The Food Ethics Council is delighted to announce the appointment of Sue Dibb as its new Executive Director.

Sue’s background is firmly rooted in ethical and sustainable food issues, with a career that includes working with the Sustainable Development Commission, the National Consumer Council and the Food Commission.

Sue previously headed the Sustainable Development Commission’s Enabling Sustainable Lives team, responsible for advising Government on the need for a vision and strategy for its sustainable and farming policy and action to catalyse sustainable diets.

A report of the November 2011 meeting of the FEC’s Business Forum

The food and farming sectors are more aware than most that natural resources are under pressure. Agriculture and fisheries depend directly not only on energy generation, like many other industries, but also on the climate, fresh water availability, soils and biodiversity. What’s more, we have heard a crescendo of warnings, most recently from Foresight, that the sector faces a ‘perfect storm’ of resource constraints and other challenges.

A new paper by WWF and the Food Ethics Council (FEC) argues that Government has a clear role, and a mandate, to promote sustainable food consumption in the UK.

The new report, A Square Meal, suggests that, despite the inherent complexities, it is possible to achieve the goals of promoting healthier diets, reducing the environmental impacts of food, and supporting British farmers and producers.

A report of the September 2011 meeting of the FEC’s Business Forum

The UK government is on a mission cut ‘red tape’. The Cabinet Office Red Tape Challenge asks the public which rules to cut and which to save. In agriculture, the Farming Regulation Task Force reported to Defra in May, calling for a new culture of regulation and recommending “200 ways to cut farmers’ red tape”.

A report of the May 2011 meeting of the FEC’s Business Forum

Government wants to ‘nudge’ us towards living greener lives. This rejects the myth that we all act rationally, in favour of pragmatic strategies informed by behavioural economics. Rather than engaging people in the issues, the focus is on creating incentives, competition and other prompts for sustainable behaviour.

However, other behavioural research questions this approach, suggesting that motivations matter. By this thinking, building a sustainable economy depends on shifts in cultural values.

An in-depth analysis of the food and farming charitable sector has been published. The 2011 Food Issues Census provides a frank assessment of the activities and capacity of civil society groups working on food or farming in the UK, based on a survey of over 300 organisations.

It details a diverse sector, powered by an army of tens of thousands of volunteers working on a wide range of environmental and health initiatives that focus mainly on education and service provision.

A report of the March 2011 meeting of the FEC’s Business Forum

Concern that speculative investment contributed to recent food price volatility has put the ethics of speculation under scrutiny. Public and academic debate have focused on whether financial speculation in commodity derivatives can be shown to influence food prices, with knock-on consequences for the world’s poorest people. The stakes are high, as the price spike of 2007-8 is estimated to have pushed a further 40 million people into hunger.

A report of the January 2011 meeting of the FEC’s Business Forum

The UK government’s Foresight unit has launched its much-awaited report on Global Food and Farming Futures. The report looks ahead to 2050, asking “how a future global population of nine billion people can all be fed healthily and sustainably”. The backdrop is what Professor John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser, has called a “perfect storm” of food and energy shortages.

A new report for Defra, by the University of Hertfordshire, the Food Ethics Council and the Policy Studies Institute, sets out how government, businesses and green groups can improve environmental labelling on food products.

The number of different environmental labels on food – covering issues such as carbon emissions and water use – has been growing. This has raised concerns that consumers may be confused or misled, generating interest in developing an ‘omni-label’ – a single environmental label that covers all the main environmental issues.