Save the Date!

Sustainable Food Lab Annual Summit and Learning Journeys

March 14-19, 2010 in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has made a national commitment to be climate neutral by 2021. The 2010 Sustainable Food Lab Summit will provide members and invited guests the chance to see how businesses are responding to this national commitment and learn about cutting edge efforts in sustainable agriculture, biodiversity protection, economic development, fairness of trade, and export of tropical products.  

The summit will provide the opportunity to see and discuss some of the most interesting efforts on the ground in Costa Rica through learning journeys as well as the chance to meet, discuss cases from around the globe in detail, and plan future work.  

• Learn more about market based solutions to the big issues, including climate, water and development;
• Meet producers of products such as pineapples, bananas, cocoa, coffee, vegetables;
• Hear how Dole and other companies are teaming up with partners to quantify greenhouse gas emissions;
• Learn about opportunities for agriculture to receive ecosystem service payments;

• Explore partnerships in a safe space with best-in-class experts from businesses as well as social and environmental NGOs.

Two consecutive events:

• Learning journeys beginning Sunday at dinner on March 14 in San Jose, and then traveling in small groups throughout the central part of Costa Rica.
• A meeting beginning Tuesday at dinner on March 16 and ending with dinner on Thursday March 18.  Most people will plan to fly out early morning March 19.

For further information on this event or Food Lab membership contact Susan Sweitzer (ssweitzer@sustainablefood.org) or LeAnne Grillo (leanne@reospartners.com).

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Sustainable Food Lab and SAI Platform to launch climate project with farmers

At least a dozen companies are teaming up to estimate the greenhouse gas footprint of specific farming systems and talk with farmers to figure out how to reduce that footprint as rapidly  and efficiently as possible.

According to Daniella Malin of the Sustainable Food Lab, “Researchers at the University of Aberdeen, who convened scientists to write the agriculture chapter of the last IPCC report, have partnered with Unilever to develop a tool to use on sample farms in representative farming systems. This tool, along with other consistent methods and datasets, will be applied over the next 12-15 months to provide an assessment of immediate opportunities and barriers.”

Christof Walter from Unilever explains, “The Cool Farm Tool will help us understand what practices make the biggest difference in any particular farm situation, including the considerations that farmers are balancing in choosing between management decisions. Taking the circumstance on individual fields and farms into account is crucial because the effects of most GHG reduction practices vary strongly, depending on soil, climate, management system and input intensities. For instance, minimum tillage can lead to overall GHG saving under one set of circumstances, but actually increase net emission under other circumstances. This project will analyze the costs, trade-offs and possible barriers to implementing GHG reduction practices at farm and field level, and what options there are to overcome them. We’ll end up with practical advice in each circumstance.”

Sponsoring organizations will each support the research in one or more farming system. In addition to Unilever, the initiating sponsors include Unilever, General Mills, PepsiCo, Yara, Marks & Spencer, Pulse Canada, and AgroTerra. Quite a few other companies are considering participation. As Peter Erik Ywema of SAI Platform writes, “I know that a lot of our members have done individual studies of the impact on climate of their value chain. This is an effort to put things together and hence bring more value and robustness to each organization’s work. There will be good ‘value for money’ because we’ll share research costs and each case will be peer reviewed.”

The Sustainable Food Lab and SAI Platform are partnering to coordinate the project, and it will be managed by Food Lab staff.

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Dairy Industry Collaboration Shows Great Promise for Entire Food and Ag Sector

Tucked away in a corner of most supermarkets, the dairy aisle is a quintessential part of any food shopping experience. Milk is one of the top five products purchased at grocery stores with almost nine out of ten households purchasing milk in the last quarter of 2009, according to IRI research.

Today, rising energy costs, growing public demand for environmentally friendly practices, and pressure to affordably feed a growing world population affect the food industry at large.

