A group of six leading food manufacturers has joined forces with IGD to tackle the conflicting and duplicative requests that can drain supplier resources. By Nick Hughes.
What’s new? IGD has unveiled a new ‘Food supply chain sustainability framework’ to help food manufacturers and their suppliers deliver sustainability goals in a more joined-up way. It’s been driven by six leading food manufacturers – Bakkavor, The Billington Group, The Compleat Food Group, Greencore, Premier Foods and Samworth Brothers – who want to make it easier to develop joint sustainability business plans with their highest-impact suppliers.
Why is a new framework needed? In short: to reduce wasteful duplication of effort. Although food manufacturers tend to have common sustainability goals their suppliers are required to deliver against these in different ways, according to IGD. Currently, over 95% of suppliers receive multiple different requests from customers for similar sustainability information, which can drain resources and leave them unclear what to focus on. The new framework has been developed following consultation with manufacturers, suppliers, NGOs and other experts with the aim of creating a streamlined set of actions that reflect shared industry priorities.
How does it work? The framework identifies seven priority topics that reflect the breadth of companies’ focus on sustainability – climate (net-zero), deforestation and conversion, water, nature, packaging, food waste and human rights.For each topic, businesses can assess where they sit along a maturity scale ranging from pre-foundation, where efforts are focused purely on meeting basic legal requirements, to advanced level for suppliers described as making substantial contributions to positive environmental outcomes, building long-term resilience, future-proofing their business and demonstrating leadership.
What does that look like in practice? Let’s take climate as an example. Pre-foundation level suppliers are essentially only engaged in making mandatory disclosures and paying emissions levies. A step up to foundation level sees businesses measure their scope 1 and 2 emissions, compile a spend-based scope 3 inventory, produce an action plan for reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions hotspots, and invest in projects to reduce their own operational emissions. Intermediate level takes that a stage further by requiring suppliers to compile a mass-based scope 3 inventory aligned to the GHG protocol and Wrap scope 3 protocols, produce an action plan for reducing scope 3 emissions hotspots, and investing in projects to reduce supply chain emissions. The highest, advanced level, is reserved for businesses generating product carbon footprint (PCF) data for strategically important categories and supporting industry efforts to harmonise and scale PCF data sharing through collaborative forums like the BRC Mondra coalition and Defra’s food strategy advisory board. Advanced level suppliers should also have developed a fully costed climate transition plan complete with funding and implementation plan.
How are businesses encouraged to use the framework? As a starting point, the framework is designed to give businesses a sense for the maturity of their own sustainability commitments and how they can progress through the various levels. Beyond that, manufacturers can use it to compare and align their own priorities with those of their customers like retailers and foodservice operators. They can also use it as the basis for integrating key sustainability goals into codes of conduct or procurement terms for their own suppliers. Indeed, a key objective of the piece of work is to better integrate sustainability with procurement so that suppliers who are more advanced on their sustainability journey stand to benefit commercially.
What’s next? IGD says the framework will be subject to wide industry engagement and further trialling to gather support and insight for the next phase of development. There are also plans to expand it to other sectors, although no details have been shared as yet. “The introduction of the food supply chain sustainability framework is an important step in driving collaborative progress and while it has been developed with manufacturers, we believe this can support supplier and customer relationships across every part of the supply chain, to reduce emissions,” says Kirsty Saddler, director of health and sustainability programmes at IGD. The publication of the framework marks a year since IGD launched its ‘Net-zero transition plan’ alongside Wrap and EY, which models what it would take for the food sector to reach net-zero.
