ecratum News

Sustainability, from the latin “sustinere” meaning “to hold up”, is traditionally made of three pillars: environmental sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. To achieve “sustainable development”, as defined by the Brundtland commission in 1987 - the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”, the environmental sustainability must become a primary focus. The food industry is no exception, and must also do its best to limit its impact on nature to become more sustainable.

Today, we will review five sustainability certificates which can help you make your products more sustainable.

Information and documentation are the basis of every business. Some of those documents are internal and specific to a company and other have to be requested from other companies and suppliers - and this is where the problems start. While document requests should be quick and easy, the task can easily become a financial, time and energy consuming hassle.

After discussing the mistakes to avoid with document management, we will today give you five tips to make your document request as smooth and efficient as possible.

With energy costs rising and an increasing number of environmental alarms turning on, it is more important than ever to make companies as eco-friendly as possible. Energy management is one of the ways to decrease your company's carbon footprint and reduce the bill at the end of the month. While a large number of firms are turning to the ISO 50001 to manage their energy supply, every company should be concerned by this issue - especially the Small and Medium Enterprises with limited resources.

We will today discover seven tips to easily implement energy management and why it is important for SMEs.

An easy way to keep continuous improvement central for your company is to implement a continuous improvement cycle which will repeat itself and bring constant progress and innovation to your processes and products. One of the most used cycles is the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle, broadly through departments and industries.

We will today learn more about the PDCA Cycle and how to easily implement it in your company.

Energy has a double cost: a financial cost and an environmental cost. While the energy production is increasingly coming from sustainable sources such as solar or wind installations, another important aspect of energy management is the optimization and the reduction of energy waste.

Implementing an Energy Management System helps companies to reduce their energy bill and to make a gesture for the planet. One of the most popular standard to achieve this is the ISO 50001 certification.

We will today learn more about Energy Management and how the ISO 50001 can help you achieve your energy policy.

Food safety is a daily concern for consumers but also for every stakeholder of the food industry. For animal products, feed safety is equally important especially in the light of different food scandals in the past years. To minimize health risks due to feed safety, the EU has implemented several regulations ruling a large part of the feed activities. To support companies with their feed quality and safety system, the FAMI-QS developed a certification specifically aiming the specialty feed ingredients and mixtures present in animal feed.

Today, we will learn more about the FAMI-QS certification and how to implement it in your manufacture.

Limited resources, climate change, social responsibility: those are topics regularly brought up by newspapers, media but also companies stakeholders and employees. While more and more organizations act on their environmental impact and implement eco-management plans, some don’t know where to start or in the contrary would like to go further on this track. The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is an instrument developed by the EU to help organizations deal with this topic.

We will today learn more about the EMAS and how to improve your environmental footprint.

With the environment and the future of the planet at the heart of headlines and the news, sustainable products are being more and more appreciated and looked for by consumers. With the growing sea pollution going over the world, sustainable fishery is getting increasingly important for the planet and for the consumers. While the MSC is tailored for the wildlife fishery, sustainable fish farms can get another certification for their products: the ASC Certificate.

Today we will learn more about this certificate and how to get it for your fish farm.

Working in an ethical company, respecting workers as much as the environment, is important on both personal and business levels. But while you are directly in charge for your company, you are also responsible for your whole supply chain and the acts of your suppliers. If one of them does not respect human rights or is engaged in an environmental scandal, it may bring trouble to your supply chain and damage your brand…

To avoid this situation, you can set up a Supplier Code of Conduct ruling the ethical practices of your suppliers in order to align them with your company values.

We will today learn more about this code of conduct and how to implement it in your supply chain.

Having full control of the supply chain and monitoring its every aspects can be a hard task when suppliers are all over the world. Beyond product quality, workers protection and social standards are important elements to keep in mind when choosing a supplier. Indeed, while some countries have strict legislation to protect workers rights, other parts of the world do not benefit from similar safe environments.

The Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) internationally promotes the protection of social standards throughout the supply chain across every industry. By implementing a common code of conduct and a single implementation system, the BSCI supports propers monitoring through all sourcing activities along the supply chain.

We will today learn more about the BSCI and how to implement it with your suppliers.