“This convergence of rising consumer demand for local and sustainable foods, awareness of the increasing vulnerability of our natural resources, and the desire to spur innovation provided just the right setting and inspiration for the dairy industry to come together to affect change at unprecedented scale,” said Erin Fitzgerald, director of social & environmental innovation at Dairy Management Inc.™ (DMI), which manages the national dairy check-off program on behalf of the nation’s dairy farmers.

In 2008, DMI CEO Tom Gallagher challenged Fitzgerald and her team to reinvigorate consumer interest in dairy products. At the same time, Walmart — the nation’s largest retailer — asked the dairy supply chain to play an integral role in its goal to become more sustainable. And thus the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Commitment was born. Within a year, the industry had committed to reducing greenhouse gases for fluid milk by 25 percent by 2020, equivalent to the removal of more than 1.25 million cars from the road each year for the next ten years.

This undertaking is no small task for the $100 billion dairy industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers and is home to some 9.3 million dairy cows nationwide. In fact, with milk production taking place in all 50 states (California and Wisconsin top the list), the U.S. is the world’s largest producer of fluid milk, responsible for some 190 billion pounds annually.

Fitzgerald is quick to point out that “CEO-level leadership and involvement has been crucial to advancing the projects to achieve our collective goal.”  This leadership came through the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, which is composed of leaders from more than 30 key U.S. farmer organizations, dairy cooperatives, processors, manufacturers and brands representing almost 80% of the dairy industry.

“Innovation required the entire value chain to come together,” Fitzgerald explains. “The U.S. Dairy Sustainability Commitment is identifying practical and effective methods to reduce our carbon footprint and increase business value across the value chain, from farm to retail.”

Establishing a baseline for sustainability

In order to identify opportunities for innovation, the Innovation Center engaged the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas to conduct a life cycle analysis (LCA) of the carbon footprint of fluid milk.  A preliminary scan estimated that less than 2 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. can be attributed to the entire dairy supply chain, from production of fertilizer for crops through disposal of the container by the consumer. The fluid milk LCA will help validate this estimate and provide a snapshot of where in the milk supply chain the climate impacts are the greatest, and where the industry has opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce costs and improve efficiency at the same time.

 “To do this right, the entire value chain needs to know what its environmental impact is, and acknowledge that we own it collectively,” explains Fitzgerald.  The scope of the fluid milk LCA is unparalleled and required gathering data from more than 500 farms, 50 processing plants across the country, and 250,000 milk transportation trips from farm to processor.

The scan level LCA revealed that although most innovations are downstream in the chain — in the compressors, pumps, trucks, processing technologies and packages-- about half of the climate impacts are actually at the farm level , particularly nitrous oxide emissions from feed production and methane emissions from cows. Nitrous oxide is significant because it is the only air pollutant to have increased (by 10%) since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970.

Cross-industry collaboration

To find opportunities for improvement, the Innovation Center tapped into the expertise and ingenuity of the entire supply chain, from farmers and processors to distributors and retailers. Fitzgerald and her sustainability council formed working partnerships and facilitated an environment where information and resources could be shared freely.

In 2008, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy hosted a summit to identify opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases and increase business value. Participants identified more than two dozen projects ranging from production all the way through processing, packaging, transportation and retail that would help build a foundation from which the industry could develop and share best practices. Twelve of these projects are under way today, which, if they reach their targets, will bring the industry halfway to its 25 percent reduction goal.

The primary goal of the projects was to lessen greenhouse gas emissions, reduce energy costs and enhance productivity, but at the same time the projects serve as models for cross-sector learning and replication. Stakeholders across the value chain -- farms, dairy associations and companies, academics, governmental and nongovernmental organizations -- are working together and sharing their own learning in sustainability to enhance the movement.

