European Commission

Publications

How the Serralles Rum Distillery boosted profits by cleaning up its act

The Serralles Rum Distillery, faced with the challenges of disposing of millions of gallons of wastewater, picked up the company's profits by greening his distillery, while turning it into one of the cleanest in the world.
See article

The Dependency and impact on ecosystem services – unmanaged risk, unrealised opportunity

This is a briefing document by the Natural Value Initiative geared towards the food, beverage and tobacco sectors. It underlines the risks and opportunities incurred by the companies with regard to biodiversity dependency and their impact on ecosystem services.
http://www.naturalvalueinitiative.org/download/documents/Publications/Business_case_for_managing_ecosytem_services.pdf

Linking shareholder and natural value – managing biodiversity and ecosystem risk in companies with an agricultural supply chain

This report summarises the results achieved from the first application of the ESB to 21 companies within the Food, Beverage and Tobacco sectors in the United Kingdom, Brazil, the United States, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Malaysia and Australia. It concludes with remaining challenges, upcoming issues and recommendations for investors and companies within these three sectors.
http://www.naturalvalueinitiative.org/download/documents/Publications/LSNV_Oct09.pdf

Besides the NVI reports, most of the initiatives currently implemented have a product-oriented approach rather than a fully integrated biodiversity protection guidance within the food sector supply chain. This often leads to the publication of social and environmental standards dedicated to the production of a specific food product.

Better sugarcane Initiative (BSI)

This initiative enables sugar producers to produce to transparent and verifiable sustainability criteria. Principle 4 (http://www.bettersugarcane.com/biodiversity_eco_systems.html) on Biodiversity and Ecosystems requires companies to actively manage biodiversity and ecosystems, identify areas of high conservation value, soil nutrient status, eutrophication, ecotoxicity and aquatic oxygen demand. It also commits companies to consult with stakeholders and implement appropriate mitigation activities where adverse impacts are identified.
http://www.bettersugarcane.com/about.html

Standards publications:

http://www.bettersugarcane.com/about.html

Common Code for the Coffee Community (4C) Association

The 4C Association is a multi-stakeholder association, comprising coffee producers, traders, industry and NGOs. 4C aims to improve producers' income and living conditions by reducing costs, improving quality, improving marketing conditions and ensuring environmental sustainability (e.g. reducing the use of agro-chemicals and protecting tropical rainforests). Trade and industry members commit themselves to buying rising amounts of 4C coffee over time, and to financing verification costs. Industry members include, among others, the European, German, UK and Norwegian Coffee Federations, Tchibo, Sara Lee, Nestlé and Kraft Foods.
http://www.4c-coffeeassociation.org/en/

Guidance publications:

http://www.4c-coffeeassociation.org/en/verification.php

FairTrade products

Demand for FairTrade products has increased dramatically in European countries. Specific requirements exist for products to be labeled as FairTrade, including that they be socially fair and environmentally responsible. FLO is the organization that coordinates Fair-trade labelling at an international level. The Fair Trade standards include environmental impacts assessment, plan design to mitigate and monitor impacts, harvesting from uncultivated areas must be done sustainably, plant to encourage biodiversity in areas of low biodiversity, etc.
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/Jan_2009_EN_Generic_Fairtrade_Standards_SPO.pdf

Standards publications:

http://www.fairtrade.net/standards.html

GLOBALGAP

GLOBALGAP is a private sector body that sets voluntary standards for the certification of agricultural products around the globe. The GLOBALGAP standards is designed to inform the consumers about how food is produced on the farm by minimizing environmental impacts of farming operations, reducing the use of chemicals inputs and ensuring a responsible approach to worker health and safety.
www.globalgap.org

Standards publications:

http://www.globalgap.org/cms/front_content.php?idcat=3

Marine Stewardship Council

The MSC is the world's leading certification and eco-labelling program for sustainable seafood.

