Cognitive dissonance in the Australian Food Industry

At the end of March this year, I attended the Global Food Forum hosted by The Australian in Sydney. The program was opened by Anthony Pratt, Executive Chairman of the Pratt Foundation, who set the tone of sustainability for the day.

Sunny Verghese, Co-founder and Group CEO of Olam International followed, and he blew the minds of the attendees with his ability to speak so eloquently, rattling off statistic after statistic, without requiring a single note. He spoke of the planetary boundaries, those that have been breached, and those rapidly encroached upon, and what risk this poses to food producers globally. From here he segued into the eight intelligences outlined by the Harvard Business School and posed the question, “How do you take someone on the journey of environmental intelligence, when they don’t have any?” Perhaps he was referencing many of his audience…

In the next financial year, Olam will spend $34million on sustainability. Because his business depends upon it. And while it is more difficult to measure and report on social and natural capital, in Mr Verghese’s words, there is no point being obsessed on measuring economic value when financial capital comprises less than 15% of a company’s value.

The tone of the day was set. Every speaker that took to the stage talked about sustainability. So why then, are so few agricultural and food companies comprehensively addressing a sustainability strategy?

I asked Maggie Beer this question in the final panel session of the day. She hesitated before responding, and after consideration responded that she thought she did have a sustainable business, but on thinking about it, her business could do more. A heck of a lot more actually – neither her company’s website, nor the website of the majority shareholder, Longtable, address sustainability.

In fact, the vast majority of companies represented at the Global Food Forum do not address sustainability in a strategic manner. And yet sustainability issues, climate change, water, life above land, life below water, equality, affordable energy, living wages and modern slavery all have direct impacts on the food industry. Many leaders of the Australian food industry talk about sustainability, but few directly and strategically address it. The Australian food industry is in a state of cognitive dissonance.