Examples of efforts taking place throughout the dairy supply chain include the following:

• The California Energy Commission conducted a study of the use of cooling fans to reduce summer heat stress and improve dairy cow performance. The study found that high-volume, low-speed ceiling fans maintained performance while using over 80 percent less electrical power than the previous smaller model.
• In an effort to reduce energy costs, S&S Dairy conducted a study to determine if efficiency gains and energy savings were possible through optimizing the vacuum pumping system at its dairy farm. By replacing an oversized pump and installing a variable frequency drive (VFD) on the new pump, the project resulted in annual energy savings of $3,700 and 55,000 kWh, which represents 72 percent of the electricity used by that pump. The project also decreased the pump’s long-term maintenance costs.
• Oakhurst Dairy began exploring renewable energy options, leading to the largest commercial solar thermal systems in the northeastern U.S. As a result, Oakhurst estimates approximately 7,500 gallons of heating oil have been saved per year, representing 223,840 pounds of carbon.
• A Wisconsin dairy initiated a complete plant energy audit to resolve issues with its boiler system. Through a series of system-wide improvements, the dairy reduced natural gas use at the plant by 10,500 MMBtu per year, for a cost savings of $39,800 annually. The project’s energy savings also represent the equivalent of 616 tons of carbon per year.
• Coventry Valley Farm, along with 15 other Vermont-based farms that provide organic milk to Stonyfield Farm Inc., reduced its cows’ intestinal methane by feeding them flaxseed, alfalfa and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids, instead of corn or soy. Coventry Valley Farm has reduced its cows’ belches by 13 percent while at another farm, they’ve gone down 18 percent. Not only has the change in diet been a cost-neutral endeavor, it also has improved the health of the cows and reduced the cost of associated veterinary bills.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy will continue to serve as a clearinghouse to share case studies that the entire industry can use as a reference guide. By sharing these best practices throughout the industry, the goal is not just to elevate the standard by which the industry operates, but also to create the momentum needed for constant innovation.

“The entire process is meant to be a learning journey,” said Fitzgerald. “We have gained so much progress from our efforts to date, but understanding that there will always be room for improvement is what helps motivate us going forward.”

Breaking new ground

These technical innovations are already having an enormous impact within the dairy industry, and at the same time, perhaps the greatest accomplishment that DMI, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and its members have achieved is creating a unique model of social innovation. 

According to Hal Hamilton, Co-Director of the Sustainable Food Lab, “Of all the sustainability initiatives of the last several years, this one is among the most exciting, particularly because it is ‘owned’ by a diverse set of players in the dairy sector.”

Hamilton went on to say, “The dairy industry is not only measuring climate impact along the chain, it is also supporting practical innovations. We’re proud that DMI is a member of the Sustainable Food Lab, and we’re proud to be supporting evolution of the work on climate into work on the full range of sustainability goals, from water and soil to farmer livelihood. If these same values and ambitions could be applied to other sectors of the food system — beef, pork, eggs — agriculture can be a model for social innovation that paves the way for the rest of society.”

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“Supply chain partner alliances like these between business and the NGO community create the trust environment necessary to achieve social and economic reward for the small holder community.”  Craig Watson, SYSCO

Partnership to Expand Opportunities in Guatemala for Small Scale producers

SYSCO and Oxfam GB -- along with Superior Foods and Alimentos SUMAR – are pleased to share with the Sustainable Food Lab Community a new partnership to expand the opportunity for small scale producers to participate in the processed vegetable export market. 

In Guatemala, the focus of this partnership, 74% of the rural households live in poverty (as of 2008) and in 2009 the incidence of child malnutrition has reached 80%, the sixth-worst performance in the world according to UNICEF.   Developing value chains can be an important driver of growth for poor rural households by improving incomes and business has a key role to play in creating these opportunities. Participation in these more stable modern markets offers producers a route to building incomes and professionalizing farming practices. But income generation alone is insufficient as a prerequisite for poverty reduction. It needs to be accompanied by public and private investments in family, infrastructure, communities that support integrated development. 

