Food Security – An Industry Perspective



Wednesday, 15. October 2014 | 12:00 Uhr

Speaker

Duncan Pollard

Organisation

Nestlé S.A.

Reporting

At the 13th Dialogue on Science, Duncan Pollard of Nestlé S.A. demonstrated how the company last year for example supported over 22,000 dairy farmers in Pakistan with training and cooling systems. This reduced the usual losses in the processing chain in the regions supported by Nestlé from 15% to 6%.

The global food system must evolve significantly to continue to ensure food quality and the availability of suitable food in the future. By 2030, the world population will have grown from seven to eight billion people (U.N.). At the same time, the urban population will increase from currently just over 50% to 60% (WHO), and according to the World Bank, the middle class will likely grow from two to five billion people. One consequence from these changes is a forecast increase in demand for packaged and processed food.

In his presentation, Pollard advised that it is not food security per se that we should focus on, but nutritional security.
Find out here what else Pollard left the participants with.

Duncan Pollard

Pollard’s work is to support Nestlé’s operations in developing solutions to improve the company’s sustainability performance and approaches to create shared value, in particular in the areas of responsible sourcing of commodities and on rural development. He also provides advice and support on a range of sustainability issues including water stewardship, deforestation, natural capital and new ways of measuring societal value creation. An important aspect of the role is to develop and enhance relations and collaboration with a variety of environmental and social non-governmental organisations and other outside stakeholders.

Before joining Nestlé, Pollard’s career has seen him move from the corporate sector, to the non-profit sector and back again. With a degree in forestry he worked for a variety of forest companies and spent 9 years with Shell firstly in their London head office, and then in Chile and Uruguay. He spent almost 10 years with WWF International heading their Forest Programme in Europe, then as Director of the Global Forest Programme and finally as the Director responsible for WWF’s global thematic work on energy, water, forests, species, oceans and policy. In 2010 he joined Nestlé as independent Sustainability Advisor, and became a permanent employee in 2013.

Donators and Partners

The ETH Board is responsible for the strategic leadership of the ETH domain and assumes the supervision of its institutions. Its close relationship with the ETH Council has contributed to the successful continuation of Academia Engelberg Foundation since 2000.

The Foundation promotes research into the connecting human fundamentals of science. Academia Engelberg Foundation and the Foundation for Basic Research in Human Sciences have entered into a cooperation agreement for the period 2011 to 2015.

Helvetia is a quality-oriented comprehensive insurance company with over 150 years of experience. Academia Engelberg Foundation is convinced it will be able to use important synergies from the partnership starting in 2015.

A partnership with the University of Lucerne has existed since summer 2013. Since 2016 we have also a parthership with the Faculty of Economics and Management of the University of Lucerne. Through these partnerships, synergies are used and joint projects are tested and realized. The University of Lucerne currently consists of three faculties: the faculties for Theology, Culture and Social Sciences, and Law.