Who we are

Introduction

Who We Are

The European Sustainable Food Coalition (ESFC) is a pre-competitive collaboration. We are united in our commitment to catalyze a transformation towards a sustainable food system. We believe the key lies in equipping the grocery retail and food service industries with:
1. Scalable and reliable Food and Beverage (F&B) impact assessments and;
2. Effective consumer communication and engagement.

This enables these sectors to significantly enhance sustainability of their private label brand products and menu items, influence the sustainability practices of suppliers, and guide consumers towards healthier, more sustainable choices. Crucially, this empowers not just consumers and industries but more importantly also farmers by transparently showcasing their sustainability efforts and practices.

Mission

To achieve this, our mission is to ensure that the entire F&B value chain—from farmers and technology providers to grocery retailers and food service providers—collaboratively develops and aligns on a unified methodological framework for F&B impact assessment. This framework shall ensure the comparability and accuracy of results.

The Urgency of Our Mission

The Urgency of Our Mission

The Current Challenge

Our food system significantly contributes to global challenges, accounting for 34% of global GHG emissions, 70% of biodiversity loss on land, and having profound socio-economic and health impacts. Given the imperative of feeding 10 billion people a healthy diet within the constraints of planetary boundaries, urgent and collective actions are essential.

Vision

Vision

The ESFC aims to accelerate sustainable progress in the European F&B field by transcending competitive boundaries, uniting the entire value chain under a unified methodological framework for F&B impact assessment.

Objectives

Empowering Retailers and Industry

1. Empowering Retailers and Industry

We build on existing standards and where needed will support the development and establishment of aligned methodologies, develop methodologies and develop a methodology framework that facilitates large-scale F&B product impact assessments, starting with the data currently available to grocery retail and food service industries and taking into account ingredients, composition, and production processes. The methodology should support both impact reporting (e.g., CSRD, SBTI) as well as consumer communication and engagement.

Incentivize primary data collection

2. Incentivize primary data collection

Ensure that the methodologies prevent a falsely positive assessment of products not evaluated based on primary data and provide a strong incentive to encourage a transition towards the use of primary data across all life-cycle-stages.

Methodological Alignment and Harmonization of Impact Assessment Solutions

3. Methodological Alignment and Harmonization of Impact Assessment Solutions

Support or create and implement an open and unified approach for impact assessment, encompassing both ingredient and product levels. This will ensure that various impact assessment solutions transition to methodologies that guarantee more consistent and more comparable results across different levels, while allowing to develop and include innovations.

European F&B Impact Certification Scheme

4. European F&B Impact Certification Scheme

Support the development of, or directly develop, a European F&B Impact Certification Scheme that aligns with the EU Parliament Directive on Consumer Empowerment for the Green Transition and the upcoming Green Claims Directive.

Regulatory Alignment and Cooperation

5. Regulatory Alignment and Cooperation

Work closely with European institutions to ensure adherence to current and upcoming regulations, while proactively advocating for the implementation of the coalition's principles and objectives in practical regulatory frameworks. Additionally we aim to collaborate with initiatives pursuing similar goals to ensure coherence in objectives and joint efforts.

Enhancing Farmer Rewards for Sustainable Practices

6. Enhancing Farmer Rewards for Sustainable Practices

Establish a foundation that enables farmers to receive financial incentives for adopting more sustainable agricultural practices. This objective focuses on developing a system that transparently communicates the benefits of such practices through the supply chain down to the consumer. By doing so, we aim to not only reward farmers for their contributions to sustainability but also to inform and engage consumers about the positive impact of their purchases on farming practices, thereby fostering a more sustainable food system from farm to fork.