Driving Change: Sustainable Food Systems and the Path Forward

Gavin Milligan explores the multifaceted concept of sustainability within supply chain management, examining its intersection with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), addressing environmental, social, and economic challenges, and advocating for collaborative efforts to foster a more sustainable future.

When we mention the word ‘sustainability’, we are mostly aware that it can be rather a slippery thing as the term is used to cover many different concepts. As Humpty-Dumpty said to Alice, a word ‘means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less’⁽¹⁾. People often cite the so-called Brundtland definition (which was initially coined to describe sustainable development rather than ‘sustainability’) which says that to be sustainable something must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Leaving aside quite what constitutes a ‘need’ and the unknowability of the needs of future generations, social conditions today vary hugely and what is taken for granted in one location might be the stuff of fantasy somewhere else. As I write this introduction, there is widespread coverage in the UK media of contamination of the public water supply by Cryptosporidium, with 77 reported cases of cryptosporidiosis as of May 24^th. That is undoubtedly very unpleasant for those individuals, but globally one in four people does not have access to safe drinking water every day of their lives and according to the charity WaterAid UK, 1,000 children die every day for lack of access to clean water.

The united nations’ sustainable development goals.

So what, then, do we mean when we use the term ‘sustainability’ throughout this issue of the Food Science and Technology Journal? Firstly, sustainability is not a thing in its own right, it is rather a characteristic of other things. I have a straightforward non-technical definition of sustainability which is simply the capacity to prosper over the long term. What individuals, organisations and governments need to do to ensure prosperity will inevitably change over time, as will the definition of prosperity and the types of actions which are acceptable to deliver it. The concept of a Minimum Digital Living Standard⁽²⁾ is now mainstream, for instance, but the internet didn’t even exist a generation ago.

The IFST takes very seriously its role as an independent expert body across the food system and recognises that members are highly likely to have a professional need to understand the key issues under the umbrella term of sustainability. Technical managers are very often the custodians of food waste reporting, for instance, and people working in product development are exposed to supply chain issues with every new ingredient. Both groups, and others where IFST members work, will have to consider issues relating to product quality, availability, consistency and more, and factors beyond the product itself, such as the working conditions of people in the supply chain, will be of interest to customers and other stakeholders.

As a consequence and recognising that expertise in sustainable food systems is increasingly important to the Institute and its individual members, IFST has commissioned reviews in the form of framework documents. This was first done in 2017, with the concept refreshed and reframed last year to make it more accessible for IFST members. Throughout this issue of Food Science and Technology you can read articles building on some of the themes contained in the updated framework document which will, hopefully, inspire you to learn more.

The SDGs have been described as a ‘blueprint for a better world’ and are a good place to start with trying to operationalise the concept of sustainability. Although framed very much in the language of governments—unsurprisingly, given their origin—and not always easy to apply to many businesses (perhaps a quarter of the 167 targets are clearly directly relevant across the private sector), they do, however, provide a very clear general framework for businesses and other organizations to identify priority engagement areas, even if the details don’t always exactly match up. This article will take some of the key points encapsulated in the SDGs, explore how they feature in supply chains and suggest some ways that food businesses can usefully engage.

Intenstive use of multi-cut fast-growing rye grass leading to green deserts in the peak district national park.

We are in the midst of what is often referred to as the sixth mass extinction⁽³⁾, with biodiversity declining at an alarming rate. The previous five mass extinctions were driven by geological or astronomical events, whereas this one is driven by the consequences of human activity, principally in high levels of material consumption. Whilst this doesn’t only affect the agri-food sector, it is the most impactful in terms of the direct physical consequences for the natural environment. According to statistics quoted by the environmental charity WWF, 40% of all land has been converted for food production. Agriculture is also responsible for 90% of global deforestation and 70% of the planet's freshwater use.

