LRQA talks Food Safety & Sustainability with Carlsberg at upcoming key industry event
(PRWEB UK) 21 January 2014 -- By putting integrated management systems and a commitment to ‘grow responsibly’ at the heart of their organisation, Carlsberg has driven product quality, sustainability and strategic performance across their global sites and supply chain.
Madlen King, Global Head of Climate Change & Sustainability at LRQA explained how the many different terms used when we talk about sustainability, such as corporate responsibility, environment and climate change, fit together.
“Sustainability can be best described by its original use, which was in the definition of sustainable development from the Brundtland Report of the UN World Commission on Environment & Development, as ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their own needs,” said King.
“It requires a careful balance between environment, social equity and economic development, commonly referred to as the 3 pillars of sustainability or the ‘3 Es’.
So, in everything we do as humans, in our development, we must be both individually and corporately responsible under these three pillars, to develop economically, but consider the environmental impacts, such as those to our finite resources, air pollution, climate change, land contamination etc, and the social and ethical impacts on local communities, employee rights, working conditions and so on.”
Cor Groenveld, Global Head of Food Supply Chain Services at LRQA, supported Madlen’s explanation by illustrating what sustainability means for organisations serving the food sector.
“For the last 10-15 years, the food supply chain had been extensively focused on food safety. This focus has brought us a harmonised global approach from manufacturers and retailers where a limited number of food safety standards are recognised and used for certification. We now see that the focus on sustainability is growing rapidly as well,” commented Groenveld.
“Alongside safe and quality products, consumers expect that products are underpinned with sustainability. As a result, retailers are translating these consumer wishes into requirements for the manufacturers who themselves are passing on this commitment to sustainability to their suppliers. Put simply, what we are seeing is a chain reaction similar to the one that drove food safety.”
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Philippa Weare, Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance, http://www.lrqa.com, +44 2476882386, [email protected]
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