By: Jeanne von Zastrow, Senior Director for Sustainability, Food Marketing Institute

My past few weeks have been filled with food retailers collaborating with their trading partners on sustainability. In meeting with our FMI Sustainability Executive Committee, the Food Waste Reduction Alliance and FMI Seafood Committee meeting, I’ve heard from a number of presenters and industry members just how important sustainability is to changing the way food retailers do business. If I could summarize all I’ve learned during the past few weeks on the  ever-growing need for increased sustainability practices, it would be best put by the words of Jason Clay, senior vice president of World Wildlife Fund, who shared, “It’s no longer ‘what’ to think, but ‘how to think’ at the speed of change.”

In the infancy of this new millennium we find ourselves in a dynamic world of ever-increasing complexity; one defined by challenges and opportunities that are unequaled in the human experience. We are confronted by the reality of unprecedented population growth with the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs projecting a future with 9.6 billion people by 2050. This exponential growth is occurring at the same time as a demographic shift as cities across the world increasingly become the engines of economic prosperity and hubs for innovation. We are bearing witness to the rise of rapidly developing global economies and unparalleled consumer and industrial demands for a vast array of limited resources. We have never been more technologically advanced and news stories emerge daily about revolutionary meta-materials development, advances in biotechnology and healthcare, robotics and computing. Through mobile technology, social media and a seemingly boundless internet, we are more connected and better informed than at any point in our history. 

“This milieu, our evolutionary high water mark is occurring against the backdrop of a world where climate change is no longer a future threat, but is rather a present reality,” says Joseph Berman, manager of corporate social responsibility from Price Chopper Supermarkets, and a member of FMI’s Sustainability Executive Committee.  I can’t agree more.

Changes in major global climatological engines have raised the specter of mega-droughts, widespread ecosystem destabilization, and significant sea level rise. At current use levels, 70 percent of the global potable water supply is used for agricultural purposes, and assuming the United Nation’s population growth projections, global agricultural production will need to increase an additional 70 percent to feed 9.6 billion people by 2050. 

In response to these resource availability concerns, leading companies are implementing sustainable sourcing strategies with their supply chain partners.  But no one company alone can solve these environmental problems and our future depends on pre-competitive collaboration throughout the entire supply chain.

FMI has multiple sustainable sourcing resources to help food retailers begin to take action. Sustainable sourcing of commodities or finished goods extends beyond traditional cost and supply metrics and ensures that the economic, environmental and social aspects of the global supply chains are responsibly and ethically managed. The FMI Sustainable Sourcing Guide for High-Impact Commodities is designed to help food retailers take measured steps towards sustainable sourcing. FMI’s one-stop webpage for sustainable sourcing resources, www.fmi.org/SustainableSourcing is a valuable resource for any food retailer looking to “think at the speed of change.”