Danone: why carbon reduction is key

Danone was very honoured to be shortlisted as a finalist for the Guardian Sustainable Business Awards in the “Carbon” category. Therefore, Danone’s entry has received a write up on the Best Practice Exchange which was launched earlier yesterday:

Danone, the French food company behind Activia yoghurts, Evian water and Cow&Gate baby food, has left few stones unturned in an ambitious bid to cut its carbon footprint by 30% in the four years to 2012.

Firstly, it has put carbon reduction above all other sustainability goals, believing that, if done right, this will help achieve other environmental targets on water use, packaging, agriculture and biodiversity.

Secondly, it is working on a comprehensive and diverse agenda of initiatives across its value chain. These range from appointing a nature sponsor to its main board of directors, to renewable energy and packaging initiatives, transferring freight from road to rail, planting 70m trees across Africa and Asia through offset schemes, and testing a system that helps farmers boost the nutritional value of milk while also controlling the methane produced by their cows.

Danone frames its business and environmental mission in a particular way. It seeks to promote health through its food and says that the health of the planet, therefore, remains a priority.

Read the full story on The Guardian Sustainable Business

Nicolas Gausserès: “Danone is part of the solution to new nutritional issues”

Nicolas Gausserès is Nutrition Director at Danone Research. His job is to anticipate the public health concerns, understand local nutrition and eating contexts, and monitor the nutritional quality of Danone’s products and their contribution to a healthy diet. A meticulous, scientific job that calls for co-creation, and the constant invention of new tools. Nicolas Gausserès tells us all about it.

What exactly is your job at Danone Research? 

My job is to create competitive advantage for Danone, its subsidiaries and its brands through the reinforcement of several strategic directions. Our first objective is to make Danone more and more relevant in regards the public health issues. In each of “our” countries, we work to be aware of the main nutritional concerns and to develop relevant products and solutions. Our second objective is to build coherence in what Danone is doing around nutrition between the divisions and subsidiaries and over time. Thirdly, we want to create differentiation between Danone and its competitors: through the nutritional superiority of the products but also through the way we partner and co-develop relevant solutions with local and scientific authorities. Since what we do is closely linked to public health issues, we want to be seen as a potential ally in addressing certain concerns, and not the one creating the problem.

How does this work fit into Danone’s strategy?

Danone’s goal is “to bring health through food to as many people as possible”. Today, this goal is highlighted by a public health context that is getting more and more worrying: what we call non-communicable diseases (obesity, diabetes, etc.) are spreading in the developing world, where nutritional habits have changed dramatically over the past 50 years. We aim to be seen as a company that is aware of these issues, and hence that can be a part of the solution and not of the problem.

Read More

UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme is 40 years old

In 1971, UNESCO launched the Man and the Biosphere Programme to study our impact on nature and how it could be minimized. 40 years later, the programme continues to shape the future of sustainability and contribute to new global governance on ecology.

In 2011, the MAB celebrated its 40^th anniversary at an international conference “For life, for the future, biosphere reserves and climate change” in Dresden. MAB is short for the Man and the Biosphere Programme, an intergovernmental scientific programme launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1971. Not only was it a landmark for international efforts on sustainability, but it has also contributed to the emergence of a “world government” on these issues. Let’s see how.

The genesis of MAB

In 1968, UNESCO, together with FAO, WHO and the United Nations, organized the “Biosphere Conference”, a Paris-based intergovernmental gathering of experts who were called to reflect on “the scientific basis for the rational use and conservation of the resources of the biosphere”. At the time, it was the first worldwide meeting, at a governmental level, to address environmental issues and to adopt a series of recommendations. The late 1960s, and to an even greater degree the early 1970s, were a time of growing awareness – and concern – regarding mankind’s impact on the environment. In 1972, the first Earth Summit was held in Rio, as public concern started to build regarding the pressure that a growing world population was putting on the planet’s resources. While some advocated a reduction in our demographic growth, others claimed that the main problem was in fact how much the developed world was consuming, and the means of production it used to satisfy consumerism’s appetite. In any case, it was now obvious that something had to be done to curb biodiversity loss. The “Biodiversity Conference” and its recommendations, and the International Co-ordinating Council that was formed afterwards, advised that panels of experts should be convened in the member States and biosphere reserves established in various places around the world, all of which prepared the ground for the MAB programme, officially inaugurated by UNESCO in 1971.

Read More

Emmanuel Faber: “We cannot build a sustainable food business without sustainable agriculture”

 Picture: Emmanuel Faber

This year, the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform will be 10 years old. Emmanuel Faber, Deputy General Manager of Danone, explains how the initiative was born and what issues it must address for the future.

The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform is a non-profit “food industry organization aiming to support the development of sustainable agriculture, involving food chain stakeholders”. It was created by Danone, Nestlé and Unilever in 2002 in order to facilitate sharing of knowledge and initiatives to support sustainable agriculture practices, while developing a productive, competitive and efficient way to produce agricultural goods. Today, it has over 40 members^* and is still the only global food industry initiative for sustainable agriculture.

