Author: Charlotte Bande

In brief:

• Food and beverage companies can build resilience and make progress on their climate goals by integrating nature into their sustainability strategies. 

• Nature and climate action can bring mutually beneficial outcomes. By prioritizing nature, companies can foster synergies that enhance climate efforts, such as adopting regenerative agriculture practices to improve soil health, reduce emissions and stabilize (or even increase) land productivity. 

• Integrating nature and climate strategies provides a unified, comprehensive sustainability framework that streamlines efforts, offers tangible KPIs and aligns diverse actions toward common environmental and business goals. 

If you’ve been in corporate sustainability awhile, you’ve probably noticed a recent addition to the lexicon. From the conference circuit to annual reports, everyone’s talking about “nature”. This reflects a push to expand sustainability strategies, traditionally focused solely on climate, to incorporate the critical role of nature preservation and regeneration. The pursuit of a “nature-positive” economy is gaining momentum as recognition of the interconnectedness between planetary health and business resilience grows. Yet in the food and beverage industry, awareness hasn’t yet translated into sufficient action. 

For food and beverage companies, adopting a nature strategy can not only help build a more resilient business model, but also support the achievement of climate goals. The food and beverage industry contributes to nature degradation more than any other sector, while also relying significantly on the ecosystem services it provides and therefore suffering the most from the consequences. Thus the industry has a lot to lose, but even more to gain by halting and reversing nature loss.  

Some companies may have already initiated this journey through taking nature-supportive actions as they work toward their climate goals. Yet a more intentional focus on nature will increase long-term resilience in the face of climate challenges and ecosystem collapse.

Investing in nature is a prerequisite for business preservation

Beyond a compliance exercise, food and beverage companies should view nature preservation as a strategic imperative to business survival. As spotlighted in Quantis’ 2024 “Recipe for Transformation” report, the industry could lose around $150 billion – or 7% of its value – by 2030 if companies fail to take action.  

The degradation of ecosystem services – through actions such as land use change and the oversaturation of nitrogen and phosphorus in soils – has rendered the conventional ever-expanding, resource-depleting agricultural model unsustainable for both business and the planet. This model is also a large driver of nature loss, resulting in some of the first climate-driven extinctions in plants and animals.  

Consequently, physical risks such as extreme weather events, soil degradation and water scarcity can severely disrupt supply chains and lead to significant financial losses. Nature degradation can result in stagnated or lower quality yields driven by water shortages, heat waves and the spreading of disease, with companies shortsightedly relying on an increase of land and water use to maintain productivity.  

Transition risks, on the other hand, arise from the shift towards a nature-positive economy, including changes in regulations and market preferences. Ignoring these risks can result in increased operational costs, supply chain disruptions and loss of market share. 

Despite the real threats awaiting those that move too slowly, many companies find the prospect of incorporating nature into their business strategy daunting. Integrating climate priorities has proven challenging for an industry heavily driven by scope 3 emissions, and nature represents yet another challenge on top of existing climate efforts. But adopting an ambitious nature strategy shouldn’t be seen as a separate path to climate action. Instead, climate should be integrated with nature rather than placed next to it. The recognition that investing in nature is an essential safeguard for the future of food production is long overdue.

Unveiling the synergy between nature, climate and business goals

The above graphic from IPBES shows synergies between climate and nature-supportive solutions associated with the food and beverage industry (with a few exceptions). By adopting an integrated sustainability strategy centered around nature, companies can uncover mutually beneficial activities that serve both nature and climate goals.  

The adoption of regenerative agriculture practices is one example that has proven to be a win-win for both nature and climate objectives. Studies reveal that such practices contribute to healthy soils, concurrently cutting emissions and reducing the need for inputs (such as fertilizer). Investing in soil health also restores local water cycles and enhances the soil’s capacity to sequester carbon.  

Integrating nature to streamline sustainability efforts and enhance KPIs

Fortunately, adopting a nature strategy doesn’t require starting from scratch, especially for companies that already have a robust climate strategy or practice regenerative agriculture. While measuring the nature impacts and dependencies of a company’s value chain may require additional metrics compared to climate, companies can typically leverage existing tactics to assess their nature impacts.  

Nature-specific KPIs add value to the sustainability strategy as well. They typically utilize much of the same input information as climate metrics, yet nature-based KPIs offer a more granular view into specific impacts and dependencies, enabling companies to gain deeper insights into their environmental footprint and associated risks. This holistic approach allows companies to track tangible progress on critical topics such as land and water use, which are directly linked to nature preservation. 

