🌱 Looking to the future: 6 tools to risk map your supply chain, and how Solar Foods are creating 'the most sustainable protein in the world'.

Featuring Solar Foods, ASKET, Abel & Cole, WHSmith, Faith in Nature and more...

Nov 27, 2023

Happy Monday!

This week we cover:

Quick Take: Mapping resilience and risk: 6 tools to support your analysis.
Brand Spotlight: Solein, the ‘most sustainable protein in the world’ by Solar Foods.
In case you missed it: 🌱 Having Faith in Nature: How one brand gave 'Nature' a voice and a vote, and our introduction to biodiversity credits.

> Good News Last Week

🎯 ASKET announced their closure for Black Friday to highlight over consumerism and encourage dialogue around changing the current patterns of the fashion industry.

🎯 Abel & Cole announced that their customers now can enjoy products in refillable glass bottles and jars, working together with Again to enable the reverse logistics supply chain solution. Again’s solution is offering brands an average of 62% reduction in CO2e emissions compared to regular single-use supply chains.

⭐️ Retailer Albert Heijn have collaborated with Avantium to use their 100% plant-based and recyclable material for packaging of their own-brand products. The material, made from polyethylene furanoate (PEF), can be used for packaging of bottles, films and textiles, and is able to extend the shelf life of food.

⭐️ WHSmith announced their innovative book buy-back scheme within its UK high street stores, providing customers with the opportunity to swap their used books for WHSmith eGift cards, redeemable at WHSmith for their next purchase. The scheme has been launched in partnership with Zeercle, a solution provider in the used books industry.

⚡️ The UK Government is reconsidering their decision not to introduce mandatory food waste reporting following campaigning from leaders in the food and drink industry - including Hugh Fernley Wittingstall, Feedback , Olio • Share More, Waste Less, Toast Brewing and Dash Water. The campaign group fundraised to pay for a judicial review of the decision made by Defra.

⚡️ Future Ocean Foods, a new global association dedicated to accelerating alternative seafood industry, was launched. Their mission is to promote promote food security, human health, environmental sustainability and ocean conservation. It will span plant-based, fermentation and cultivated seafood and technology.

⚡️ The Carbon Accounting Alliance launched. Now with 126+ software companies, consultancies, auditors and certifying bodies, the coalition will encourage better monitoring and action from carbon accounting to accelerate a global net zero transition. Their goals include influencing policy and legislation and developing standards across carbon accounting. Founding members include Planet Mark, ClimatePartner and Ecologi.

> Click on each link to read more.

> Quick Take

Mapping resilience and risk: 6 tools to support your analysis.

With the impact of climate change disproportionately impacting populations around the world, key stakeholders within supply chains are likely to already be experiencing the impacts. From poor weather patterns across Europe producing low olive oil yields and dramatically increasing prices to the impact of heat stress on labour productivity – from exhaustion to heat stroke. Identifying high risk parts of your supply chain is more important than ever to support your suppliers and increase their resilience to these impacts.

It is important to apply a human rights lens to climate risk, as workforces within supply chains will be significantly impacted first. Addressing these impacts and working with your suppliers not only ensures proper health & safety but also increases your supplier’s resilience to risk, ensuring productivity and reducing business risk. So, where to start?

Let’s take a look: 6 tools to help your analysis

Let’s dig into the different tools that you can use to risk assess your supply chain and identify your hotspot areas. When considering risk, use the 5x5 risk matrix to assess the severity of risk and likelihood of risk to people.

How harmful is the risk?
How many people are affected?

1. WWF Water Risk and Biodiversity Risk Filter

Check it out here.

✅ Data can be assessed at a regional and country level, to produce a simple risk score with a heavy focus on environmental risks. WWF has included reputational and regulatory risk, as an impact on business.
✅ Future risks including water scarcity are predicted for 2030 and 2050 which gives greater context for assessing risk.
✅ Data on supplier sites can be downloaded individually or in bulk into excel, which gives versatility in data use. The tool is also free to use.
👎 The tool does not indicate the number of people affected by the risk.
👎 All quantitative data with no recommendations for potential mitigation strategies.

2. Fairtrade Risk Map Tool

Check it out here.

✅ A free tool that assesses countries and commodities that are certified Fairtrade. Thousands of smallholder farmers were consulted to provide important risks directly from the workforce.
✅ Identifies risks by commodity on a macro level across global supply chains, from good to high concern.
✅ Gives an overview of risk mitigation approaches taken by Fairtrade.
✅ The tool uses verified data and details the methodology used by Fairtrade, with links to expert perspectives including literature reviews and key stakeholder knowledge. However, this might not be robust enough to inform supplier conversations.
👎 Climate risk and human rights risk are separate, with separate datasets and indicators. The risk to business is also not addressed, with the tool choosing to focus on top level poverty and risk to migrant workers.
👎 The tool requires reviewing by commodity and country which is fairly manual. It does not allow you to download the data which also poses challenges to usability.
👎 As the tool covers macro issues, there is a lack of detail for focussing in on key regions where suppliers are based.

3. Environmental Performance Index (EPI)

Check it out here.

