FTSLA Created

EUGENE, Ore.—Several prominent organic companies in the Natural Products industry announced the formation of a new nonprofit business association, known as The Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association (FTSLA). The FTSLA has been vetted with hundreds of organic growers, distributors, processors, retailers, and certifiers at conferences and trade shows across the country for the last two years. The purpose of the FTSLA is to provide a hub for businesses to network, share best practices and work toward solutions to shared challenges. The initial action step of the FTSLA has been to complete the launch of a “Declaration of Sustainability” Sign-on Campaign, an 11-point action plan aimed to promote education and action toward sustainable business practices in the natural food trade. Companies who sign this pledge commit to continual improvement and transparency around their practices in key areas; in return they receive the education and tools needed to support their efforts. The FTSLA will administer the Declaration sign-on process and provide members with hands-on technical assistance to begin to measure and make progress towards the goals laid out in the pledge. The stated objectives of the pledge are: •Assistance in defining what achieving "sustainability" would look like in the food industry.•To inspire timely action by creating a process for businesses to make a public pledge of commitment to work towards improvement in 11-action areas including organics, climate change, energy, distribution, labor, packaging, water, waste, animal care, governance, and consumer education.•Contribution to developing a clear framework for businesses to report progress, using common metrics and explicit benchmarks in order to lend substance to sustainability marketing claims.•Recognizing different levels of proficiency and providing recognition to businesses making measurable gains.“The expectation is that a common annual reporting framework will provide a useful tool for organic food companies, while also remaining flexible enough to allow for each company to tell their own unique story,” says David Lively, Marketing Director of Organically Grown Company, who serves on the new Association’s Board of Directors.  The FTSLA is looking to recruit 50 new companies to sign-on over the next year. “The unprecedented scale and speed of global climate change combined with the rising cost of energy inputs puts into stark view the vulnerabilities of the food system. Our vision is for the organic sector to lead the way in the transition toward a sustainable food system, by demonstrating successful sustainable business models that will, in time, become the beacon for the entire food industry,” says Natalie Reitman-White, Executive Director of the FTSLA.