers of the offsets? This is clearly only the issue for domestic projects, not those in the developing world but Climate Care would like to do some projects in the UK and DEFRA refused to wipe reduce its carbon budget by the amount being offset in the UK. That is a fascinating story that I have never hear before.

These are details: i have stated in the past that i support well managed carbon offsets and that is still the case. More on carbon offsets later.

One of the main themes of the first day of this conference has been energy efficiency improving corporate efficiency. This case, as argued so stongly by Amory Lovins et. al., is simultaneously encouraging and disconcerting. There was very little actual talk about climate change. Whilst, little conversation on the climate science is perhaps a good thing-there is no distracting debate-it is also a problem. The more we seperate the climate crisis from the case for business action (using an intermediary existing business consideration) the colder the case for action seems to me. I could get passionate about saving the rainforests, my fellow human beings and our civilisation. I would find it less easy to take the degree of action required in the name of saving some money.

This is perhaps the devide between business world and climate change campaigner; being an optomist the search for money has never been a weakness for business! Niggling final question–how many of these people know the science and see the enormity of the challenge?

Here is a great background on the latest science by the UK’s leading climate policy institution, the Tyndall Centre. It explains that the govornments 60% by 2050 target implies atmospheric co2 concentrations far beyond any safe (or non-catastrophic level). It is woefully inadequate. Can business act fast enough, it is preparing to…my answers would be perhaps (but with significant changes to many business models) and no (at least not to a significant degree).

There is a bit of delayed action going on with the blogging due to the long days and my lack of a laptop. However, this is just to let you know that i have recorded all but one of the sessions!

Yes, that is a lot of tape, and yes it will take some time to upload, but if you go to my video blog on http://www.youtube.com/calvinjones then you can see previous climate conference recordings, and you can subscribe so that any time you log on to youtube you will be alerted to the new uploads.

Continuing a long line of speakers in slagging off treehuggers and talking instead about business sense and social responsibility Pete Bradshaw, Social Responsibility Officer for Manchester City (the only one in the UK –but not for long!) spoke about working with ecotricity to install a 2MW wind turbine at Manchester Cities Football ground.

There is a guide to the project plan here. The interesting thing about ecotricity is that they manage, construct and finance the whole deal so that no capital outlay is required. The organisation (in this case a football club) then buys there own power back, but at a dramatically reduced rate.

I will be posting my updates from the first day of the ‘Corporate Climate Response’ later this evening.

Meanwhile for a fairly objective overview of the day in terms of the various themes, please check out the climate response blog.

My only comments for now are that the Presentation given by Dr Chris Tuppen of BT was perhaps the most interesting of the day so far. Partly due to the fact that BT uses a large portion of the UK energy supply, partly because Chris new his own carbon footprint (6 tonnes) do you, and partly because of the fascinating internal competitions that BT have been holding to track down servers that are still drawing power but are not currently being used, they have found literally thousands. So my confidence in BT as a leader on climate issue is increased, I knew that they where at least looking at the issues carefully because CarbonSense have donw work for them.

Finally, Andrew Jenkins of Boots gave a very interesting explanation of the work that Boots has done with the carbon trust in calculating the carbon footprint of one of its shampoos. This was particularly interesting because of the great complexity involved and Andrews take on this problem. In the past Andrew worked for a packaging company at around the time that seemingly laborious regulations where put in place to reduce packaging. Very soon this nightmare–where a huge number of companies where asking for information of suppliers–was simplified to a small number of central information handling nodes; and now a single centre.

There was a significant feeling in the room that carbon labelling of individual items would perhaps be to difficult and costly to achieve vs a range of other arguably more effective measures. My own view, partly from personal experience, is that in the beginning this information will indeed be a nightmare, but that as it is integrated into more and more businesses the burden will become less and less, once you are asked for information once, you might as well be asked for it a hundred times it is no more difficult. An once a given source materials energy usage is known then all customers can readily gain that information. Price, after all is the integration of a lot of information. It’s just core to business and is therefore very well known for any product! I think that Andrew wasn’t to far away from me in this belief.