Driving An Inclusive ESG Actions in South-East Asia Through ESG NXT 2022

10/26/2022 | Comment

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) related risks have become prevalent risks worldwide and in the Asia-Pacific region. It is crucial that businesses learn to navigate and thrive within these changing landscapes and integrate and include ESG considerations into strategy formulation and business operations.

The ESG risk landscape is constantly evolving with financial institutions and regulators stepping up their ambitions into more sustainable financing and operating practices, making efforts to integrate environmental and social considerations into their governance and business strategy, operations, and risk management.

The ESG NXT 2022 conference, a joint event of BCSD Malaysia and Knowledge Group of Companies, provides valuable insights on businesses’ actions needed to accelerate the system transformations necessary for a net-zero, nature-positive, and more equitable future. The conference features prominent international and local thought leaders and experts to talk about an inclusive theme, “Making ESG Actionable For All”. It aims to foster meaningful discussions that provide a multi-dimensional perspective on sustainability’s critical issues and “how-to” solutions. This conference has been skillfully designed around 4 tracks covering:

Built Environment, Transport, and Mobility
Energy and Decarbonization
Food, Agriculture, Health and Wellbeing
Products and Materials

These tracks have been strategically chosen as they encapsulate the critical areas where systems transformation is most needed and ESG ambitions and metrics need to be adequately set.

Operating in the same region, IBCSD was given the opportunity to share the ESG landscape in Indonesia and how IBCSD’s programs can support the businesses to take one step at a time on their net-zero emission and nature-positive journey. On the first day, Indah Budiani, Executive Director of IBCSD, shared how businesses define their pathways of decarbonization strategy with collective commitment and actions through the Net-Zero Hub. The Net-Zero Hub is a platform jointly developed by IBCSD with Indonesia Chamber of Commerce (KADIN) to help businesses to achieve science-based targets on net-zero emission.

In the Food, Agriculture, Health and Wellbeing track, Bryan Citrasena, Project Manager of IBCSD, talked about the importance of addressing food loss and waste (FLW) for food and agriculture sector businesses to reduce their impact on nature and benefit socio-economic development. Tackling FLW has been underlined in the SDG 12.3 goal with a specific reduction target of 50% by 2030. The IBCSD program, namely GRASP2030, collects businesses and other supporting stakeholders in the food value chain to make food consumption and production more sustainable by reducing FLW in Indonesia. In the same forum, Tan Hong Tat, Head of Sustainability at AEON Malaysia, also shared AEON’s practices in tackling FLW and how they influence customers to have more awareness about food waste.

The conference took two consecutive days in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. With more than 60 competent speakers, a series of presentations, talkshows and discussions was conveyed in this two-days conference, talking on how businesses need to move on from business as usual mindset to more proactive stance against climate emergency.

Addressing Regional Food Loss & Waste Issue, GRASP2030 Promoted Multi-stakeholder Collaboration

10/26/2022 | Comment

The world’s food demand in 2050 will increase by 50-100% in line with the increase in population which is estimated to reach 9.7 billion. Based on census data, Indonesia’s population in 2020 reached 270.2 million, an increase of 32.56 million compared to the 2010 data. The increasing need for food to offset the population growth has problems due to the high issue of Food Loss and Waste. One-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted during the harvest and consumption processes, known as food loss and waste (FLW).

In line with the Indonesian Presidency at the G20, the Ministry of Agriculture through the Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) has an agenda to support the Sustainable Development Goals, especially the 12.3 target, a 50% reduction of FLW at the retail and consumer levels, as well as reducing FLW in the food production chain.

The Technical Workshop on Food Loss and Waste is a series of MACS agendas organized by the Agricultural Research and Development Agency (Balitbangtan) of the Ministry of Agriculture, in this case the Agricultural Postharvest Research and Development Center (BB Pascapanen) in collaboration with the Thϋnen Institute, Germany. The activity took place for two days from 5-6 October 2022 at the Grand Kheisa Hotel, Yogyakarta Special Region.

Carrying the theme ‘What Reduction on Food Loss and Waste can and must be contributed to Sustainable Intensification’, this workshop aims to obtain the latest information related to FLW reduction innovations in the ASEAN region, determine relevant FLW measurement methods, and determine appropriate policies to be jointly implemented regionally.

IBCSD was given an opportunity to introduce GRASP2030 as a collaboration platform between private sectors and other supporting actors to work together in tackling food loss and waste on the first day of the workshop. The Executive Director of IBCSD, Indah Budiani, said that GRASP2030 would support the government and contribute to FLW reduction action in Indonesia.

Other competent speakers also presented valuable information of FLW interventions in ASEAN and global during the plenary session. The line of speakers namely Carola Fabi (FAO), Dr. Kohei Watanabe (Teikyo University), Prof. Dr. S. Joni Munarso (Association of Indonesian Postharvest Technology Experts), Prof. Dr. Handewi Salim (Indonesian Research Association), Kuntum Melati, MA, MSc (Stockholm Environment Institute Asia), and Young Run Hur (UNEP). After the plenary presentation, the participants were divided into 4 groups to brainstorm on what needs to be done and what are the challenges in reducing food loss and waste in the region.

