The collaboration with our farmers is essential to us. We do not put all the weight and responsibility on the shoulders of our suppliers. Instead, we work together to find better solutions to meet the challenges of our times.
After a long pause during the COVID 19, we were able to organise key events during which we could deliver our key Sustainability “messages” to our customers and suppliers across our supply chain.
November 2023, Birmingham “Sustainability Conference”
The first conference was held in November 2023 in Birmingham. The guests and speakers were suppliers and customers from the UK and Ireland (approximately 45 participants). The objective of the conference was to share best practice in emissions reduction, particularly focussed on scope 3 and to communicate the results of our supplier benchmark and supplier expectations for the future.
April 2024, Munich “Protein Conference”
Six months later, a large-scale global protein conference was hosted in Munich, which attracted approximately 160 commercial and sustainability representatives from suppliers and key customers. The main message was to highlight both our and our customers plans and expectations for sustainable production, sharing key learnings and industry leading practices to achieve our aligned goals. OSI also emphasized that the primary goal of our strategy is to reduce emissions, especially within scope 3 that includes emissions from raw materials coming from agriculture.
When OSI started to introduce the Cultivate Standard in Poland we found there was a big gap in knowledge sharing about sustainable agriculture.
A large number of small family farms are a key part of our supply chain. In an effort to support them, OSI decided to join the initiative of the Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Food in Poland around development of the e-learning platform “Sustainable Agriculture Academy”.
The source of knowledge was the FSA standard from SAI Platform. As this was covering plant production, OSI created a part related to animal production based on ERBS targets and guidelines with the support of scientists from two Polish environmental and life sciences universities (Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences & The University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn).
In addition to supporting farmers with implementation of best practices we help with knowledge transfer about topics such as antibiotic use, sustainable animal feed, and save working conditions.
For the future, we plan to promote the Academy to increase its range and number of users across our supply chain.
The study aims to capture the challenges faced by Austrian farmers and to derive necessary framework conditions as well as necessary changes for farmers to remain in the cattle fattening sector. 150 farmers will be surveyed regarding current challenges, investment plans, and sustainability (social aspects and emissions). The survey also includes industry stakeholder interviews. The results of the surveys and interviews will be analyzed by OSI and other members of the project, to distill key take-aways and learnings and develop action plans based on the results.
We truly believe that acting as a responsible business – one which is fully committed to ensure that our sustainability priorities are taken into action- will contribute to lasting economic success. We need to actively address the challenges facing our industry and the world in which we live.
Our Commitments
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