"Value chains are the glue that connects disparate businesses, whether they are local, regional or global. Working together to comprehensively assess the health of value chains creates a place where ecological and business reality actually meet."
Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline and other works.
Food Lab News
Linking Worlds website launches
The Sustainable Food Lab -- on behalf of the New Business Models for Sustainable Trading Relationships Project, and with support from the Unilever Oxfam partnership on smallholder sourcing-- is pleased to announce the launch of a new web based learning platform to support companies and non-profits working on supply chains that are inclusive of small scale producers in developing countries. Oxfam, the Sustainable Food Lab, IIED, CIAT, Rainforest Alliance, Catholic Relief Services and others have been working in partnership with companies over the last four years to create sourcing arrangements that meet stringent supply chain criteria and deliver development benefits such as more stable trading relationships, income and improved food security.
Unilever Commits to 100% by 2020
Global firm announces plans to:halve the environmental footprint of its products
help 1 billion people improve their health and wellbeing
source 100% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably
Pepsi publishes report with bold goals
PepsiCo is one of the Food Lab's sponsoring partners in the Global Agriculture Climate Assessment. They are piloting the use of the Cool Farm Tool with their growers as one of the vehicles to help reach PepsiCo’s ambitious goal to reduce GHG emissions from their core crops in the
PDF Report here
Heinz Releases Sustainable Tomato Report
Sustainable Food Lab launches global climate project to help farmers grow greener. Global food corporations collaborate toward practical, cost effective solutions to reduce climate impact.
ASDA Announces: "We're stepping up our scheme to help small Kenyan flower growers" See announcement here
Carbon and Agriculture: Getting Measurable Results, providing an overview of the state of knowledge regarding achievement of measurable results in reducing agricultural greenhouse gases.
SFL May 2011 Newsletter
SFL Spring 2010 Newsletter
SFL Mid-Winter Newsletter 2010
SFL featured in Leadership in International Management
Unilever and Rainforest Alliance roll out partnership programs
Frederick Payton’s AgroFrontera honored at Clinton Global Initiative Annual Conference
Sustainable Food Lab Summer 2009 Newsletter
New Business Models for Sustainable Trading Relationships in Africa
April 2009
Our colleagues at CIAT won one of the Changing Climate Change projects awarded by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) will use the grant to map forecasts of the impacts of climate change in coffee-growing communities and help smallholder coffee farmers identify, evaluate and implement adaptation strategies. read more
April 2009
Starbucks Launches Farmer Loan Program. Starbucks is expanding its three-year-old Small Farmer Sustainability Initiative (SFSI) by partnering with the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) and TransFair USA to create a small-scale coffee farmer–loan program. read more
March 2009
Fine Flavor Summit, Ghana. Don Seville facilitated a fine flavor summit with key players in Ghana and set up a process for field piloting with farmers. About 28 people attended including SFL member John Scharffenberger shown here with cocoa farmer. Read more...
March 2009
SFL and Carbon Markets SFL member Jason Clay, WWF and SFL staffer Daniella Malin attend meeting co-hosted by Packard, Eko Asset Management Partners and Environmental Defense Fund, in California designed to coordinate efforts to get agricultural carbon into the carbon markets beyond the CCX. Outputs include protocol and methodology development for generating quality carbon credits and requirements to gain approval by the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the California Climate Action Reserve. Jason emphasized, "I feel a bit like a salmon swimming up stream in a flood but I'll say it one more time. We're talking about practices. Performance based would mean defining very explicitly methods for quantifying carbon and other GHGs (greenhouse gasses)."
January 1, 2009
SFL joins AIN The Secretariat of the Sustainable Food Lab spun off from Sustainability Institute and joined Ag Innovations Network, based in California. This adds Joseph McIntyre to our expanded team and links Food Lab work to exciting multi-stakeholder projects in California.
Unilever Commits to 100% by 2020
