Sitopia, National Trust, Vogue, Food & Risks

1. Our team away day at Sitopia Farm 

Last week, the whole Good Business team had the pleasure of spending the day at Sitopia Farm in Greenwich for our team away day. 

Tucked just inside the borders of inner London, Sitopia (literally meaning “food place”) is an urban farm founded on the idea that how we grow, eat and value food shapes the world we live in – from climate and nature to health and social connection. The farm serves as both a productive growing space, using organic, regenerative, and no-dig principles to provide veg and flowers to the local community, chefs and florists, and a community hub, bringing people together around food growing for social benefit. 

We spent the morning learning about the farm’s work and the bigger picture of our food system, and getting stuck into some farm work ourselves, including weed clearance and composting. Lunch was made on site with ingredients from the farm, setting us up for a productive afternoon reflecting on the past year at GB and what lies ahead, before we headed home with bags of fruit and veg from the farm. 

We were truly inspired by their mission to transform our broken relationship with food, reconnect people to the soil, to the joy of good food and flowers, and to each other, and create a better ‘Sitopia’. Huge thank you to the Sitopia team for hosting and inspiring us! 

2. Trust the plan 

The National Trust launched its first climate transition plan this week, and it’s a powerful example of what climate leadership can look like beyond the world of business. 

Charities don’t face the same regulations or investor pressure as companies when it comes to climate disclosure, and they’re not mandated to publish transition plans. That alone makes the Trust’s decision to produce one noteworthy. But perhaps more importantly, it’s a good plan.  

The Trust is aiming to be net zero by 2030 and has practical plans to get there by restoring peatlands, switching to renewable energy, cutting emissions from travel and visitor operations, and working with suppliers to reduce their impacts. All of this is underpinned by a commitment to transparency and regular progress reviews. Which is all great, but it’s not what caught our eye. 

What stands out to us is the Trust’s thoughtful and place-based approach to adapting to the impacts of climate change. The National Trust manages over 250,000 hectares of land, hundreds of historic buildings and 780 miles of coastline, making it one of the UK’s largest landowners. According to its own predictions, more than 70% of the places it manages will be at high or medium risk of climate-related hazards, such as floods, coastal erosion and wildfires, in the next 35 years if urgent action isn’t taken. Through a structured impact and adaptation pathway, it is working to understand the unique risks facing each place it looks after and tailoring practical plans to respond and prepare. 

Why are we making such a big deal about it? National Trust places aren’t abstract assets - they’re where people walk the dog, have a day out in nature, drag the kids around a manor house, or volunteer on weekends. When climate change hits those places, it feels a bit more real. And when those places start to respond with serious plans and visible action, it makes the whole challenge feel a bit more achievable too. 

Hats off to the National Trust! 

3. Values are in Vogue

The fashion industry gets a lot of heat, understandably, for its impact on climate and society. Exciting, therefore, to see that fashion magazine giant, Vogue, is looking to make a difference. In collaboration with eBay and Nike, they are looking to spotlight four areas in their editorial content: sustainability, women’s health, equitable access to creativity and representation across the fashion industry.  The inaugural campaign, “Fashion Is For Everyone”, will focus on diversity within the industry, providing a voice for ambassadors such as Jourdan Dunn.

Similarly, we welcome and applaud the climate pillar. As we often see from a business perspective, it just makes sense. In the year that Vinted, the second-hand clothing platform saw the highest clothes sales by volume in France, embracing circularity feels like a necessary step to stay relevant.

“Fashion Is For Everyone” was created in collaboration with two great charities. The first is Smart Works, a charity aiming to help women get into the workforce through mentorship and providing donated interview clothes. Second is Give Your Best, who enables people experiencing clothing poverty to shop with agency through an online donation platform and a physical London shop. They truly live Vogue Values, putting on a fashion show each year to celebrate their refugee community and showing that truly “Fashion is for Everyone”.

If anyone else is inspired to increase the circularity (and space!) in their wardrobes, consider donations to either of the two charities!

4. When risks turn real

If ever there was any doubt of the manifold, interlinked and cataclysmic impacts climate change could have on the economy, society and livelihoods, look to recent events which put the human rights and economic issues to the fore.

On human rights, look to Tuvalu and the fact that a third of the nation’s citizens entered a ballot to relocate to Australia under the world’s first climate-linked visa scheme. Tuvalu, an island nation facing rising seas that threaten to erase it from the map, now has an agreement with Australia offering up to 280 citizens a year the chance to move. For many, this is about survival, and the heartbreaking choice between ancestral lands and future security.

As Mishcon de Reya LLP’s recent work on this topic highlights, climate change is set to be one of the biggest human rights issues of our time. Millions are already being displaced by floods, droughts, and storms, with projections of over 140 million climate migrants by 2050.

On the financial side, see an in-depth report in the Financial Times of how climate change is shaking the foundations of global finance. This year, the US Federal Reserve warned that entire regions could soon become uninsurable and unmortgageable, with banks and insurers pulling out of high-risk areas. Allianz’s Günther Thallinger called it a “systemic risk that threatens the very foundation of the financial sector”, warning that the economic value of entire regions could “vanish from financial ledgers” almost overnight. Inevitably, this will have an impact on where people want and choose to live and work in the decades ahead.

Unlike past financial crises triggered by market failures, this one is driven by something different: the irreversible destruction of land, livelihoods, and homes. The human and economic costs of climate change are converging with consequences we are only beginning to grasp. The Australian-Tuvalu visa agreement points to a degree of forward thinking (albeit on a small scale) that many governments would do well to adopt, as the impact of climate migration and climate-related economic impacts start to affect nations around the world.

5. Mandates on the menu

In a world first, the UK government has announced plans to introduce mandatory health food sales reporting for all large food companies as part of its upcoming ten-year Health Plan. The aim? To make the average shopping basket healthier and reduce diet-related ill health.

Under the plan, food businesses will be required to report annually on the healthiness of their food and drink sales. The government will use the data from the disclosures to set mandatory targets for healthier food sales and businesses will have the flexibility to hit the targets however they like, through tweaking recipes, shuffling shelves or launching new healthy products and incentive programmes.

Rather than piling more pressure on shoppers, the spotlight is now on the food industry to step up to the plate. And it matters: according to the Food Foundation, 1,000 calories of healthy food currently costs shoppers more than double compared to purchasing the equivalent amount of less healthy foods such as ready meals and processed meats.

It’s a major win for our friends at Rathbones Greenbank and Nomad Foods, who’ve both been strong advocates for mandatory reporting. Greenbank has worked with ShareAction, the Food Foundation and the Investor Coalition on Food Policy to push for a level playing field and give investors better insight into health-related business risks. Meanwhile, Nomad has been voluntarily reporting the proportion of its healthy product sales since 2017. CEO Stéfan Descheemaeker has also been vocal in calling for mandatory traffic light labelling on packaged foods and annual reporting of healthy vs unhealthy sales (for more, see our previous Friday 5).

With the right ingredients - investor pressure, government policy, and food industry buy-in - this could be the recipe for real change. Watch this space.