Ambition 2025

Our Head of Climate Change & Energy Policy, Emma Piercy, is undertaking a PGDip in Sustainable Business at Cambridge – and is now working on an ‘Analysis Paper’ looking at a sustainability challenge in the food and drink sector – specifically looking at the role FDF can play in helping to drive change, and then applying those conclusions to the Net Zero policy area.  This will be followed by a second assignment around creating an action plan on account of recommendations from the analysis paper.

As part of the research she is reaching out to different stakeholder groups – and there is a specific questionnaire for food and drink manufacturers, and it is open to both members and non-members of FDF: there are 9 multiple choice questions with the option to add additional comments – and 3 free text questions.  All information gathered is confidential and non-attributable unless explicit permission is otherwise given.  The final paper will be viewed only by Cambridge University and key FDF staff.

If you would like to participate in this survey – you can do so via this link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DR8ZR3R

Responses to the survey are requested by Friday 20th August, but will be open a little longer.  Thank you for your support and I look forward to hearing your views!

Today WRAP have announced that they have extended their Courtauld commitment to 2030, with renewed targets on food waste, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water.

1. On food waste, to deliver against UN SDG 12.3: a 50% per capita reduction in food waste by 2030 vs the UK 2007 baseline (covering manufacture, retail, hospitality and food service, and household)
2. On GHG emissions, to deliver a 50% absolute reduction in GHG emissions associated with food and drink consumed in the UK by 2030 (against a 2015 baseline)
3. On water, for businesses to increase water use efficiency in their own operations and contribute to achieving sustainable water management to improve the quality and availability of water at catchment scale with an overall target that by 2030 50% of fresh food is sources from areas with sustainable water management

You can find a summary of progress to date in the Courtauld Commitment Annual Report.

At the same time, and to enable smaller businesses to engage with Courtauld Commitment 2030, WRAP has introduced an Associate Membership model.

In this episode of the FDF podcast, the FDF’s Chief Scientific Officer, Helen Munday is joined by Skye Oudemans and Emma Mansbridge to explore the FDF’s recent Ambition 2025 progress and mid-term review reports. Both reports outlines the impressive progress made by food and drink manufacturers against environmental targets originally set out in 2016 as well as renewed ambitions the industry is aiming for by 2025.

Listen now

On 24 February, the FDF launched our Ambition 2025 Mid-term Review and Ambition 2025 Progress Report 2020 which was supported by a series of member case studies.

As highlighted in this year’s progress report, there has been exceptional progress in some areas, including:

• 55% reduction in CO2 emissions, five years before the target was due to be reached.
• 41.5% reduction in absolute water consumption in 2019 and support for the Courtauld 2025 Water Ambition.
• Contributed to the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap.
• Continued to build relationships with key stakeholders and with UK governments including through engagement on various the Plastics tax; undertook advocacy on PRN cost crisis; supported the UK Plastics Pact; and launched new guidelines on using recycled content in plastic packaging applications.
• Promoted the fewer and friendlier miles agenda through FDF’s 10 Point Checklist.
• Updated and promoted the Sustainability Resource Hub.
• Promoted the FDF Natural Capital Awareness Document.

The FDF also published a press release, with supporting quote from Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow MP. The launch has been extensively covered across the trade media.