Farming and Climate Change Measuring Success

well good afternoon everyone i’m david

potts the chief executive

of morrisons i’m very pleased to have

been asked by the sustainable food trust

to give a view from the retailer’s

perspective

retailer is of course the sharp end it’s

where millions of customers each week

give their feedback

and exert enormous influence on the

british food

industry they do this by deciding

how and where and when to spend

their hard-earned cash plans policies

and products made in boardrooms

select committees farms and factories

across the uk

get voted on every day and in every

store

and as mike tyson said everyone has a

plan

until they get punched in the mouth

morrison’s has around 500 supermarkets

in britain

we’ve a large and growing online

business and we’re a wholesaler too

as britain’s biggest food maker we have

a different relationship with british

food

and british farming than other than

other retailers

we have 20 food manufacturing sites

across the country

from abattoirs fruit and vegetable

packing

to fish flowers bread and eggs

in other words we don’t just sell food

we make it too

in addition we’re british farming’s

biggest

single supermarket customer

and we feel that responsibility the

responsibility of shaping a sustainable

relationship

between farmer retailer and customers

retailers often talk about choice and

for a supermarket customer

choice often means the balance between

price

and quality or price and provenance

or price and healthier ingredients

or price and many other factors but

price is always there

and we must never forget that and for

some time now there have been

other choices that customers have been

able to make too

for example organic free range corn fed

or reduced salt sugar and fat

these all enable customers to choose

very precisely

their own balance in almost every

product and meal occasion

and more recently there have been other

initiatives which give customers

a more explicit choice too such as are

for farmers range where for example

customers can choose to pay tempe a

litre more for their milk

with the knowledge that all of that

tempe goes directly

to the farmers and we’ve been seeing for

quite a while now a surge of interest in

sustainability choices

but customers are saying to us they’re

not equipped to make an informed choice

on some sustainability issues and that’s

not a surprise

there is often a great deal more heat

and light

in this particular area

there is no simple traffic light system

for sustainability

credentials is red tractor enough

what does leaf mean how much carbon was

produced in bringing me

these spuds and is that a lot or is it

a little and that made morrisons think

about the wider picture

if you buy an electric car for example

you don’t have to be an expert on

emissions

the car is electric zero emissions tick

what is the equivalent for retailers and

sustainable farming

and when we thought about that we

decided that if we could say

that we’d only be supplied by net zero

carbon farms

that would take away the uncertainty

take away the ambiguity

and this lies behind our announcement in

march this year

which we called our net zero agriculture

plan

this is a pledge that will be completely

supplied

by net zero carbon british farms

by twenty thirty to achieve it we’ll

work with three thousand farmers

and growers to produce affordable net

zero

carbon meat fruit vegetables

and eggs and when it’s done

and it will be done we can look our

customers in the eye

and say that morrison’s farming supply

chain has

net zero carbon emissions

and whilst we’re doing it we’re going to

ask customers to come with us

on that journey and we’re not laying

down the law from our head offices

it’s a collaboration and the partnership

we want all the farmers we work directly

with to build their own paths

to net zero farming but with our

encouragement

support and where it’s needed guidance

and investment too

all within a broader set of principles

which include good

animal welfare and champion biodiversity

as an integral part of offsetting those

emissions

this shouldn’t be an exclusive club but

one which every farmer and therefore

every customer is able to access

our net zero agriculture pledge

is a testing and ambitious goal

and you know it’s years ahead of

industry expectations too

but we’re confident i’m confident that

we can

achieve it as i said we take the

responsibility of our scale and weight

in british farming very seriously

and showing leadership and ambition in

this area

is an important part of that but saying

it

is the easy bit we now have little more

than nine years

to achieve it some of it will be

achieved

much sooner for example we believe

we can get to zero carbon eggs in 2022

and for the most difficult areas

especially beef farming

with some very detailed plans in place

and have already identified

some of the key trial farms where the

plans

are to be first tested we’ve also built

a

good coalition around the initiative

with some outstanding partners

and the response we’ve had from the

farming community has been very positive

we started to talk and listen to

customers too

their input their views their

understanding of what we’re trying to do

and why for us as a listening

organization this is a key part

of any successful plan

and in this context as a retailer with

an important

ambitious and challenging target a more

strategic approach

such as the global farming metric which

can be championed by diverse companies

from banks to retailers makes a great

deal

of sense understanding how

data can quickly and objectively be

gathered

how technology helps translate that data

into sustainable outcomes that customers

really want to see can only be another

step forward thank you