Sustainable Food Lab Professional Services
Part of the Sustainable Food Lab’s purpose is to directly support organizations in their sustainability efforts. Our vision is to see more and more of the global food supply in sustainability programs that support continuous improvement with measureable impacts.
The Food Lab team has designed and facilitated initiatives with a wide range of organizations—multinational food companies, values-driven entrepreneurial brands, environmental and social NGOs. Over the years we have developed close relationships with very diverse key players.
Our team has decades of experience with sustainability issues, along with capabilities at leadership development and organizational and supply chain strategy.
Professional services available from the Sustainable Food Lab include the following:
Strategic planning and supporting cross-functional teams to refine sustainability goals
Most organizations need periodic refreshes to align goals and execute across different functions. The Food Lab can lead your executive and management teams in a process to define priorities and set goals. We draw upon our relationships and process expertise to ensure your strategic plan for sustainability will resonate in your operational culture, be relevant to your industry sector, and provide a coherent framework for action and results.
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Example: "The Sustainable Food Lab team led Sysco through a sustainability strategic planning process that included interviews with each member of our executive team and dozens of our employees, suppliers, and customers. The Food Lab team surveyed our operating companies, synthesized market research, facilitated the development of a Sysco Sustainability Steering Committee, and helped us to develop guiding principles and areas of focus for sustainability. Final recommendations from the Food Lab team give Sysco a roadmap for further development of work in each area of focus. --Neil Russell, Sysco Vice President of Investor Relations |
Design and project management of value chain initiatives
Sustainable sourcing programs ultimately need to connect the goals of buyers with the goals and practices of producers, suppliers and
customers. The Food Lab brings years of experience in working through supply chains with diverse partners to address topics such as inclusion of small-scale producers in developing countries, strategies for low carbon farming, and sustainability metrics. Chain wide collaboration can be the critical element for resilient and efficient value chains. The Food Lab provides core expertise in establishing this collaborative framework.
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Example: The Sustainable Food Lab facilitated learning journeys and a workshop for Unilever and Cargill to explore how they could deepen their business partnership around sustainable sourcing. The central challenges were to see where the two companies’ approaches to sustainability overlap, build relationships between key staff in the two organizations, and identify clear areas where they could develop and implement sustainable sourcing programs together. Out of this engagement were formed eight key commodity teams with people from each organization and a steering group they are each to report to. One many comments from the post-Summit survey is representative of the general field of responses: "I think the Learning Journeys were instrumental in helping to provide people actual experiences where they could "feel" the place that they were visiting and provided a venue for relationships to form and develop. Many speakers commented that the room felt like a "team" - I don't think the room would have felt like that had we not done the Learning Journeys." |
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Example: The Sustainable Food Lab has enabled value chain projects with Costco, Superior Foods, ASDA, Sysco and many other companies, frequently in partnership with NGOs like Catholic Relief Services or International Institute for Environmental Development. |
Facilitation and convening of pre-competitive industry groups
Tools and approaches are in some cases more efficiently created in a pre-competitive collaborative process. Sharing among commercial partners or competitors requires creating a safe and creative space, taking advantage of the Food Lab’s combination of facilitation skills, sustainability expertise, and network of experts.
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Example: The Food Lab's Values Based Sourcing peer learning group which includes Annie's Homegrown, Ben & Jerry's, Clif Bar & Co, Theo Chocolate, Stonyfield Farm, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Sodexo and Unilever. This effort is part of a larger body of work to research and support the development of core performance metrics that can be embedded into supply chains to track livelihood performance of smallholders over time. |
Carbon footprint quantification and reduction
One of the first goals of most sustainability programs is to reduce the carbon footprint of operations, and subsequently the whole supply chain. The Food Lab co-developed the Cool Farm Tool with Unilever and the University of Aberdeen and supports its use in many farming systems around the world. Food Lab services include facilitation of grower involvement to support identification of practices that reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and simultaneously increase productivity or efficiency.
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Example: Sustainable Food Lab is supporting farm level GHG accounting and practice change scenarios with tomato suppliers to Heinz and egg suppliers to Costco. |
Design and facilitation of sophisticated learning events with diverse stakeholders
The Food Lab specializes in events that maximize learning and quality relationships, drawing on the organizational learning, systems thinking, and Theory U community around MIT. Annual Food Lab summits are always preceded by carefully designed and facilitated learning journeys with diverse small groups.
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Example: The Food Lab recently led a series of cross-sector Learning Journeys in Ethiopia and Kenya followed by a workshop with ministry officials. SFL also custom-designs Learning Journeys and strategy workshops with members and their supplier partners. |
Contact Susan Sweitzer This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information about how the Sustainable Food Lab team might support your team and initiatives.
