Climate change and net zero

The Goal 13 Impact Platform is a not-for-profit initiative led by 6 partner organisations (CBI, A4S, Chapter Zero, the Met Office, Dell Technologies and Deloitte).

The objective of the initiative is to build a free and open repository of corporate climate actions to facilitate learning and collaboration in the run up to COP26.

Information is gathered via structured interviews with organisations who want to tell their climate story; there’s no constraint on size, sector or geography. The interviews explore business commitments and targets, drivers for change and how you organise your climate action, key initiatives and their impact, and barriers experienced, and lessons learned.

As of today, the Platform have reached out to c. 2,900 organisations and carried out c. 300 interviews. By COP26, the Platform hope to have 1,000 businesses interviewed, using the data to deliver in-depth insights into business climate action, informing policy makers and showcasing the private sector as a key component to achieving net zero. A beta version of the site can be found here: http://boomi.to/g13

Their initial report provides an overview of the insights to date here Goal 13 Impact Platform: Emerging Findings. They plan to publish an update prior to COP26 to power discussions and inspire more businesses to take action.

Get involved and showcase your climate journey

The Goal 13 Impact Platform would like to offer FDF members an opportunity to participate and help shape the Platform to best contribute to climate action. The only requirement is to make time for a 1 hour interview, or by returning a questionnaire, reviewing the notes captured, and when ready, agreeing for them to be published on the Platform.

Additionally, they're encouraging all contributors to get organisations within their supply/value chain onto the platform, typically as a complement to any ongoing engagement. They would be happy to follow-up with your supply / value chains and encourage them to participate.

Sign up via the platform or email us here: Goal13ImpactPlatform@deloitte.co.uk, or viv.raval@cbi.org.uk. 

On 27 April, in a webinar with key note speech from UK Government’s Net Zero Business Champion, Andrew Griffith MP, the FDF announced its ambition on behalf of the sector to reach Net Zero by 2040.

To provide further support to food and drink businesses, the FDF will also produce a Roadmap to Net Zero Project and accompanying ‘handbook for businesses. The Roadmap and Handbook will be launched at COP26 in November.

Throughout the year, the FDF will also deliver a wider programme of events in order to engage with FDF members and the wider sector on the journey to Net Zero.

Watch the full launch webinar

On March 17 Government published the long-awaited IDS and the FDF was pleased to also see its focus on dispersed manufacturing sites outside the major industrial clusters of the UK. As outlined in both our 2020 Heat Decarbonisation Report and the CCC’s 6th Carbon Budget, the electrification of technologies will enable the bulk of carbon savings to net zero and hydrogen will have a role but largely only for high temperature heat requirements, and where it’s available on the local gas grid. The strategy includes a commitment to examining the barriers and associated policies required to meet targets. At FDF we are also continuing the call for a food and drink sector targeted fund given the need for trials to provide seamless implementation of decarbonisation technologies on the manufacturing process.

Overall, long term policy support is required to aid investment decisions as well as direct funding for demonstration projects. We welcome the commitment to look at a future CCA scheme for post March 2025, which has been a key driver for energy efficiency and carbon reductions in the food and drink sector. Alongside the Strategy, Government has also launched a call for evidence on free allocation in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (the successor scheme to the EU ETS), which will inform a full review of that aspect of the scheme.

Does your company have a leading environmental initiative?

With increased pressure to engage in sustainable manufacturing processes that minimise the impact on our environment, companies are looking to the future and implementing creative and resourceful systems.

Our Environmental Leadership category is for companies that can meet either of the criteria below:

• Embedding sustainability throughout a product from development right through to customer use and disposal
• Ground-breaking initiatives to reduce your company's impact on the planet

Read the 2020 winner’s case study

Enter the FDF Awards before the closing date of 26 March 2021 to make sure your company and colleagues get the national recognition they deserve! It’s completely free to enter, and you can enter in as many categories as you like and nominate multiple projects / colleagues.

Enter the FDF Awards

Entry deadline is Friday 26th March.

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.