I recently attended the National Potato Expo (NPE), a produce industry event organized by the National Potato Council. In addition to the trade show itself, the 2012 Potato Expo featured a number of speaker and panel presentations relating to the discussion of on-farm sustainability and the effects of those efforts on the operation. Keep in mind, the speakers and the audience members were all primarily growers and processors, key players within the food supply chain and suppliers to major food brands like McDonald’s, Frito-Lay, Walmart and others. Based on conversations in and around the event, several things became very clear:
• Customers are demanding measurement and reporting of sustainability efforts.
• Growers want to track and measure sustainability not only to meet demand but to identify improvements in their own operations.
• The tools for tracking tend to be too time-consuming, too complicated, too rigid in what they measure and track and/or not consistent enough to be relevant to downstream audiences, including consumers.
According to the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) 2011 Supply Chain Report, more than 50 percent of an average corporation’s carbon emissions come from its supply chain. Therefore, in order for a company to get a complete picture of it’s impact, it must identify the expended energy across it’s supply chain. In the case of the potato industry, that means how it was grown, shipped, processed and packaged before it even gets to the shelf.
As evidenced by discussions with some of the growers at NPE, many are currently ill-equipped to track and manage their emissions, let alone report on them. And that’s not exclusive to any particular industry. The good news is there are some organizations already working to create tools to help suppliers address the mounting pressures to track, manage and report their footprint to customers and, eventually, consumers.
Bottom line, carbon reporting across the supply chain will continue to grow—and, indeed, in some cases is already being expected. Suppliers and customers that work together to prepare themselves will be best positioned to meet this challenge resulting in competitive advantage, operational improvements, increased transparency and, ultimately, a positive impact on business and industry reputations.
