Making reporting manageable
Thomas Foods USA is a meat processing company that imports meat from around the world and prepares it for food retailers. Sustainability is important in this space for a number of reasons.
First, meat is a product with a high greenhouse gas intensity, but this intensity can vary wildly, especially as you adjust the upstream supply chain.
Secondly, there’s a low-profit margin so any efficiencies you can find in production can have a sizable impact on the company’s bottom line.
Thirdly, it’s what customers are demanding. Large retailers like Walmart are under significant pressure to decarbonise and they’re passing that on to their suppliers.
After being asked to submit to both the CDP and Walmart’s Project Gigaton - an initiative to reduce scope 3 emissions in Walmart’s value chain - Jonathan began looking for ways to drive efficiencies in these applications.
I joined Thomas Foods at a time when we needed to report our sustainability in order to meet customer expectations. But I knew from experience that without a centralised system to manage this, reporting becomes a time and resource sink.
Jonathan Reinbold, Sustainability Director, Thomas Foods USA.