On November 10, the 44th meeting of the Ethical Trade Forums entitled “Behind the Water and Carbon Footprints of the agri-food sector” was held in Vera (Almería).
The attendance at the event was 62 people, who shared a pleasant day analyzing and learning about the Water and Carbon Footprint, as well as other aspects related to working conditions.
The day began with a presentation by Ana Hernández (Grupo Paloma), in which she explained the activities of the Sustainability group of the Forums and the best practices in relation to the water and carbon footprint carried out by Grupo Paloma.
Afterwards, María Lara (Ecoterrae), Ana Martín (Life for Doñana) and Ana Hernández (Grupo Paloma) shared an interesting panel in which they delved into the advantages and disadvantages of the different methodologies as well as the importance of the different indicators for measuring the carbon footprint.
Carmen María Sánchez (La Ñeca), presented the evolution that her organization has had since in 2015 it began to work with the calculation of footprints, a job after which the reduction of the footprint is evident today.
Next, Octavio Acosta presented the experiences with the work carried out in La Unión, which implies a strategic approach that is yielding results.
After the breakfast break, Rosa Sánchez and Sergio Barberá described the activities of the work groups and the attendees actively participated in a dynamic about the usefulness of environmental certifications, agreeing on some points that are reflected in the members area of the Web.
The morning concluded with the presentation of Eurosol’s experience, which also shared the book that the workers’ committee wrote during this pilot project promoted by the Forums. They made a very positive impression and we were able to watch a couple of videos that included the open house on September 23rd.
Juan Pérez, Cristina Navarro and Sergio Barberá presented the activities that the Ethical Trade Forums Association is carrying out and encouraged attendees to participate in said Association. In this regard, it is noteworthy to indicate that a fairly representative number of members of the Association attended, which already reaches 50 local members who join the 37 importers and supermarkets that have been supporting the initiative from the beginning.
The day ended with two parallel workshops. The first of them, given by Miguel Ángel Sanchez, dealt with the construction of the new Human Resources departments after the legislative changes, a very lively debate that remained pending in future events to delve into this very important situation in companies in the sector. The second, given by Octavio and María, put into practice everything learned during the day as attendees carried out an exercise to calculate the carbon footprint.
After this event, the day of November events concludes, after which we will continue to carry out more activities from the Forums.