The Big Food Group – sustainability lifecycle assessment
Bringing sustainability to life and making the link to UK Government policy
Client challenge
The Big Food Group (TBFG), as part of its risk management strategy, wanted to examine non-financial impacts and sustainability issues as a source of material risk for the business. A lifecycle assessment on the life of a frozen garden pea was conducted and brought to life through visualisations, a picture which aimed to engage a range of stakeholders on sustainability.
What did we do?
Key informants were involved in semi-structured questioning. The informants were staff from TBFG involved in the food chain of frozen garden peas – the technical manager, a vegetable technologist and food labeller. Other informants ranged from the agent of TBFG who managed the cultivation and processing of vegetables on behalf of the farmer, and an expert from a vegetable growers’ research association. After initial interviews took place and a picture of operations emerged, selected key informants were contacted again to verify and clarify information collected.
The process was needed as it allowed a different approach. The initial desk based identification of issues was enhanced at each stage of dialogue with new inputs from the key informants. This required a collaborative approach to the research. It also provided the clue to how this analysis could become a tool for internal audit at the retailer end, to use with colleagues along the supply chain to engage them in dialogue about potential and currently intangible risk. Instead of a quite specific technical report centred around environmental impacts and energy flows, the interviewees revealed other issues that were relevant within the lifecycle, such as working conditions.
How did we break the cycle?
The analysis and information on sustainability impacts, was accompanied by a life cycle picture which showed sustainability impacts in a visually engaging way. The visual enabled employees of TBFG to relate to the issue in a more easily understandable way. The awareness raising exercise was the first phase of culture change within the organisation.
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© Article 13 2005
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