The holy grail: Upstream & downstream traceability

Through our Advisory work, we collaborate with businesses to refine their strategies, provide focus on material issues, and have compelling customer conversations about the sustainable use of products and services.

Traceability is the holy grail; it is the unlock that will get money flowing in the right direction.

You need upstream traceability for compliance, especially the UK Forest Risk Commodity Regulation (UKFRC) and the EU Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR), but most of you will struggle to get it right. Most will focus on material level transparency.

You also need downstream traceability for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the wider EU Waste Framework Directive and the Packaging Waste Directive, but most of you will not have visibility beyond the shelf.

The real value comes with product level traceability with downstream geolocation data, supported by volume and spend data and tracking technology for upstream insights. But that level of traceability will open pandora’s box, exposing all the environmental and social issues along the value chain.

You gotta bite the bullet. Here is why…

The real reason to push for this level of traceability is not compliance, it is for adaptation and risk mitigation. Without traceability you will not see the opportunity in the risk and will not be able to future proof the nature of your business or your sector.

Most of you might know that I am a traceability geek, been working on it for years, deep in value chains, deep in technology and data to unlock insights. I also pay close attention to food value chain because food security keeps me awake at night.

Following the World Food Price Index gives the big picture, but I want to hear from the farmers, so I read Fresh Plaza religiously and the headlines are not pretty.

• Türkiye is facing escalating challenges from droughts, floods, and fires.
• In Hungary, late spring frosts have led to the worst apricot harvest in history.
• In Murcia, Spain hailstorms have caused €80 million in crop losses.
• Heavy winds and rains have impacted banana crops in Kadapa, India.
• In Morocco, overproduction and climate change have caused the citrus cultivation area to shrink by 29% to 91,342 hectares with production declining to 1.5 million tons.

Going back to seeing opportunities within the risks.

Climate change is impacting the global food system. Crops do not grow where they used to in the quality and volumes required to maintain balance across the Public Sector, Financial Services, Consumer Goods, Retail, NGOs, Pharma/Healthcare sectors.

This is one of many issues driving deforestation, food producers extending their operational footprint to make up for supply and demand issues. Projecting future earth and human systems to manage the tensions between viable soil, air quality, water availability, localised weather, biodiversity, climate migration (human and other species) with our geopolitical tensions, policy development, inflation, logistical constraints, etc. needs to happen. This is where food systems links to water and biodiversity and the strategic links across adaptation and mitigation come into play.

Many believe, me included, that it will be a combination of innovation and regenerative agriculture that will rebuild biodiversity, aquifers, and water quality, mitigate previous land use change, and prevent future deforestation. Technology and farming practices will enable our collective systems to achieve nutritional requirements for a growing population amidst climate change.

The BIG opportunity is to drive food systems change.

There is a clear gap that can only be filled with product level traceability. We need to pull disparate data sets together for industry level strategies to understand how climate change will impact food systems and the organisations across sectors, which are accountable for reimagining them. This cross-sector industry level planning will enable systems change through the cross-cutting topics, forcing industries to address the gravity of the situation.