The Ethical Trade Forums organized a new online meeting to discuss “Social, economic and environmental sustainability in the agro-food industry”.
The agenda prepared for this event brought together 233 attendees, including prestigious experts in Environmental Sustainability such as Felipe Fuentelsaz, coordinator of agricultural projects for WWF Spain, a nature conservation NGO. Manuel Samper, Customs Agent who gave an interesting talk on BREXIT within the economic section.
In the social block, Victoria Reca from BSR spoke about Gender and climate change and Ignacio del Castillo with his presentation from Sedex, The importance of gender information. In the health block, the central theme was Covid-19. Mario Sánchez from the El Tariquejo Residence detailed the contingency plan applied in its facilities and the HR managers from the companies Frescapricho, Guimera Fruit and Driscolls gave an interesting explanation of the measures taken by their companies to deal with this situation.
The Food Chain Law was the focus of a debate in which José Miguel Herrero, Food Industry Area General Director of the Ministry of Agriculture, José Luis García-Palacios, President of INTERFRESA, Fernando Gómez, General Director of PROEXPORT, Francisco Escalante, CEO of Aceitunas Guadalquivir, Emilio Vieira Jiménez-Ontiveros, Legal Advisor of ASAJA Seville and, as representative of the supermarkets, Stephanie Velez, Head of Sustainable Procurement at Sainsbury’s.
Good practices were also shared by the companies Driscolls, Vicente Giner, Grupo Toroverde and El Ciruelo.
Representatives of the Working Groups presented the current status of their work, as well as the Protocol for Prevention and Action against Harassment, which is already available on the Forums’ website for consultation (currently in Spanish).