✅ Quick and easy to compare country level performance and risk, with an overview of how closely a country meets specific targets, with governmental and third party research datasets.
✅ There is also the ability to delve further into the detail with sector specific elements to find relevant issues (e.g. fisheries and agriculture).
✅ Built with a huge international dataset, with 180 countries assessed on climate, environmental health and ecosystem vitality with different sub-categories.
👎 The dataset is not live as it is updated annually. As climatic events will occur more frequently, this lacks pace in providing an accurate reflection of events.
👎 No specific social indicators to assess human rights directly and categories cannot be filtered to personalise the analysis as relevant for your business.

4. Sedex Radar

Check it out here.

✅ 14 human rights issues are assessed across four pillars: Labour Standards & Rights, Health & Safety, Business Ethics and Environment and given a score from 0–10.

✅ Assesses workplace risks to workers and risks to the environment relating to biodiversity, water, energy, emissions, waste, pollution and deforestation.

✅ Data can be downloaded directly into excel for further analysis.

👎 Accessible for Sedex members only. This online risk assessment tool is a paid tool however Sedex is widely used across industries to track suppliers across supply chains. The tool is complex to use so requires training.

👎 The impact of environmental risks on human rights risk is not connected. Future scenarios and geopolitical events are not included.

👎 It is difficult to see the detail and weighting of each index within the risk score to then understand the detail.

*Country and Sector Risk. Source: Sedex Radar*

5. AgriAdapt

Check it out here.

✅ Using a large datasets of climate change data modelling with clear sources of data linked to each layer.

✅ The tool produces good visuals with the ability to download results.

👎 A tool which assesses the climate risk of three crops – cotton, coffee and rice. As this tool is newly launched, the crop-list might be expanded in the future.

👎 A time intensive tool to use as manual data input is required, site by site.

6. Unicef The Children’s Climate Risk Index

Check it out here.

✅ Developed ahead of COP21 with the idea that children bear the greatest weight of the impact of climate change. An easy-to-understand tool with no training needed.

✅ Each country is given a score which can be separated into climate risk, human risk or combined.

👎 Created in 2021, the data used is from research papers dating back to 2015.

👎 Difficult to dig into the detail behind each factor and understand the granularity. The data cannot be downloaded as it is on PDF.

It is clear that there are opportunities and challenges with using each tool. Climate change and human rights risk are not always assessed together and often interpretation or wider understanding is required. The difference in detail varies by tool and therefore the use of multiple tools to combine risk assessments will provide a more accurate representation of both climate and human rights risks across your supply chain. Now that your supply chain has been mapped by risk, typical next steps are; identify your hotspots (key risk areas), engage with your suppliers to take action, and measure the improvements and reduction to risk.

> Brand Spotlight

Solein, the ‘most sustainable protein in the world’ by Solar Foods.

In a world where the demand for less land-intensive and more ethical food options is growing, innovative solutions are emerging to revolutionise the way we produce, and consume, protein. From plant-based alternatives to replace meat (THIS, VIVERA, Beyond Meat, The Vegetarian Butcher to name a few!) to making food from air molecules and microbes…? Yep, you read that correctly!

Traditional agriculture, particularly animal agricultu re, contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and freshwater consumption. Livestock farming, in particular, generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, whilst the use of land for agriculture has led to deforestation and habitat loss, threatening biodiversity. Additionally, geo-political conflicts often risk availability and price of many important protein sources for many CPG companies. Solein’s solution, which produces food from molecules and microbes through cellular agriculture technology, uses just 0.1% of the land and 1% of the water for equivalent beef production.

What is Solein?

Founded following a successful pilot project, Solar Foods, aims to develop a solution that could provide nourishment with significantly fewer resources and without the need for animal agriculture.

Solein is a sustainable protein grown from a single cell using hydrogen and carbon dioxide. It’s highly nutritious, containing 65-70% protein, 10-15% dietary fibres, 5-8% fats and 3-5% mineral nutrients. Its neutral taste and small particle size allow it to seamlessly blend into various food formulations without altering the original flavours. It can be used to fortify a wide range of food products; dairy alternatives, egg substitutes and creating meat alternatives due to its fibrous structure.

They successfully led a commercialisation trail at a restaurant in Singapore, called Fico, where the dishes were made with Solein ingredients. One of the key offerings was a chocolate ice cream, something very familiar to many of us but made in an innovative way. Therefore, providing comfort to our changing our relationship with food, recreating products we know and love.

How is it made?

The protein is made by a fermentation process, utilising single-cell organisms. The process begins by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. The microbes are then fed carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and essential nutrients, allowing them to produce amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, and vitamins. Once completed, excess water is removed and dried to a fine protein powder, ready to be used as food products.

The future of sustainable protein?

With approval by regulatory authorities, such as the Singapore Food Agency, Solar Foods is paving the way for the commercialisation of Solein and signalling a new era in the future of food. Solar Foods plans to expand its market reach and seek regulatory approval in other key regions, including the EU, UK, and the United States.

Using this technology, Solein significantly reduces the need for land and animal farming, which is key to achieving sustainability and ensuring the future of our earth. By producing a nutritious protein source with significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, Solein technology can help us create a more resilient and ethical food system.