While climate progress often contributes to global trends, nature-supportive KPIs provide a more direct, localized understanding of a business’s environmental performance and can help avoid impact shifting. The synergies that are unlocked through integrating nature-based metrics allow companies to streamline sustainability efforts and strengthen resilience to environmental risks and uncertainties. And concrete examples of this are already beginning to emerge. Several food companies that adopted net–zero roadmaps a few years ago have now realized that without accelerating regenerative agriculture and nature strategies, they‘re unlikely to achieve their climate goals.  

As companies realize that climate and nature are collaborators in the journey toward a more sustainable, resilient market, acting quickly to integrate them will pay off. Tangible progress can be made on diverse environmental topics such as land, water and biodiversity, while simultaneously advancing climate goals. Companies that embrace this synergy through innovation and industry collaboration can position themselves as competitive players and guarantee the resilience of their supply.  

+ Simon Gillet, Sustainability Expert
+ Alain Vidal, Senior Advisor
+ Adam Melki, Sustainability Strategist

Action, innovation and changing the world — this is what I envisioned when I first entered sustainability consulting nearly 10 years ago. I pictured myself working alongside a multitude of clients, guiding the sustainable transformation of their businesses and the transition to a virtuous cycle — helping them shift from environmental degradation to a planetary economy.

Luckily, much of what I imagined is the reality. There are a lot of opportunities in sustainability consulting to make a big impact. That said, there’s a lot I didn’t anticipate or know. And I never thought that one day I would come to hope that my job will become obsolete.

Here are five key things I learned about being a sustainability consultant:

1. It’s all about engagement

Consulting is first, and foremost, about empowering internal teams. Why? Because they’re the key to actually achieving a company’s sustainability goals. My job is to equip teams with the knowledge and tools they need to integrate sustainability into decision-making and bring the strategies to life. Consultants also play a critical role in breaking internal silos, bringing different teams together and translating scientific facts into business concepts. One of my colleagues told me years ago that our job is actually to be translators. This not only requires strong communication and engagement skills, but it also means consultants need to be great listeners in order to understand how best to support these teams in driving meaningful change.

2. Things move fast — really fast

Consulting is an exhilarating world where things move quickly and there’s a lot of variety. But sustainability consulting takes this to another level. The field is still very new and everything is in development — new methodologies, processes, standards and initiatives crop up almost daily. That means consultants need to not only stay on top of what’s going on, but also to be flexible and able to adapt quickly. A willingness to stay curious and keep learning is imperative.

However, while all of these developments are exciting for us, they also mean a lot of uncertainty for our clients to navigate. To support our clients effectively, we have to stay three steps ahead of them at all times, always anticipating what’s to come. We need to go beyond simply staying on top of what’s happening and focus on collaborating extensively with the organizations defining these future standards or methodologies.

3. We don’t do the doing

Unless you’re a consultant specialized in implementation, you’re probably not going to be the one executing the strategies and solutions you provide to clients. While our work is to enable our clients to implement these solutions, equipping them with everything they need from the plans, the milestones, the tools and even support them throughout the change, at the end of the day, we won’t be going to the plants or in the field to make the changes happen. While many consultancies have long term relationships with clients so are still around when the changes happen and get to see it materialize, we aren’t involved in the process. To some, this can be frustrating, and it can feel like you didn’t get to participate in the end of the journey. And if a change doesn’t get implemented, it can feel like we as consultants failed when there are a multitude of reasons why a company might not be able to make shifts to an operations model.

But I try to see this as an opportunity to bring my knowledge and impact to more companies. Implementing an environmental strategy is an iterative process that can take years, if not decades, to achieve. If I was responsible for the implementation phase of these strategies, I wouldn’t be able to bring my skills and knowledge to as many other companies. I see consulting as an opportunity to scale my impact.

4. Sustainability and business must be one

There can be no sustainability transition as long as sustainability isn’t embedded into business strategy. Getting change to happen requires sustainability consultants to go beyond our sustainability expertise. First, we need to be able to speak the language of business so we can help clients understand why sustainable transformation is critical for business continuity. Business acumen is also important for helping us as consultants know what barriers leaders and their teams face in driving change in their organizations. Second, we need to equip sustainability departments to initiate conversations with their CFOs and CEOs. One way to do this is by involving leadership and other departments in the sustainability projects we are leading. For instance, have the CFO participate in environmental-related risk assessments or have the operational teams in the room when creating environmental roadmaps. Getting these stakeholders involved and fostering a sense of ownership over the project and its outcome is the way to make sustainability core to them as well.

