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.

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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.

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Newsletter Down to Earth #9

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Event minutes: What if I dared to make my own way?

Last Tuesday, danone.communities and the student association NOISE brought together 400 people in Parisian business school ESCP to reflect on making professional life count. An inspiring dialogue with Emmanuel Faber, Deputy General Manager of Danone, and entrepreneurs Marie Trellu-Kane, Miora Ranaivoarinosy and Olivier Cueille on meaningfulness… and the urge to change the world.

As the room slowly fills with people, music plays. “Stand by me”, “Redemption Song”, “Imagine”… peaceful and friendly songs that provide the soundtrack to a spectacular video made by young French highliners: these students travel the world to push their limits and confront their fears in breathtaking landscapes. Their project bears the name “I believe I can fly”. The best possible introduction for last Tuesday’s conference, organised jointly by danone.communities and the student association NOISE (New Monitoring Centre for Social and Environmental Innovation). The theme of the night: “Sens dessus dessous. Et si j’osais tracer ma propre route?”  “Sens” is “meaning” in French, and “sens dessus dessus” means “upside down”. What if I dared to make my own way? The event addressed a question that many young graduates face: how to make their way through a meaningful and fulfilling professional life. To many, finding their own place and utility will likely be related to social business and/or environmental concern. Which explains why almost all of the speakers, led by hosts Olivier Maurel (from danone.communities) and Makeba Chamry-Makhamat (founder of Mankai Factory), focused on these subjects.

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Danone’s “Breast Milk Education” programme in Turkey

Picture © Rolf F.

Yalim Uner and his team spent the last five years working on a programme to achieve better infant nutrition in Turkey. He tells us about the lessons learned and delivers a case study on how business can develop in parallel with public health actions.

Yalim is R&D Director for the Central Europe and Near East Region at Danone Baby Nutrition. He was previously Medical Director, and as such, with a passionate team led by Gamze Emre, General Manager of Danone Baby Nutrition in Turkey, he carried out a large-scale operation to raise awareness on infant nutrition in Turkey.

As he explains, “everything started with consumer insights: our Marketing Director Jan Van Twillert realized that mothers were not providing their babies with proper nutrition. We installed monitoring processes to check what was happening, and found that they were only feeding them an average of 290ml of breast milk a day, when it should have been over 500ml.” Babies were nonetheless far from being undernourished. The problem was that mothers were replacing their own milk with cow’s milk and solid foods way too early: realizing that their children were lacking something, they used vegetables and fruits as a substitute, instead of increasing their children’s milk intake.

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“Living longer, but living better” says Danone Nutricia GM’s for Healthy Aging

Michel Albrecht is General Manager for Healthy Aging partnership at Danone Nutricia France. Here is his tribune on healthy aging:

“The world population is aging. In 2050, half of it will be over 50. And in Europe, ten in a hundred people will be octogenarians. At present, age too often goes hand in hand with loss of independence. This fact constitutes a huge issue for European societies, particularly in its impact on public finances. Hence the urgent need to think up innovative solutions to prolong the period of autonomy: we are living longer, and we need to be able to live better.

As Daniel Carasso recommends, “Go on dreaming while keeping your feet firmly on the ground!” In 2011, Nutricia France set up a partnership with the Siel Bleu association, in order to design a program for maintaining or regaining independence. This is in direct line with the European Healthy Ageing program launched in early 2011, which aims to enable elderly people in Europe to gain two years of independence by 2020. Through its subsidiary Nutricia Advanced Medical Nutrition, Danone is the only private company to become a partner of this program, where it represents the food sector.

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