The UK Soy Manifesto group, supported and led by Efeca, has come together with a focused ambition to help accelerate progress towards achieving physical deforestation and conversion free soya supply chains to the UK. The work builds and aligns strongly with a similar group of retailers and brands that have established and are working on the implementation of a French Soy Manifesto supported by the French Government. This approach is gathering momentum with similar conversations starting in Denmark.
To date in the UK, the working group includes all major UK retailers, several large food-service companies and their suppliers as well as industry-led associations.
Over the past 3 months, the group has been working to create the UK Soy Manifesto to mark a new phase of activity on soy, enabling UK companies across the supply chain to step up, turning strong commitments into action with pragmatic implementation plans.
The Manifesto will build on current activities, to bring the supply chain together to develop inclusive solutions that work alongside existing soy initiatives such as the CGF Forest Positive Coalition Soy Roadmap. The Manifesto should also provide a mechanism to support companies to meet the requirements of emerging due diligence regulatory requirements, in the UK and EU.
Within the Manifesto (see below) signatories call for greater collaboration across the supply chain and commit to five specific actions:
- Setting a deforestation and conversion free commitment
- Asking direct suppliers to adopt and cascade the commitment
- Integrating Manifesto commitments within commercial contractual requirements and supporting compliance
- Publicly disclosing progress
- Encouraging harmonised monitoring, verification and reporting
Many of these actions are already being delivered by leading UK companies, but the Manifesto group believe there is value in coming together to present a clear ask from all UK companies using soy, which can then strengthen the European market ask as we align with other national Manifesto initiatives.
The Manifesto isn’t a silver bullet, but it will provide a platform through which signatories can be signposted to a broader set of complementary actions they can engage in, including at a landscape or jurisdictional level in key producing landscapes/countries, supporting soy producers to make the transition to sustainable soy production.
The launch of the UK Soy Manifesto is expected to happen during COP26, on Thursday 9th November, and the group is keen to announce signatories at the launch event.
Retailers who would like to support the initiative and sign up can get in touch directly with Rose at Rose.McCulloch@efeca.com