On the second day, speakers, delegates, and participants visited a maggot farm operated by PT Maggoprotein Alam Indonesia as one of the practical solutions to reduce food waste in the Yogyakarta region. After that, the group was brought to visit Salak (snake fruit) plantation, Foodbank of Indonesia, and Batik craft center. The workshop was closed with dinner and Ramayana ballet show at Prambanan temple.

The Food Loss and Waste Technical Workshop was attended by 9 ASEAN countries consisting of policy makers, ministries/institutions, universities, practitioners, companies and related associations. (Bryan)

Businesses and Organizations to Reduce Food Loss and Waste

09/21/2022 | Comment

Jakarta – GRASP2030 (Gotong Royong to Overcome Food Waste Loss 2030), a pioneer of the voluntary intervention to reduce food waste from upstream to downstream initiated by the Indonesia Business Council for Sustainable Development (IBCSD), celebrates its first anniversary on September 8, 2022 by holding a hybrid seminar GRASP2030 Anniversary “One-Year Collaboration Journey to Reduce Food Loss and Waste.

The celebration of this year’s journey became even more meaningful as it was attended by the Director of Food and Nutrition Awareness of BAPANAS Nita Yulianis, the Environmental Impact Control Team of the Directorate of Waste Management at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Windi Andriani, Managing Director of WRAP Asia-Pacific Claire Kneller, P4G Director of Partnerships Robyn McGuckin, President of IBCSD Shinta Kamdani, GRASP2030 Steering Group Cogito Ergo S. R and Head of Communication and Sustainability Sintesa Group, Inka Prawirasasra and members of GRASP2030, companies, organizations and agencies.

Since its launch in 2021, GRASP2030 has committed to uniting all business players and partners supporting the food system chain in Indonesia to take concrete actions to halve food loss and waste (FLW) by 2030 such as Goal 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (TPB/SDGs) and Goals. 2 Reduces Hunger Problems. Stakeholders’ concern for FLW has been proven within a year, GRASP2030 has collaborated with more than 20 members from the food and beverage industry, hotels, start-ups, think tanks, food donation organizations and retail.

“In the past year IBCSD has tried to facilitate this through GRASP 2030 by increasing the capacity of the private sector in managing and reducing food waste with the Target-Measure-Act approach which is carried out in working group activities and other activities,” said IBCSD President, Shinta W. Kamdani in opening the event.

“I hope this celebration of the achievements in the first year can be a motivation for GRASP2030 to be on-track and continue to grow in achieving our goals together with our goal of halving food loss and food waste to be achieved in 2030,” explained Shinta.

GRASP2030 Strengthen Business Commitment and Partners to Reduce Food Loss and Waste

Talking about waste and food waste, according to FAO, this causes trillions of dollars in losses to industry and accounts for 8-10% of global emissions that can accelerate climate change. It is known from The Economist Intelligence Unit, Indonesia is the second largest food waste contributor in the world. This statement is supported by the results of the BAPPENAS FLW Study over the past decade, which shows at least 115-184 kg of food waste generation per capita per year. The sad thing is that the Global Hunger Index states that Indonesia is still at the level of serious hunger. This means that there is an imbalance between food produced, consumed, distributed and wasted. Seeing this phenomenon, the strategy for handling food loss and waste will require several actors from various sectors to take joint action.

“Data is the new gold. What we do is meaningless without measurement and reporting. So that by 2030, there will be reports that Indonesia must have reduced food waste,” said Cogito Ergo S. R., GRASP2030 Steering Group and General Manager of FoodCycle Indonesia. “Of course we still need further collaborations. We invite signatories to be able to invite their network to join GRASP2030.”

Cogito added that GRASP2030 continues to support the Government’s Priority Program in the RPJMN to increase the availability, access and quality of food consumption and Low Carbon development by forming two working groups, namely Measurement-Reporting and Food Donation. The movement has also launched a website that can be used as a reference for sharing the latest news and best practices about reducing FLW. Not only that, GRASP2030 actively engages in dialogue with the relevant government and seeks to build public awareness to be wiser in consuming food through a Social Media Campaign titled #Consumindful. Sintesa Peninsula Hotel Palembang, as a member, applies a financial model for FLW by utilizing the “Food Waste Tracker” technology from Leanpath.

Several other important points presented in this webinar were that the National Food Agency collaborated with a member of GRASP2030, Surplus Indonesia, with Sarinah and HIPPINDO in initiating the Sarinah Free Food Waste program, which is a public-private collaboration in supporting the reduction of FLW.

In the discussion, KLHK explained that food waste data is the largest of Indonesia’s total waste and the public also needs to be given an understanding of household waste segregation and scheduled or sorted collection. Currently, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry is conducting capacity building for local governments to the sub-district level to ensure that the mechanism for collecting and preparing facilities is ready to support the movement. Welcoming the G20, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry collaborated with the Bali Government to implement a separate waste collection system.

Now the urge to take action against food loss and waste has become the concern of many parties. Through GRASP2030, it is hoped that more businesses and supply chain partners will care and take action to achieve the goal of halving food loss and waste by 2030.