Sustainable Food Laboratory

Cardiff UK, May 19 - Throughout Europe and North America national and local governments and the health sector are attempting to meet the challenges of sustainable public procurement. In the UK, contracting authorities face an especially difficult task in making social and environmental criteria consistent with the prevailing narrow interpretations of Best Value policy, a situation that is paralleled in many European countries.

Drawing on the practical experience of local authorities and national ministries in the UK and Italy and on the business experience of companies and organisations working on global supply chains, this seminar examined how to establish a new set of metrics for sustainable systems of public procurement. It brought together international experts, public bodies, representatives from NGO’s and business and other key stakeholders. It involved representatives from Rome and Carmarthenshire, as well as DEFRA, National Audit Office, IdeA, the Sustainable Development Commission and Office of Government Commerce, among others, to discuss a new development metrics that takes into account the sustainability of both food products and public food systems.

The workshop sessions identified what the key indicators are for sustainability within the public/institutional food system.

They examined examples of best practice with operators and practitioners identifying the factors that have been key to their success in developing recognised sustainable operating or monitoring/evaluation systems.

They investigated how these factors can be monitored to enable a) the sustainability of existing systems to be analysed and b) how change to more sustainable practices can be measured c) How the impact of changes can be measured and quantified (economic; social; environmental).

A key output of the workshops will be an action plan to arrive at the creation of a Sustainability Metric for public food systems in time for either trial or launch at the Global Sustainable Public Food conference in Rome in Autumn 2007.

Invitees:

ACADEMICS: Kevin Morgan, Roberta Sonnino, Steve Davies, Ken Peattie, Terry Marsden, Mara Miele, Tanja Bastia, Tara Garnett (Food Climate Research Network, University of Surrey)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT/HEALTH : Kevin Bishop (WLGA), Lee Digings (IDeA), Elin Cullen (Carmarthenshire), Mark James (Carmarthenshire), Paul Charkiw (WLGA), Silvana Sari (Rome), Paul Winter – South London and Maudsley Trust

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT: DEFRA, Sustainable Development Commission/Min Health, Welsh Assembly Government, Scottish Executive, OGC, Maria Brusleius Jensen (Denmark)

NGOs: Sustain, Soil Association, Clive Peckham (Alimenterra), Rose Bridger, Marine Stewardship Council

PRODUCERS: Bill Goldsworthy (Agrifood Partnership), Bob Kennard (Graig Farm), NFU , Riverside Organics, Lizzie Vann

BUSINESS: Responsible Commodity Initiative - Mark Eckstein Sustainable Finance and Jan Kees – Unilever, Brakes, Compass Director

FOUNDATIONS” Charles Leopold Mayer (Fr), King Baudouin (Belg)