5. The sign of our success is our disappearance

I believe sustainability consulting will have fulfilled its mission the day it’s no longer needed. That will happen the day sustainability becomes a cornerstone of business rather than an upsell or a nice to have — the day in the future when companies will have fully internalized the skills and expertise that I bring from the outside. When sustainability is the main objective of each and every department and economic success, performance and competitive edge are done within a mindset of sustainability — that is the day we will have succeeded.

I won’t lie — sustainability consulting isn’t a cakewalk. It can be intense, tiring and sometimes disappointing when clients are resistant to change or the pace of progress is slow. But if you’re energized by the idea of solving difficult challenges, learning something new every day and working hard to help businesses operate within planetary boundaries, then working in sustainability consulting could be your best way to drive impact.

And if we do it right, we might even get an early retirement.

In brief

• The effects of the war in Ukraine are now being felt in global supply chains, especially those that feed into the world’s food system.
• The economic impact of the Ukrainian crisis has left food and beverage companies with the challenge of how to minimize revenue loss in order to stay profitable, and maintain operations. With this comes concern that companies could neglect their sustainability agendas, canceling long-term strategies and initiatives as they look for ways to navigate disruption and short-term risks.
• Investing in sustainability strategies and activating them now can help businesses and their supply chains to build resilience and prepare for future shocks brought on by the environmental crisis . Now is the time for businesses to redouble their efforts to build a resilient and secure food system.

A humanitarian catastrophe is in full swing in Ukraine, as the Russian invasion razes cities to the ground, forcing millions to flee the country. The outside world has responded in many ways, including a series of sanctions and trade embargoes, the effects of which are now starting to be felt in global supply chains, especially those that feed into the world’s food system.

How the food and beverage sector responds to this growing crisis in the global food system is crucial.  Many of the crises we face today are proxies for, or closely linked to, the environmental emergency we face. They’re live drills for the challenges that lie ahead. Companies are having to make quick decisions and move into emergency management mode. For many businesses, sustainability is not part of business continuity planning, meaning budget and resources that would be spent on addressing critical environmental issues may be redirected or decisions made that undermine, or even reverse, sustainability efforts. A knee jerk reaction now, with long-term environmental goals ditched for short-term gains, could mean that disruption to food production, and the hardship it brings, becomes the norm. Now is the time for businesses to double down on their efforts to build a resilient and secure food system.

It’s ‘now or never’ but short-term thinking continues to trump long-term goals 

The economic impact of the Ukrainian crisis has left food and beverage companies with the challenge of how to minimize revenue loss in order to stay profitable, and maintain operations. The sector is facing drastic price jumps due to the shortage of key commodities, with the risk that FMCG producers could look for ways of cutting costs, such as cancelling long-term strategies and initiatives that don’t have an immediate impact on business outcomes.

It’s a way of thinking that has put science-based targets and environmental strategies under threat, yet these long-term goals and objectives are crucial for securing the future of our food system and the businesses, suppliers, farmers and ecosystem services that underpin it. As the latest IPCC report published earlier this year spelled out, all sectors need to transform rapidly — it’s ‘now or never’ to prevent the worst of climate change. With food systems responsible for more than a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions and agriculture accounting for 70% of terrestrial biodiversity loss, the food and beverage sector, in particular, has a critical role to play. By disengaging from the sustainability imperative — even temporarily — companies are depriving themselves of one of the greatest levers they have to protect their businesses against future risks.

A perfect storm

The impacts of the war in Ukraine are not only being felt regionally, but across the world because of the region’s significant contribution to the global food system.

Russia and Ukraine are major agricultural producers, together accounting for around half of the world’s sunflower oil, 30% of its wheat and barley, and 17% of its maize. Sanctions have curtailed many of the exports coming out of Russia, while in Ukraine fields have become battlegrounds. Crops lie unharvested and next year’s seeds unplanted, while those that have been produced struggle to leave the country.

Wheat and maize are two of the three mega crops (rice, wheat and maize) that supply more than half of the world’s food energy, which makes the production and export challenges created by the war particularly problematic. Reduced availability and price hikes will have widespread effects that could be far-reaching, but poorer and vulnerable populations will bear the brunt of the consequences.

Areas such as the Middle East and Africa that will feel the grain shortage the most, with over 100 million people reliant on huge volumes of imports. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has warned of the need to avert “a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system.”

Food producers are also feeling the impacts of the war. Many are unable to access the fertilizer and agricultural inputs they need. Russia exports large quantities of fertilizer and soil nutrients too, but as production stalls, prices are rising. This has brought further knock-on effects around the world, with other crops such as soy, corn and rice, which also rely on regular inputs of synthetic nutrients, starting to struggle.