By working together the partners intend to expand the opportunity to participate in successful value chains to more farmers and women in Guatemala, and bring investments in key productive infrastructure such as irrigation and support farmer communities through capacity building. 

The members of this partnership believe that the combination of their insight and expertise in business, as well as participatory development and public policy, can make a vital contribution to addressing the challenge of sustainable poverty reduction through building assets, income, and more inclusive business models.

The seeds of this project were planted in October 2007, as a small, intrepid and unlikely group of Sustainable Food Lab members tromped through muddy fields in Honduras and Guatemala seeking common ground. Jan Kees Vis, from Unilever, David Bright, Juan Chaez, and Joost Martins from Oxfam, Shane Samples from Sysco, Jeronimo Bollenom from Root Capital and Dave Boselie, AgroFair Foundation as well as several others, experienced coffee cupping in remote coffee producing villages, tasted honey, cabbage, potatoes and carrots, plantain chips and much more, grown by women’s agricultural organizations and small farmer cooperatives in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. They talked as they traveled, for days, about what they could do in partnership with communities and the private sector to reduce poverty and increase quality of life by developing and enhancing market opportunities aimed at development. Oxfam initiated this journey, inviting a small group of companies and NGOs from the Sustainable Food to visit important Oxfam project sites to learn about their livelihood improvement and poverty reduction strategy and brainstorm ways to collaborate in creating the markets necessary to sustainably improve incomes. 

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Global GHG Emissions 

IPCC Report 2004

Agricultural Climate Stewardship Strategy Meeting

September 8-10, 2009

"What would encourage practice change is critical.  We need tools to use for practices which encourage binding nitrogen in soil while understanding the effect on yield.  You absolutely have to take yield into consideration."  

Over 50 leaders from the US, Canada and Europe gathered in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania September 8-10, 2009, to discuss agriculture and climate from diverse sectors within the food system. Presentations from Sodexo, Stonyfield's, DMI and Unilever complimented educational sessions and updates on agricultural carbon markets, protocol development, quantification methods, agricultural practices and domestic and international negotiations on agricultural offsets. There was much work on existing projects and challenges as well as proposals and organizing around new promising projects.

Next steps

• Christof Walter from Unilever and Jon Hillier from the University of Aberdeen presented the idea of a Global Assessment, co-sponsored by a consortium of food companies engaging their whole supply chains for representative farming systems.
• Blue Source has designed a project he shared at the meeting to benchmark the current state of activity in agricultural sector GHG practices, quantification and protocol development. The results of this review, presented in a matrix, would provide a road-map of current activities and where further activity should be focused. 

Read the full meeting report at:  http://www.sustainablefoodlab.org/filemanager/download/16022/

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Metrics in Action Retreat

November 10-12, 2009

Two overarching framing questions:

• Are we headed toward a common system of measuring sustainability (akin to the LEED Green Building system)?
• What’s our understanding of the management and learning capacities that must accompany measurement?

The group:

• Shared the key lessons from measuring the impacts of standards
• Shared lessons from the use of sustainability metrics for managing operations and supply chain
• Explored the uses and stages of development of multi-stakeholder metrics systems
• Shared strategic thinking about the role of metrics in systemic change
•  Discussed the implications of sustainability metrics for farmers and suppliers, particularly the question, “Who Pays?”
• Shared the contributions of life cycle analysis and value chain assessment
• Discussed alignment and gaps in indicators
• Identified the most important next steps

Next steps for writing and research:

• Peter Senge will draft, and others will contribute to a short introductory paper on the necessity of measurement for sustainable value chains, but the danger of relying on measurement along to drive change.
• A longer paper on "operationalizing sustainability in value chains" which we would use as a working paper within the extended network of value chain projects, as a lens for studying "metrics in use."
• As the companies in the Sustainable Food Lab and SAI Platform pilot sustainability metrics and innovations in value chains, MIT researchers (with colleagues at the Harvard Business School and elsewhere) will develop a research base of research and teaching cases.