WWF's 2022 Living Planet Report⁽⁴⁾, produced in association with ZSL (the Zoological Society of London) calculates that wildlife populations have fallen by a dramatic 69% since 1970. Some earlier editions of the report contained some statistical anomalies, but even allowing for that the decline is dramatic. Just pause a minute to think what that means; on average two out of every three wild animals have disappeared in the lifetime of you or your parents, while the human population and its need for food have more than doubled, as has average personal wealth (although the growth in both has been far from even around the world).

All of which begs the question ‘what can agri-food businesses do about it?’ One response which has become more mainstream over recent years is the concept of regenerative agriculture⁽⁵⁾, loosely defined (here by the World Economic Forum) as a focus on improving the health of soil, which has been degraded by the use of heavy machinery, fertilizers and pesticides in intensive farming. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, regeneration is achieved by adopting practices ‘tailored to local contexts, such as using diverse crop varieties and cover crops, rotational grazing, and agroforestry (growing trees around or among crops or pasture) which results in agricultural land that more closely resembles natural ecosystems like forest and native grassland, providing habitat for a wide range of organisms’.

Regenerative agriculture features within the public positions of some large organisations under the aegis of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform which last September published a new framework designed to create a ‘resilient and productive food system that will regenerate natural ecosystems and improve the quality of farmers’ livelihoods’. It is intended to ’mitigate and adapt to the impact of climate change, improve soil health, support biodiversity, retain water in the soil and reduce its consumption’. SAI Platform members include some of the world's largest food and consumer goods businesses such as Nestlé, Danone, Unilever and PepsiCo, so the impact has the scope to be significant.

Even if you don’t work for one of those companies, there are many other SAI Platform members, and the principles of regenerative agriculture are not limited to those organisations. If your supplier selection processes don’t already cover this, you can ask questions about practices relevant to the type of products you buy and work with the highest-risk suppliers on improving their practices over time. It is an issue which tends to play well with big brands, including retailers, and so may have some benefit towards joint business plans as well as helping to build resilience into your supply chain.

The rise in global mean temperatures since pre-industrial times.

As the earth is a much lower temperature than the sun, the energy of re-emitted radiation is lower and is associated with longer-wavelength radiation, principally infra-red. Gases that are invisible to the incoming wavelengths can absorb the outgoing wavelengths re-emitting some back into the atmosphere rather than allowing them to escape out into space. This is the greenhouse effect, so-called because some of the same processes are at work as sunlight hits glass, and the trapped heat which cannot escape causes the earth's temperature to rise with consequent impacts on weather patterns. There are many gases involved, each with its own global warming potential (GWP), so their impact is routinely converted into a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) and this is the basis of the general term ‘carbon’ when talking about emissions.

In agricultural systems the greenhouse effect is particularly associated with methane (principally from ruminants and their waste products) and nitrous oxide (from soil disturbance and inefficient use of nitrogen fertilisers). Combustion of fossil fuels to release carbon dioxide is part of the story in agriculture but is more relevant in general industrial processes including fertiliser and food manufacture. The other greenhouse gases include fluorinated species found in refrigerant gases, also common in the food sector, plus some others more associated with specialist activities such as power generation and electronics manufacturing, the products of both of which are enablers for the agri-food sector.

The contribution of agri-food activities to global heating and the climate crisis varies with geography, levels of industrialisation, education and many other factors and feeds into the biodiversity crisis noted in the previous section as flora and fauna are unable to survive in their established geographies or, conversely, become able to survive in areas where they previously could not. As well as contributing to the decline of natural ecosystems, this change also allows non-native species, pests and diseases to affect new areas. Some organisms previously killed off by cold northern European winters can now survive in the UK and elsewhere, increasing the vulnerability of agricultural crops and livestock, along with natural flora and fauna, to vectors against which they have no natural resistance.

