In 2012-2013, Food Lab company members of the Values Based Sourcing group supported a study on smallholder sugar in Paraguay to to pilot a performance measurement methodology while collecting data to assess the sustainability of smallholder sugarcane production there. This study was supported by Annie’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Clif Bar, The Body Shop and the Ford…
DetailsOver the coming year Sustainable Food Lab will be collecting and sharing stories of system leadership by individuals and organizations. In a Stanford Social Innovation Review article, Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton, and John Kania describe system leadership as the capacity to catalyze collective leadership. This is a different type of leadership than that of John Wayne…
DetailsOrganic grain supply is an identified bottleneck for value-added processes. Growth in grain production lags other organic commodities and remains a negligible amount of total U.S. cropland. An informal group of companies commissioned the Sustainable Food Lab to give them thorough background on barriers and challenges to organic grain production before acting to address the…
DetailsA cross-section of more than 50 people representing the Ghana cocoa sector came together March 9 in Accra to review the advances of the Climate Smart Value Chain project being implemented by CIAT, IITA, Rainforest Alliance, Root Capital and the Sustainable Food Lab. This workshop builds on a kick-off workshop held in May 2015, field visits and joint work combining soil mapping with climate…
DetailsSeven years ago, Gene Kahn, then a VP at General Mills, hosted a boardroom meeting for business leaders in the Sustainable Food Lab. He described the environmental footprint of General Mills’ products, acknowledged that the largest part of that footprint was in agriculture, but urged others to join him in focusing on packaging because it…
DetailsAs we prepare for the Cool Farm Alliance’s 2016 Annual General Meeting, we are also looking back to reflect on several notable achievements marked in 2015. Specifically, the Alliance: Was announced winner of the hotly-contested ‘Practice with Science’ Award Added new software features including data aggregation and a more flexible fertilizer interface allowing users to…
DetailsErik Lowitt’s The Collaboration Economy build’s a case for collorative approaches to sustainability. He interviewed dozens of global leaders and includes case studies from these interviews, focusing on Unilever, GE, Coca-Cola, Nestle Waters, and the European Parliament. One chapter was written with Jan Kees Vis of Unilever, who is also chair of the Sustainable Food…
DetailsInitially created by a collaboration between SYSCO, Unilever, US FoodService, Rainforest Alliance and WWF this guide provides relevant information about terminology in production, processing, preparation, serving and marketing of food. Click here for PDF
DetailsThe Sustainable Food Lab and Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) collaborated on the development of this guide. The intention of this booklet is to give an easy understanding of sustainable agriculture and its main issues. It will be useful particularly for people curious about the business case for sustainable agriculture. Click here for PDF Back to…
DetailsThe short answer to “Why sustainable food needs big business?” is that both challenges and solutions are driven primarily in the market. Food and agriculture globally account for more greenhouse gas emissions than all transportation, 70 percent of all fresh water use, and employment for more than a billion people. Small farms and small…
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