The Sustainable Food Lab Meets in LondonOne of the most exciting outcomes of the recent Food Lab Conference on Public Procurement in London was a proposal to launch a major cities initiative. At the conference, city officials in charge of public food systems discovered how much they can learn from each other, encourage each other and achieve together. Stories such as Copenhagen's progress tranforming 800 of their 1200 elder care food facilities (often the most neglected of public food environmets) inpsired a sense of ambition. The major cities initiative would create a forum for large urban areas to look together at how to create supply infrastructures that maximize use of local, healthy, sustainable food, how to connect consumers back to the farmed land and the specific role of large metropolitan areas in developing sustainable food systems locally and globally. The deputy mayor of Amsterdam offered to host a follow-up meeting early next year and interested parties are drafting charter to launch the concept.
Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development delivered remarks to meeting participants. He spoke about climate change and the complex tradeoffs between buying local to reduce impact on climate and buying from developing countries to help reduce poverty through trade. He said:
"It is a simple fact that virtually no country - be it China, India, the USA or indeed the UK - has achieved economic progress and improved the welfare of its people without first making progress in agriculture. Agriculture is the foundation on which both life and development are built. It’s at the heart of making poverty history…….." "But the other challenge that I would like to talk about is climate change. We feel the effects now and will do so in the future, but climate change is actually hardest felt by those least responsible for it – poor countries – and it has the potential to cause untold damage and harm far beyond the reach of any aid programme. The Stern Report made one thing very clear – the cost of dealing with it is substantial, but absolutely nothing compared to the cost of not dealing with it. " | SFL Calendar Business Coalition Meeting (at SoL Forum), March 27, 2007 Atlanta, GA. Sustainable Food Lab Meeting, October 17-18, 2007 Antigua, Guatemala (Learning Journeys in Central America lasting 2-7 days will precede this meeting)
Learning Journey - China, tentative dates: March-April, 2008 ----------------------- Calendar of Related EventsSociety for Organizational Learning (SoL), March 27-30, 2007 Atlanta, GA.
Healthy Food in Healthcare FoodMed, June 28-29, 2007, Seaport World Trade Center, Boston, MA
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Other meeting outcomes Some other outcomes include further development of the Framing research (from the US and France to Belgium and the UK), a draft MOU between the Food Lab and SAI platform and growing support for the Call to Action initiated by the Sustainable Food Lab Business Coalition. In taking up the Call to Action companies sign on to a self-assessment to identify high priority issues and set targets for the improvement of supply chains, internal operations and products sourced. Public Conference
The Food Lab meeting culminated in an international conference on public food procurement (co-sponsored by Alimenterra, the City of London, DEFRA -- UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs -- and the Food Lab's Food for Health initiative and brilliantly moderated by Clive Peckham). The conference involved a large number of public officials and strong representation of food service companies from across Europe and the United States. Speakers highlighted efforts to promote sustainable food in the public procurement sector from both sides of the Atlantic.
"There was something terribly magical and helpful about going from the SFL working sessions into the meeting with public officials and additional partners in London City Hall. Perhaps because government was there? The order of and the delivery of what the speakers had to say? The mix of everyone being in the same room?? the London meetings following SFL? the combination of it all?" - Toni Liquori, Professor, Columbia University
The London City Hall meeting was a very special day. It is encouraging that we may have interest to repeat this event in other cities such as Amsterdam. Look what you have started! - Craig Watson, VP at SYSCO
We are grateful to all the participants that contributed their time and resources to make this an rich and successful event. We have a lot to do. Its good to know we're doing it together. Read the Workshop Report
In order to keep the many lively conversations going, we've launched a Sustainable Food blog. We’re hoping this becomes a place where folks can drop by to discuss the fascinating and complex questions we face as we try to bring sustainability into the mainstream of global food systems. Jump right in, let us know what you think, and do share your thoughts and inspiration.
| LinksThe Impacts of Climate Change, Global Business Network, January, 2007, A System Vulnerability Approach to Consider the Potential Impacts to 2050 of a Mid-Upper Greenhouse Gas Emissions Scenario. Whole Foods Market is the largest organic and natural retailer in the world. The co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey offered a multimedia presentation of the past, present, and future of food. John Mackey then joined Michael Pollan in conversation, continuing in person the exchange of views the two have been conducting since the publication of Pollan's 2006 book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Watch the webcast. Time Magazine had a cover story this week (3/2/07) on organic vs local: Eating Better Than Organic |
