Growing awareness

Throughout ten years of reporting on matters relating to sustainability we have had contact with many stakeholders and opinion leaders. Our first report, at the beginning of the decade, made Nutreco a pioneer in our market sector and our reporting activities helped raise the profile of sustainability and its relevance to our industry. Since then sustainability reporting has become commonplace and is widely expected; we now see regular reporting from suppliers, customers and competitors. This is in response to increasing concern in society and among investors that all businesses should implement measures to improve their sustainability. For example, the Top of Mind survey of CIES ‘The Food Business Forum’ published in February 2009 shows corporate responsibility at number three in the list of 12 topics, with food safety at number two.

Because of the nature of our activities, in the feed-to-food value chains, we face increasing sustainability challenges with the need to feed the growing world population. This prompted the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) to prepare its first sustainability report, during 2009, when it identified sustainability of feed resources, climate change and energy use, and feed safety as the key topics.

The trend to greater attention to sustainability is highlighted by the existence of sustainable investor groups and stock market sustainability indexes. The Association of Investors for Sustainable Development, VBDO, in the Netherlands, observed that the focus of sustainability has shifted from reputation and risk management towards value creation as part of a company’s values and vision.

It is for these reasons that in 2009 the Nutreco Executive Board decided that fully embedding sustainability in the Nutreco business model was the right strategic choice.

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