The conflict is having further impacts too, not least through soaring energy bills, which affect households and everyone in the food industry, from farmers to hauliers, processors to retailers. However, the situation could worsen if countries react by closing markets, setting off a domino effect of trade restrictions and export bans, similar to those seen in 2007-08 and again in 2010-12, with potentially catastrophic outcomes.

Continuity, but at what cost?

With one-fourth of the wheat consumed in Europe coming from Ukraine, the European Commission has had to move quickly to maintain the EU’s food security. Alongside financial support it has outlined plans to suspend sustainability obligations on farmers, which are central to its Farm2Fork policy.

For example, cereal farmers currently leave 4% of their land fallow. According to the European Commission, using this land could release four million additional hectares for extra crop production, yet fallows — cultivated land that is not seeded for one of more growing seasons — are also considered important for biodiversity, providing a variety of organisms with sources of food such as weeds, seeds, and invertebrates, as well as vegetation cover for foraging and nesting. Agriculture is already seen as one of the major causes of the current sixth mass extinction and is said to be responsible for 70% of terrestrial biodiversity loss, due to factors such as the use of pesticides, deforestation and the creation of monocultures, where little else can survive. 

Expanding production of other plant-based oils, to fill the gap left by a lack of Ukraine sunflower oil, is also set to put additional pressure on land. 

Palm oil, for instance, is responsible for high levels of peatland drainage, as well as deforestation. Soybean expansion in Brazil has also seen huge swathes of the Amazon felled, while the expansion of rapeseed in Europe and North America has native grasslands plowed up, as well as pushing out other commodities to less favorable farming areas.   

The assumption is that these types of measures will be temporary, but there are fears that rather than simply delaying the transformation towards more sustainable food production, they could completely derail it, with dire long-term effects. Ditching rules to ban certain pesticides, for instance, could cause irreparable damage and put pollinators such as bees under additional pressure.

Food security starts with sustainability

There are options and possible solutions to the food crisis that food businesses can leverage to protect sustainability gains and accelerate the industry’s role in tackling the environmental crisis.

In a statement from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research signed by more than 600 international experts, three key measures have been put forward that could help the food sector cope with short-term shocks such as the Ukrainian crisis, while also protecting human health and long-term sustainable development:

1. Support the shift towards plant-based diets, particularly in high-income countries. It is estimated that one-third of global calories are used to feed animals. An 8% reduction in the use of cereals for animal feed in the EU could outweigh the expected loss of Ukrainian grain. 
2. Allied to this, there are huge opportunities to rein in biofuels as well. For instance, roughly 40%  of American corn is used for ethanol production, although its climate benefits  are increasingly disputed. Both measures could see existing agricultural land turned over to human food production.
3. Reduce the dependency on energy-intensive nitrogen fertilizers — and the Russian natural gas needed to make them — by increasing the production of legumes that naturally fix nitrogen in the soil. The EU’s Farm2Fork strategy sets out plans to expand organic agriculture by 25% and reduce fertilizer use by a third by 2030. This would bring positive knock-on effects too. The overuse of synthetic fertilizers is blamed for soil degradation and water pollution, and by cutting back farmers can help improve soil quality, strengthen biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and boost food security by preserving ecosystem services.

Chemical inputs are also costly and their lack of availability could save farmers money, breaking their reliance and hastening their adoption of more long-term regenerative farming practices.

Reduce food loss and waste across the value chain. The amount of wheat wasted in the EU alone is roughly equivalent to half the amount of Ukraine’s waste exports and, according to the UN, roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — is never eaten, squandering resources including land, water, energy, capital and labor, while needlessly generating greenhouse gas emission and aggravating ecosystem damage.

“The way we farm now, it’s not resilient to climate shock and even economic shock,” Celia Nyssen, policy officer for agriculture at the European Environmental Bureau, recently commented. 

Prioritizing greater food production above all else will only further damage the environment, increase our fossil fuel dependency and threaten long-term food security.

Investing in sustainability strategies and activating them now, however, can help businesses and their supply chain to build resilience. Sustainability needs to be built into business continuity planning as a way of preparing companies for future shocks brought on by the climate crisis and events, such as the war in Ukraine. So rather than abandon the transformation towards a healthier, more sustainable food system, we need to redouble our efforts, otherwise the effects of the Ukraine crisis on society, food system and the global economy will become a test drive for the new normal. And then the opportunity to address the climate crisis and tackle biodiversity loss will have gone forever.