Reducing food waste is an important environmental, economic, and social priority across the food system. Addressing this challenge requires coordinated action across the food value chain and collaboration among the organizations that influence food sector practices.
Because food waste and broader sustainability challenges are shaped by interconnected decisions across the value chain, industry associations, representing different parts of the food system, have an important role to play in strengthening alignment and enabling more coordinated action.
To explore this opportunity, the City of Vancouver initiated a pilot project to engage food sector associations in a structured sustainability assessment and peer-learning process, using the Canadian Standards Association (CSA Group) ESG Guidance for Associations (CSA SPE #116) – a benchmark tool used by many associations across Canada.
Advancing Sustainability in the Food Value Chain summarizes the results of the pilot and presents 20 recommendations for industry associations, municipalities, and other stakeholders to strengthen collaboration and advance sustainability across the food value chain.
The Top Takeaways of Advancing Sustainability in the Food Value Chain, include:
Association-Level Insights
- Participating associations are advancing on sustainability and demonstrating leading practices. They found the CSA SPE #116 tool valuable for identifying gaps, structuring efforts, and strengthening their approach. Assessment scores ranged from 20% to 54%, with four associations achieving a pre-bronze level and one achieving a silver level.
- The food value chain is fragmented, with limited mechanisms connecting actors across the system. Value chain collaboration helps associations understand upstream and downstream expectations, shared sustainability pressures, and opportunities for alignment.
- Associations vary significantly in sustainability capacity due to differences in staff resources, organizational priorities, and ESG maturity. External support and convening can play an important role in enabling participation and progress.
- Tailored tools such as SPE #116 provide a common platform for associations to assess, learn, and advance collectively.
System-Level Insights
- Sustainability expectations from retailers, financial institutions, regulators, and major buyers are expected to increasingly influence processors, suppliers, and growers throughout the food value chain.
- Sustainability standards, benchmarking frameworks, and credible verification are becoming increasingly important for demonstrating performance and meeting stakeholder expectations.
- Economic and geopolitical pressures can affect organizations’ ability to prioritize sustainability initiatives.
- Positioning sustainability in terms of economic resilience, local sourcing, risk management, and supply chain security may increase its relevance and uptake.
- Shared climate and supply chain risks create opportunities for associations to collaborate in understanding and addressing common challenges.
- Greater coordination and information sharing across the value chain could help address system-wide issues, such as food waste, that no single organization can solve alone.
