I finally did it. I cooked from the cookbook of the Vrolijkheid and Ahold. All these lovely recipes just ask to be cooked. The Vrolijkheid forever making sure something nice happens in the lifes of asylum kids. We try to support them. So we produced a cookbook together. And I cooked. Tibetan soup and Israeli salad. And it tasted good!

Albert Heijn for Africa: no charity!

Yesterday we had the board meeting of the Albert Heijn Foundation. It was great to hear about all those good things that are happening throught the cooperation of Albert Heijn, ICCO, FairMatch Support and our suppliers in Africa. Just being a retailer that wants to create long term relationships with suppliers to ensure future volume, quality and reasonable price. Therefore AH is investing into community projects through the foundation: water systems, learning centers, HIV/Aids programs etc. etc. No charity, no way. Just good business sense and coop at its best!

Walmart Sustainability Consortium: good slow start - reprise

The end of last month I went to Washington DC to participate in a meeting of the Walmart Sustainability Consortium. Walmart started some time ago asking its suppliers to fill a scorecard on packaging. The feedback from some major suppliers was that they thought Walmart should organize a joint effort with other retailers to start asking for that kind of info, otherwise they would end up with an organization full of Chief Questionnaire executives. And so Walmart did. Together with the University of Arkansas (watch the pronounciation... , something like "arkensow"...) and Arizona they developed the Sustainability Consortium, a joint effort of retailers, manufacturers and civil society, to create a common standard for the footprint of a product related to environmental and social issues. I think that was a great thing to do. Of course we spent way too much time on bureaucracy during the meeting, I guess that is the norm these days...

Anyway, good slow start, promising for the future!

Anuga: nice to meat!

Have I ever seen so much meat in one place. Bratwurst all over the place, steaks, lambchops, chicken wings, porky tails. Ich bin ein Berliner in the literal sense of the sentence. It does not look like the food industry gathered at the Anuga, one of the big food exhibitions in the world of the food industry, has a clue about global warming and what that has to do with the consumption of meat. With some effort I found two exhibitors of 'non-meat meat'. Way to go baby!

Red Hat

Red neck, red hat? Yesterday evening we had a great debate in "De Rode Hoed", a famous used to be church, now used as a debating center on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Prof. Van der Ploeg talked about the terrible empires of food in the world, including us, basically trashing the farmers by controlling the full supply chain. And of course we objected. It is all very nice to say that we make enormous profits by exploiting farmers, but we still only make 4 cents on every Euro that we sell. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg's favorite model is, as he calls it, farmers agriculture. That is not a contradictio in termino, no, it just means that he talks about smaller farmers diversifying into businesses that make money. And that we applaud. For the rest, we are just a retailer making sure it is operating in a fair way with its suppliers and by buying and selling we make some money.

http://www.ontwikkelingssamenwerking.nu/: missed faces?

On Saturday we had the big dag of Bert Koenders, minister of development cooperation in Holland. A big day because we were talking and debating about how to move on with development cooperation related to the MDGs. MDGs? The Millinium Development Goals as they are established within the United Nations. One of them, # 8, is all about sustainable trade amongst other things. Lots of talk about the influence of businesses in developing economies. But apart from the usual suspects on stage, like Peter Bakker from TNT, it was a day of missed changes. Where were all those innovative initiatives from a business perspective, where were the people taking charge in the countries that we talked about? Again it was a party of 'ons kent ons' (incrowd party) and not of 'ons willen die ander kennen' (meeting the other side of development cooperation). The Dutchies told themselves how good they were doing, did we ask Kofi how it works out on the ground?

https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/Pages/HomePage.aspx

The Carbon Disclosure Project has been out there for quite some time now. It tries to capture carbon emissions of all the major business in the world. Ahold for the first time this year disclosed via the Project and we are glad we did. The Project is the best recognized attempt to cover emissions and the developments. Used by investors to see if companies actually recognize the risks and opportunities that come with climate challenges.

In CDP language:
Consumer Staples Royal Ahold AQ IN 45 69 2,474,427 1,150,964 1,323,463