Two standards, developed and maintained by the MSC, are at the core of the program:

  • MSC environmental standard for sustainable fishing,
  • MSC chain of custody standard for seafood traceability.

www.msc.org

Guidances and standards publications:

http://www.msc.org/documents

Rainforest Alliance

The Rainforest Alliance is an international environmental organization with more than 20 years experience in the development and promotion of sustainable standards in forestry, agriculture and tourism. Rainforest Alliance's standards cover safe and fair working conditions, environmental protection and economic sustainability for coffee, bananas, cocoa, citrus, ferns and cut flowers. Moreover, the organization supports farmers in making improvements in sustainability and is working with food companies such as Kraft Foods, Unilever and Nestlé.
www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture.cfm?id=san

Guidelines and standards publications:

http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture/documents/interp_guide_san_addend.pdf
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture/documents/sust_ag_standard.pdf
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture/documents/addendum_0409_en.pdf

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

RSPO is a global stakeholder initiative created in 2004 to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil. Participants include growers, processors, traders, retailers, banks, NGOs and manufacturers, such as Nestlé, Unilever, Cadbury Schweppes, Ferrero and Heinz. Its work is centered on the Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil Production. A separate roundtable on sustainable soy was created in 2005.
www.rspo.org

Guidelines and standards publications:

http://www.rspo.org/files/resource_centre/RSPO_Guidelines_on_Communications_Claims.pdf
http://www.rspo.org/files/resource_centre/RSPO%20Principles%20&%20Criteria%20Document.pdf

Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS)

The Round Table on Responsible Soy is the global platform composed of the main soy value chain stakeholders who share an objective to promote responsible soy production through collaboration and dialogue among the involved sectors, in order to foster economic, social and environmental sustainability.
http://www.responsiblesoy.org/

Principles and criteria publications:

http://www.responsiblesoy.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=71&Itemid=40&lang=en

Vegaplan Belgium

Vegaplan is an example of a national agricultural scheme. This Belgian certification scheme supports sustainable farming and chain management in arable crops. The scheme is based on the ICQM Standard (Integrated Chain Quality Management), which covers food safety, traceability, environment and technological quality, and comprises all links in the chain “from farm to fork”, including food manufacturers.
http://www.vegaplan.be/emc.asp?PageID=790

Standards publications:

http://www.vegaplan.be/myDocuments/02/012%2Ficqmversion22e.pdf

Food supply and Biodiversity Conservation: Best Practice Benchmarking

Summary of the workshop held in June 2011 in Brussels, Belgium by the EU Business @ Biodiversity Platform. The workshop focused on benchmarking methodology for biodiversity action in the private sector.
Read more at environment/biodiversity/business/assets/pdf/sectors/FINAL_Food_Supply.pdf

Food supply and the EU Biodiversity Strategy

Summary of the workshop held in September 2011 in Brussels, Belgium by the EU Business @ Biodiversity Platform. The workshop focused on the EU Biodiversity Strategy and its relevance to the private sector.
Read more at environment/biodiversity/business/assets/pdf/resources-center/Food supply and the EU Biodiversity Strategy.pdf

Assessing the benefits of environmental certification

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has recently completed a study on the environmental impacts and benefits of its dedicated certification programme. The full report was issued at end of 2011 and is the first study ever to examine fishery performance through the whole flow of the MSC assessment process.
Read more at http://www.msc.org/documents/environmental-benefits/measuring-environmental-impacts-report-2011/environmental-impacts-of-the-msc-programme-full-report

Nutrition and Biodiversity

For the inauguration of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Nutrition in Montpellier on January 27, 2012, Ruth Charrondière, responsible for nutrition at the FAO, insisted on the central position of biodiversity in nutrition. This conclusion is based on studies made by the FAO and presented in the following report.
Read more at http://www.fao.org/infoods/biodiversity/Interodocumento.pdf

FoodDrinkEurope Environmental Sustainability Vision Towards 2030

On 5 June 2012, FoodDrinkEurope launched its Environmental Sustainbility Vision and Report Towards 2030, ahead of the Rio +20 Summit. The Vision towards 2030 is a first for FoodDrinkEurope in this area and is part of a broad collaborative work with other stakeholders, covering three core areas of work: (i) sustainable sourcing; (ii) resource efficiency along the food chain; and (iii) sustainable consumption and production.
http://sustainability.fooddrinkeurope.eu/

Slow Food Presidia and Sustainable Development

Slow Food's actions embrace and reinforce one of the innovative elements of sustainable development: the search for intergenerational fairness. The Slow Food approach is also strongly based on intragenerational fairness: Within the same generation, people belonging to different political, economic, social and geographic contexts have the same rights.

The reference points of the strategy proposed by Slow Food derive from reflections that have emerged within the Slow Food association and from interaction with the external scientific, economic and political world. These reflections are on issues relating to biodiversity protection, the need to promote local and rural development to confront the ideas imposed by globalization, a rethinking of the producer-consumer relationship and the search for a new concept of quality.
environment/biodiversity/business/assets/pdf/resources-center/Slow_Food_Presidia.pdf

 

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