Agri-supply businesses show strong early interest in Sustainability Training and Self-Assessment Framework
The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) is seeing strong early interest in its recently launched Sustainability services, with initial Member feedback highlighting its value to individual businesses and the wider agri-food supply chain.
In July AIC launched its new "Introduction to Sustainability for the Agri-Supply Industry" online training and Sustainability Self-Assessment Framework to help Member businesses better understand the sustainability credentials of their operations.
The Training is designed to provide a background to, and basic knowledge of, sustainability terminology and application within the agri-supply industry.
Taking action
The knowledge gained from the training module can be used in conjunction with the Framework, which has been designed to assist agri-supply businesses in the early stages of their sustainability journey, helping them to assess where they are and monitor progress as they develop actions to improve their sustainability credentials.
Click below to find out more and watch a recent webinar recording.
AIC's Head of Sustainability said: "We know that Members are acutely aware of the drive for sustainability within the agri-food supply chain and that they have a part to play in achieving this. There is a willingness to act but, for some businesses, it can be hard to know where to begin.
"This valuable new offering from AIC has been designed to assist agri-supply businesses in making sense of sustainability and support them as they take action to enhance their competitiveness in this area.
"By first completing AIC's introductory training to build a robust understanding of the fundamentals, and then utilising the Self-Assessment Framework, agri-supply businesses stand to gain a clearer view of their sustainability credentials and what they need to do to progress."
More details
The training and framework complement the commitments made in AIC's Roadmap for a Sustainable Food Chain and have been developed by AIC through its contacts, experiences and involvement in a diverse range of stakeholder forums.
In time, AIC hopes that uptake of the Framework will be sufficient to allow it to collate and share anonymised data with Member businesses to allow for insightful cross-sector and cross-industry benchmarking.
The training is a pre-requisite to completing the framework and will ensure a degree of consistency in understanding of sustainability within the agri-supply industry.
Visit AIC's Sustainability policy webpage for more information, including FAQs for the training and framework.
Authors
Oli Hill
As Head of Communications, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media. A qualified multimedia journalist, he previously spent six years working at Farmers Weekly magazine as a Senior Reporter on the arable team, and latterly as Community Editor. More recently he was Communications Manager at Red Tractor.
Vicky Robinson
Vicky Robinson is Head of Sustainability and is responsible for leading and co-ordinating AIC's work on sustainability.
Andrew Pearson
Sue Whittington
Sue is a Technical Manager for AIC Services. She is responsible for the Feed Adviser Register (FAR), the AIC Sustainability Programme and responsible sourcing and the Potato Cyst Nematode (PCN) Laboratory Proficiency Testing Programme.
