🌱 The Sustainable Procurement Pledge: What is it?

Featuring Rubies in the Rubble, Ombar, Jude's Ice Cream, Sipsmith and more...

Nov 19, 2021

Happy Friday!

This week we cover:

The Sustainable Procurement Pledge: An Overview
Meet the Knowvember brands: Rubies in the Rubble and Ombar
In case you missed it: Has COP26 changed anything for the consumer goods industry? We hear from Enviral, Jude's Ice Cream, Sweep, Sipsmith, Zevero, Circular Spaces and My Emissions.

> Good News This Week

🎯 Wholegood announced it had donated enough food in October to provide 2329 meals via The Felix Project.

🎯 Cauldron Foods (part of Quorn Foods) released their first carbon neutral product: Korean Bites. They partnered with ClimatePartner. They’ve also focused on reducing their emissions. In 2020, we reduced our energy use per tonne of product by 61%, and we reduced the emissions from our own factory (Scope 1 and 2) per tonne of product by 93% in comparison to 2012 baseline

⭐️ Starbucks announced its partnership with Arla UK to support dairy farmers in reducing emissions. Dairy represents 22% of Starbucks’ total carbon footprint, and they’ve aimed to halve carbon emissions across their value chain by 2030. On this journey, they have also partnered with Innovation Centre for U.S. Dairy, Alliance Dairies, AGOLIN SA, The Nature Conservancy and more.

⭐️ H&M stated its aims to halve their emissions every 10 years, aiming for a ‘fossil free supply chain’.

⭐️ Ocado announced it has become the first supermarket globally to have a net zero head office. As part of this, they have partnered with Climeworks to remove over 1,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.

⭐️ Gordons unveiled its new gin bottles, made out of 85% recycled glass. The brand also aims to ensure all packaging is widely recycled by 2030.

⭐️ Apple announced a new self service repair program for iPhones, a step forward for better maintenance of electronic devices.

⚡️ Scotland announced a ban on single use plastic, coming into effect in June 2022, making it the first UK nation to do so.

> Click on each link to read more.

> Quick Take

Sustainable Procurement Pledge: An Overview

It’s no secret that supply chains need to be cleaned up, but ‘no single company can solve today’s sustainability challenges alone’. Recent coverage has focused on procurement’s ‘carbon transparency problem’, and more and more brands are realising that a huge portion of their emissions are embedded within their supply chain. So, how can brands take a proactive approach, and work together to reduce the impact of their procurement decisions? The Sustainable Procurement Pledge is one solution.

What is it?

The Sustainable Procurement Pledge (SPP) is a non-profit organisation aimed at procurement professionals, practitioners and academics. So far, 5,000 Ambassadors from more than 142 countries have pledged to commit themselves to making sustainability the central mindset of their daily decision making and procurement activities (view the full pledge here).

What is the aim?

SPP aims to drive ‘awareness and knowledge on responsible sourcing practices’. In achieving this, it aims to ‘empower people in procurement’ - working towards a collective goal to ensure that ‘all supply chains across the world have embedded sustainable procurement practices by 2030’.

Who runs it?

SPP was founded in October 2019 by Bertrand Conquéret (President of Henkel’s Global Supply Chain B.V. and Global Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) of Henkel AG & Co. KGaA) and Thomas Udesen (Chief Procurement Officer at Bayer). It’s maintained by ambassadors, chapter leads and volunteers.

How can I get involved?

SPP have various chapters by region, topic and industry - so there’s plenty to get involved with. You can apply to be co-chair of a chapter, or join the Ambassador network - which has an active LinkedIn group. SPP encourages its ambassadors to connect around different ‘challenges’ too - like ‘Circular Thinking in Procurement’ and ‘Supplier Engagement’. On 1st December, the Scope 3 Peer Group is meeting to discuss ‘Scope 3 Supply Chain Emissions’ - register to join the event here. With frequent events, panels and workshops, it’s a chance to engage with others with similar goals to you.

Keep up with the Sustainable Procurement Pledge via their website, their LinkedIn and their Twitter.

Haven’t subscribed to Following the Footprints yet?

> Brand Spotlights - in partnership with Knowvember

⚡️ Meet the Knowvember Brands: Rubies in the Rubble

Mission: Condiments. But Gooder. Rubies in the Rubble make award-winning condiments, made gooder by using delicious ingredients that would otherwise go to waste. Tasting great? Good. Fighting food waste too? Gooder. Our ketchups and relishes are made with fresh fruit & veg sourced directly from farms, whilst our mayo’s are made with aquafaba, a plant-based alternative to eggs that is usually thrown away. Condiments are a fantastic way of preserving produce by extending their shelf-life with vinegars and sugars. In other words, less waste, more taste.

Targets: Our long-term ambition is to reach net-zero, by cutting the production of carbon where we can and off-setting where we aren’t able to reduce the carbon footprint. We have committed to being Carbon Neutral before the end of this year. We are coming to the end of completing a comprehensive life cycle analysis of all our condiments from farm to fork. Having full visibility over our emissions across our supply chain will lay the groundwork to forecast meaningful reduction targets in 2022 and identify the areas to work on reducing our carbon to have maximum impact.

Rubies in the Rubble’s Product Breakdown

We chatted to Rubies in the Rubble about how they’ve reduced the footprint of their foodservice goods, their Net Zero ambitions, a partnership with Soil Heroes, and how they’re tackling food waste.

Read the full interview for more:

Following the Footprints

⚡️ Meet the Knowvember Brands: Rubies in the Rubble

As part of our partnership with the Knowvember campaign, we’re profiling each of the seven founding brand partners. Taking a stance for climate transparency, each brand knows and shows the climate footprints of their products - making it easier than ever for consumers to make informed and climate conscious choices…

3 years ago · Leone Baron

⚡️ Meet the Knowvember Brands: Ombar

Mission: Ombar Oat M’lk was born from our desire to have a positive impact in the face of the immense challenges of climate change and environmental collapse. We're a small chocolate company with a desire to make a big difference; and we believe that small actions can add up to a big impact. So we decided to start with chocolate! Ombar Oat M’lk has less than half the carbon emissions compared to ‘regular’ milk chocolate, and 3p from every bar is donated to an NGO in Ecuador to support reforestation of the Chocó rainforest, a global biodiversity hotspot.

Targets: Our Oat M’lk range has less than half the carbon emissions of ‘regular’ milk chocolate, and we offset the emissions we do produce – not just for Ombar Oat M’lk but across the whole business. Our aim is to continually find ways to lower our emissions in the first place.

We chatted to Ombar about their work with CarbonCloud, their recent launch utilising ‘naked’ oats, and why their shock at our current food system led them to take part in the Knowvember campaign.