A regular blog about (un) sustainable business. A focus on practical stuff, not blue sky pretentious waffle. Around 6000 regular readers, surprisingly.
I’ve posted links and quotes from the excellent Chain Reaction Research newsletter before. Here’s a few choice gems from their post recent missive, looking at a subject not covered that often by anyone: China and palm oil. I’m reproducing quotes from their recent note, below. Sign up for their insights at: http://www.chainreactionresearch.com (China aside, they…
We’ve shifted over to our new website at Innovation Forum. It’s much easier to find your way around now. Check it out here. Now, you can browse and listen/read by a number of categories. For example: If you want to delve into some business innovation analysis, go here. But if its brand and other expert…
Last year we held a conference called “How business can tackle plastic pollution”. It was very popular, in the end. Some attendees objected to the title, which was deliberately provocative. I had to point out to them, that when we originally launched the event, it was called “Why plastics are essential, and how to make…
Here’s our take on the latest in and around Soy sustainability. Proud to work with colleagues Ian Welsh and Tom Idle on this piece, although I must say I had little to do with it, other than suggesting we go more in-depth than the usual 500 words. Tom and Ian have delivered some excellent analysis…
I haven’t posted on here for a while. We’ve been busy publishing on the main Innovation Forum site, which has hugely increased traffic in the last few months. We think this is due to our audio content, which is proving extremely popular, we think because a) its pretty good and b) its a flexible format…
It’s not often I sit down to write a post that could well annoy almost everyone I know. This is one of those. But it’s a risk worth taking. Someone needs to say, I think, what I am going to say here. Scott Poynton blogged about this area recently, and I had the same conversation…
Chris Meyer from the Environmental Defense Fund has put together an insightful blog post on the above topic, which is particularly timely, given this week is the TFA 2020 AGM in Accra, Ghana, where I am moderating a panel session on scaling up zero deforestation initiates, with speakers from Golden Agri Resources and Mondelez. I’ve…
For the last two years, we at Innovation Forum have held conferences on this above topic in Washington D.C. Firstly with the Pew Centre and in 2018 with the Nature Conservancy, at their offices in Arlington. Thank you for the support to both organisations. Here’s some of the anonymised notes from the conference. A couple…
As you might know, we love a good old podcast at Innovation Forum. We find they get a lot more interest and listens/downloads than text articles, perhaps because they are convenient, and human-centered. So here’s quite a few we’ve taped recently, with executives from leading companies and other experts, on a whole host of sustainability…
Duncan Pollard, in a follow up post to this earlier one, reflects on corporate no-deforestation commitments below: “It would be a brave company to abandon its no deforestation commitment any time soon. But maybe we are inching our way there. There were some persuasive arguments made by Chris Wille on Toby Webb’s blog recently, and…
I’m not a corporate sustainability director, or any kind of corporate executive. But I know quite a few people who are. So I was thinking recently about re-framing what we do at Innovation Forum around the most difficult questions those hard-pressed and under-paid executives who are our customers face every day. Whilst I’m not sure…
Just a quick note on the upcoming Innovation Forum: Sustainable apparel: How brands can transform supply chains (24th-25th April 2018,Amsterdam). Through focused discussion, this two-day conference, our third annual event on this topic, will address the most pressing issues in the apparel industry. It will equip delegates with the best-practice and know-how relating to the biggest…
While investors recognise the risks in the palm oil sector, there are some key things they can do to engage with the industry more effectively. Toby Webb meets with Abigail Herron, global head of responsible investment at Aviva Investors, and Clara Melot, SPOTT engagement and impacts manager at ZSL, to discuss how palm oil is…
The coverage of the Trump administration’s roll-back, or attempted roll-back, of social and environmental regulations is well documented. But are there some benefits to his election? It could be that I’m looking for a silver lining here, and I liked the idea of a bit of a clickbait headline. But also I think there is some…
Here’s an exclusive Q&A with Kiki Taufik, head of the Indonesia Forest campaign, Greenpeace. Well worth a few minutes to read. As you may know, Greenpeace has played a key role in raising awareness of the challenges faced in saving Indonesia’s remaining forests and peatlands. Whilst not all company executives might agree with their methods,…
I'm Toby Webb, founder of Innovation Forum, a sustainability focused research, publishing and events business. I've also been a lecturer on Corporate Responsibility at Kings College London and at Birkbeck, University of London for eight years. I work with large companies all over the world and sit on the sustainability advisory board for Walgreens Boots Alliance. From 2006-9 I lead the development of UK CSR policy, resulting in the Responsibility Deals framework. I can be contacted at Tobias DOT Webb AT innovation-forum.co.uk
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