Here are a few words that Emmanuel Faber, Deputy General Manager of Danone, shared at the 10^th anniversary of the SAI Platform, which was celebrated in Evian from 2 to 4 May.

A crucial issue for the future

“The question of sustainability in agriculture is absolutely crucial for the food industry. Over the past 50 years we have built a system that has delivered a large quantity of food to a growing number of people, with, overall, significantly enhanced food safety. But if we look at things going forward, there is no doubt that we need to rethink the sustainability of our model. Feeding 7 billion people is a different story to feeding 5, and feeding 9 will be a different story again. This, in a nutshell, sums up the entire sustainability question.”

Read More

How 15^th May made history

The main event of the Global Communities Meeting Tour hosted by danone.communities took place in Paris last Tuesday. Here is an account of this special day, packed with ideas and enthusiasm.

On Tuesday 15^th May, at la Mutualité in Paris, danone.communities hosted a very special event for social business. An event that resonated as an anniversary for danone.communities, which is celebrating 5 years of existence in 2012, in particular with a grand tour: the Global Communities Meeting Tour, which was launched on 8^th February and will end in November at the Global Social Business Summit in Vienna. An international tour, all year round, with numerous partners, to reach as many people as possible and promote social business. Tuesday’s function at la Mutualité was one of the major events of this tour: first, an entire day gathered over 200 social business experts to co-create in workshops. Then, a large-scale conference welcomed over 2000 attendees including, among others, Prof. Muhammad Yunus and Franck Riboud. Here is the story of that special day.

Getting to work

It is 7.30am at the Maison de la Mutualité, a beautiful art déco building situated in the heart in Paris, close to Notre-Dame Cathedral. The entire danone.communities team, assisted by a handful of volunteers, is already busy setting up the venue: in about 90 minutes, 200 social business experts will gather here to spend the whole day in workshops, with the intention of co-creating new solutions to scale up social businesses in every field, everywhere in the world. “Scale up”: a phrase that will often be heard throughout the day. Because “in social business, there is business”. And so many other things…

Read More

Editorial by Franck Riboud, CEO of Danone

We are pleased to provide you with the editorial written by Franck Riboud, CEO of Danone, on the 2011 Annual Sustainability Report.

“People often ask me why Danone’s sustainable development action places such importance on social innovation projects. For example, why did we include this focus in the individual targets of the company’s 1,400 managers? Why have we set up investment funds like the Danone Ecosystem Fund and, more recently, the Livelihoods Fund? What economic benefit can a major corporation like Danone expect in return? And should we continue in this way despite the difficult and uncertain global context?

My answer to those who might be tempted to turn back is simple: in sustainable development more than any other area, we can only rise to the challenges if we are able to develop radically different approaches. This requires the ability to explore and try out new ways. It is therefore more vital than ever that Danone’s eyes and ears be wide open to the world, to meet current expectations and make the necessary changes to prepare the company for those of tomorrow. Our approach of being an open-minded company seeking to co-design new solutions with our stakeholders is firmly rooted in Danone’s culture and model and contributes to our overall long-term performance.

Read More

Last week, we had the chance to observe a gorgeous phenomenon referred to as the “Supermoon” or “Perigee Moon”.

Here are some pictures made by The Big Picture on this phenomenon, click on the following link to see more photos.

Reblogged from The Big Picture :

The night sky on May 5 was animated by the once-a-year cosmic event of the perigee moon. Popularly known as the “Supermoon”, the moon appears much larger above us when the elliptical orbit brings it within 221,802 miles to Earth, the closest point. The effect is magnified during a full moon, when we see our nearest celestial neighbor appear roughly 20 percent brighter and 15 percent larger. Collected here are images taken just before, during, and just after the perigee moon of 2012.

Returning to Rio to build a more sustainable future

Reblogged from the Guardian Sustainable:

Germany’s feed-in tariff guarantees that producers of electricity from wind, solar, biomass and hydropower will be able to sell energy at a reasonable profit. 

In 1992, heads of state converged on Rio for the Earth Summit, a bright moment that seemed to herald a new era for sustainable development. Bold speeches were given, important treaties signed. Saving the planet was cast as a moral imperative. Multilateral institutions would lead the way.

Twenty years later, the world looks much different. The unipolar system of US domination that followed the end of the cold war is now multipolar. The locus of global growth and consumption has largely shifted to developing countries, especially in Asia. And for all the good intentions voiced in Rio, the health of our climate, water resources, and ecosystems has been deteriorating at alarming rates.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been progress in some areas, including in the private sector, which will be amply represented – along with governments and civil society groups – at the Rio+20 conference in June. With that in mind, it’s worth examining how businesses can build on that progress, even absent the ground breaking global agreements that emerged from the original Rio conclave, but are unlikely this year.

Read More