Case stories used at retreat:

Case stories of measuring the impact of standards

• Measuring impact of initiatives and certification systems
• CI/Starbucks measuring impact of CAFÉ Practices
• ISEAL Impact Code

Case stories of using sustainability indicators in management

• Unilever sustainability index
• Ben and Jerry’s and Cabot ,  Contextual indicators

Case stories of multi-stakeholder metrics initiatives

• DMI dairy sustainability initiative
• Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
• Keystone Field to Market

Case stories of implications for farmers and suppliers

• WWF eco-label potatoes
• Value chain project with Ethiopian beans

Case story of life cycle analysis

• Sustainability Consortium Index and LCA work

Presentations:

•  ISEAL Impact Code (Patrick Mallet described ISEAL’s work to develop a framework of sustainability indicators and a process by which standards systems will clarify and measure their impacts.)

• CI/Starbucks measuring impact of CAFÉ Practices (Julie Anderson and Bambi Semroc described the purposes of CAFÉ Practices and their initiative to measure impacts.)

• Measuring impact of initiatives and certification systems  (Aimee Russillo described the State of Sustainability Initiatives project and, among other observations, pointed out that most metrics projects spend a disproportionate amount of time on indicator selection and less time and resources on other important steps toward making indicators operational.)

• Unilever sustainability index and how it’s being used with producers and suppliers (David Pendlington described a 10+ year evolution including principles, indicators, efforts at measuring complex systems,  the development of practice manuals for different crops, ways of embedding sustainability in diverse supply chains, and the building of a software platform to capture data.)

•  Contextual indicators (Mark McElroy described the historical development of metrics that measure in the context of what real sustainability would require.)

• Jed Davis described Cabot’s trial of context based metrics as an approach to calculating water use in relation to available water.

• Andy Barker shared Ben and Jerry’s use of context based metrics to calculate targets for green house gas emissions:

Jon Johnson from the University of Arkansas Applied Sustainability Center and the Sustainability Consortium shared the following analysis recently published in Nature, indicating thresholds that would be safe for the human economy. These would seem to be the ultimate “context” for any sustainability metrics.

The inner green shading represents the proposed safe operating space for nine planetary systems. The red wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable. The boundaries in three systems (rate of biodiversity loss, climate change and human interference with the nitrogen cycle), have already been exceeded.

From the following article:

A safe operating space for humanity

Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, III, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Carl Folke, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Björn Nykvist, Cynthia A. de Wit, Terry Hughes, Sander van der Leeuw, Henning Rodhe, Sverker Sörlin, Peter K. Snyder, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg, Robert W. Corell, Victoria J. Fabry, James Hansen, Brian Walker, Diana Liverman, Katherine Richardson, Paul Crutzen & Jonathan A. Foley

Nature 461, 472-475(24 September 2009 doi:10.1038/461472

• DMI dairy initiative

• Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (Jonathan Kaplan laid out the process of developing performance metrics and the very wide range of stakeholders involved.)

• Keystone Field to Market (Sarah Stokes Alexander described the development of national reporting metrics, a grower benchmarking tool, and eventual potential for contributing to lifecycle analysis and supply chain innovations.)

• WWF eco-label potatoes (Sarah Lynch described the development of the Healthy Grown potatoes in Wisconsin, the considerable environmental benefits, and the difficulty finding a market advantage.)

• Value chain project with Ethiopian beans (Don Seville described the process of assessing and improving a value chain that results in increased flow of information, better capacity to innovate, and improvements in both the livelihood of farmers and stories for manufacturers to take to market.)

•  Sustainability Consortium LCA work (Jon Johnson, described the rationale and process for developing coordinated lifecycle analysis for retail.)

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Upcoming Events

Please note the Sustainable Food Lab Save the Date details for a number of upcoming events.  You can find these and other news at: http://www.sustainablefoodlab.org/calendar/  

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