So, again, the question arises as to what we can do about these threats. The overwhelming cause of global heating is carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels, and carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for millennia. In the absence of large-scale technologies to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere faster than geological or natural biological processes, attention is focused on other gases which, from the perspective of the agri-food system, primarily means methane and nitrous oxide. In fact, as nitrous oxide has an average atmospheric lifetime in excess of a century and methane is typically removed in a little over a decade, methane is receiving much of the policy attention, and this is at the root of the focus on red meat and dairy products. This is not intended to be a critique of the meat and dairy sector, merely an explanation of the circumstances.

Dairy cattle in a small-scale uk grass-fed farming system.

None of that means that carbon dioxide is off the hook in any way. We need to reduce additional emissions of CO₂ as well, at the same time as the gases more directly associated with the agri-food sector. Some of these impacts are linked (the Haber-Bosch process used to manufacture ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen uses more than 1% of the world's electricity long before any fertiliser reaches fields) and some sit within specific processes such as baking. Even then, the scale of impacts is sometimes counter-intuitive. Research published by academics at the University of Sheffield found that more of the embodied carbon in a loaf of bread is attributable to fertiliser applied to the wheat than to the baking process⁽⁷⁾, so be sure to take action on the basis of studies such as Lifecycle Assessments (LCAs).

Imported fresh produce displayed in an icelandic retailer in mid-february.

As mentioned in the introduction, the experiences and hence the expectations of regulators and individuals vary with the nature of their countries. Wealthy Western economies have become accustomed to enjoying the pick of the world's production leading to, amongst other things, year-round availability of a cornucopia of fresh produce that was unthinkable to our grandparents. Combined with the push for lower prices, this can place stresses on individuals in their workplaces as companies strive to improve productivity and reduce costs. Much of this is invisible even to supply chain professionals as communication along value chains is often incomplete, typically focusing on specifics relating to product and logistics.

SDG8 is, of course, core to the ability of people to rise above the issues encapsulated in the other goals. People in decent employment have the financial resources (SDG1 ’No Poverty’ to feed themselves and their families (SDG2), itself supporting health (SDG3), and afford quality healthcare. Either directly or through public education provided through general taxation (SDG4 ‘Quality Education’) they can give their children a better start in life⁽⁸⁾ which might also contribute to SDG5 ‘Gender Equality’ and SDG10 ’Reduced Inequalities’ along with others of the Goals. In this regard the social and economic pillars of sustainability are inextricably linked.

So, then, how can we be sure that the economic impact of our consumption is felt positively in countries of origin, enabling the people in our supply chains and those in the communities around them to come to enjoy lifestyles closer to those that we mostly do in the West? One possible negative outcome is that as other parts of the world become wealthier, it adds more pressure on the environment, such as contributing to global warming or loss of biodiversity, which are problems already caused by richer economies. When we work with our supply chains, then, the social factors inevitably cross over with environmental as well as economic factors and we have to try to balance them all.

Seasonal smallholder agriculture in Malawi.

Although the targets that sit below SDG17 are framed in the language of governments, together they make for a philosophy of supply chain management that addresses the issues which are the subjects of the other Goals. Cooperating on economic, environmental and social issues enables all actors along supply chains and beyond to share in the benefits of their collaboration, and cooperation between peer organisations sets the standards for them all to work to. Many readers will be familiar with the outputs of the International Standards Organisation which set agreed processes for management systems, carbon foot-printing⁽¹⁰⁾ and other mechanisms for delivering on the approaches discussed above, which ensure rigour and consistency in the way that organisations address social and environmental issues.

The SDGs aren’t perfect, but they are a useful framework to guide organisations, and the people within them, to taking relevant actions which will improve the sustainability of the agri-food system, and by extension the lives of us all and the condition of the natural ecosystems within which we live. The day-to-day decisions we make in our working lives can have a positive impact on the stated or implicit issues in each of the Goals, impacting for the better on other people's lives and livelihoods and on the natural world of which we are all a part. It would be an impoverished world indeed without the song of the skylark high above a carpet of wildflowers and we can play a part in averting the impending ecological disaster through the way we engage with our supply chains.