In late January 2008, the Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management held a conference on waste management and climate change. The presentations are now available on their website here.

This conference was held in early 2008 by the Home Grown Cereals Authority. The presentations from that day cover the potential impacts climate change will have on UK agriculture, how growers can adapt and the opportunities that may be presented. You can download the presentations here.

In December 2007 the Institute for Public Policy Research held a seminar on food policy. The seminar was intended to provide in put to the IPPR’s ongoing research on food policy and considered the following questions:

• Do we need a more joined up food policy? If not why not – for example this would remove the risk of industry capturing regulators, but given the levels of European legislation and actions does this remain a valid argument?
• Should we at least recognise areas where policy can come together, moving from either or policy situations and disconnections? Could this work in practice?
• What is the role of public policy? What are the processes and outcomes it hopes to achieve? What is the relationship between the state, the market and the individual and what should they be?
• Can we balance social, environmental and economic concerns? Can we balance domestic and international practicalities and responsibilities?

Notes and presentations from the seminar can be read here. Scroll down to where you see "Click here for a summary of the seminar and discussion content".

On 29-30 November 2007, Defra and the Italian Embassy held a bilateral workshop on sustainability in the food chain with a view to promoting cooperation on the issue between the two countries. The presentations from the event are available for download here.

RESOLVE Seminar, December 2007

Tim Kasser, Associate Professor of Pyschology, Knox College, Illinois, US, gave a fascinating presentation on materialistic values and its relationship with personal wellbeing and other qualities. He argued that people living in contemporary Western societies, and increasingly the rest of the world, are frequently exposed to messages and institutions that encourage materialistic values. Advertisements, business practices, and governmental policies often suggest that a meaningful, happy life is best obtained through the pursuit of financial wealth and consumption.

You can listen to this presentation and to the questions that followed by going to the Events section of the Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Network website. You need to register to join, but it’s free.

The general view to emerge was that a general ban on air freighted organic products would NOT be appropriate, because of the effect on producers in developing countries. Wthin this general consensus there were several different perspectives:

• The SA should find a compromising that reconciles the environmental damage from air freight with the benefits from international development
• The SA should look at carbon more generally; a focus on air freight is too specific
• The air freight issue is something for other organisations to address.

You can download the presentations and summary notes of the day here.

Soil Association makes decision on air freight

On 25 Oct 2007 the Soil Association’s Standards Board announced proposed changes to the Soil Association’s standards to ensure that organic food is only air freighted to the UK if it delivers genuine benefits for farmers in developing countries.

In future, air freighted organic food will have to meet the Soil Association’s own Ethical Trade standards or the Fairtrade Foundation’s standards. The new air freight standards will also require our licensees to develop plans for reducing any remaining dependence on air freight. The details of the proposal will be open to further consultation during 2008, and will begin to take effect from January 2009.

Read the press release here.

Some of the papers presented focus on food. Papers and abstracts can be viewed here.

Lots of the presentations are interesting but from a climate change perspective you might be interested in the following:

• Mikkel Hansen, Maersk Line – on sea transport
• Ad Klaassen, Dutch Produce Association – on energy use and options in Dutch greenhouses
• Frederic Rosseneu, Freshfel Europe – on food miles vs carbon footprints
• Russell Mildon, European Commission is interesting too as it has very detailed stats and gives an indication of the direction of EU policy.

All presentations can be downloaded here or follow the link from here (click on Istanbul June 2007)

Green Power Conferences held a three day conference in May 2007 on the subject of climate change and the corporate sector. The event addressed a wide range of issues from Carbon offsetting/emissions trading to the challenges to SMEs.

One of the three days was entirely devoted to food. It covered the issue of food miles and carbon labelling and highlights included a video link to delegates in New Zealand (a good example of an attempt to keep delegate-miles down) and a presentation from the manager of a zero-carbon winery.

All the presentations can be downloaded here. Additional interviews and a blog of the event can be viewed here.

Subsequently, Tesco and the UK Energy Research Centre held a 'symposium' on carbon labelling. This presented the thinking on carbon labelling which had been developed at the above event.

The following documents are now available:

• A presentation by Brenda Boardman given at the 18th May symposium, summarising the thinking developed at the expert round table event.
• The expert round table report itself
• A pre-event (ie. pre 3/4 May) briefing document outlining some of the questions for consideration

The seminar brought together politicians, civil servants, academics, business experts and NGOs from across the UK and the debate covered issues such as healthcare, housing, opportunities for new types of business activity and employment, and the future of transport and air travel.

Note that the concept of carbon rationing is envisaged, initially at least, to cover only domestic energy use and travel. It does not include food simply because at present a system of ascribing carbon value to the food we consume has not yet been developed. However, in future it would be desirable to include food and other areas of personal spending into the scheme.

Additional briefing papers produced as part of the event are available here.