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The Paris Agreement marked a major breakthrough in support for climate action from many parts of the business community, including from key actors in the food and beverage sector. But despite significant progress, much work remains both to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to support the millions of people already hit by climate change., As one of the sectors that is at highest risk of being affected by climate change, responsible for a giant emissions footprint and reliant on millions of small-scale farmers and agricultural workers in the regions most vulnerable to climate change, the food and beverage sector should lead the next generation of post-Paris corporate climate commitments., This paper presents new data commissioned from the research consultancy CE Delft on the greenhouse gas emissions footprints and water scarcity footprints of major food commodities. The data demonstrate the vital role the food and beverage industry can and must play in turning the Paris Agreement into a springboard for the stronger climate action needed., You can use our interactive data tool to explore the greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity footprints and production levels for 17 different food commodities.

Our economy is broken, with hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top., The number of billionaires has doubled since the financial crisis and their fortunes grow by $2.5bn a day, yet the super-rich and corporations are paying lower rates of tax than they have in decades. The human costs – children without teachers, clinics without medicines – are huge. Piecemeal private services punish poor people and privilege elites. Women suffer the most, and are left to fill the gaps in public services with many hours of unpaid care., We need to transform our economies to deliver universal health, education and other public services. To make this possible, the richest people and corporations should pay their fair share of tax. This will drive a dramatic reduction in the gap between rich and poor and between women and men., Check out the interactive online version of the report., Notre économie est défaillante : des centaines de millions de personnes vivent dans l’extrême pauvreté alors que d’immenses richesses sont concentrées dans les mains d’une minorité., Le nombre de milliardaires a doublé depuis la crise financière et leur fortune augmente chaque jour de 2,5 milliards de dollars. Or, les élites fortunées et les grandes entreprises bénéficient des taux d’imposition les plus bas de ces dernières décennies. Les coûts humains (des enfants sans enseignant-e-s, des cliniques sans médicaments) sont considérables et ce sont les plus pauvres qui en payent le prix. Les femmes en souffrent particulièrement, contraintes de combler des services publics insuffisants par de nombreuses heures de travail de soin non rémunéré., Nous devons transformer nos économies pour garantir l’universalité de l’accès à la santé, à l’éducation et à d’autres services publics. Pour cela, les entreprises et les plus riches doivent payer leur juste part d'impôts. Cela permettra de réduire considérablement l’écart entre les riches et les pauvres et entre les femmes et les hommes.

Last year saw the biggest increase in billionaires in history, one more every two days. This huge increase could have ended global extreme poverty seven times over. 82% of all wealth created in the last year went to the top 1%, and nothing went to the bottom 50%., Dangerous, poorly paid work for the many is supporting extreme wealth for the few. Women are in the worst work, and almost all the super-rich are men. Governments must create a more equal society by prioritizing ordinary workers and small-scale food producers instead of the rich and powerful.

Collecting tax is one of the key means by which governments are able to address poverty and inequality. But big business is dodging tax on an industrial scale, depriving governments across the globe of the money they need to address poverty and invest in healthcare, education and jobs. This report exposes the world’s worst corporate tax havens – extreme examples of a destructive race to the bottom on corporate tax which has seen governments across the globe slash corporate tax bills in an attempt to attract business. It calls on governments to work together to put a stop to this before it is too late.

There is overwhelming evidence of the harm caused by the European Union’s current bioenergy policy to people in developing countries, to the climate and to Europe’s own sustainable development. The policy is on a collision course with the Paris climate agreement and the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals., This briefing follows the trail of destruction left by the policy on three continents. It assesses the extraordinary lobbying ‘firepower’ and powerful network of influence at the disposal of the European biofuel industry and its allies, which is blocking reform. In the past year alone, actors in the biofuel value chain – from feedstock growers to biofuel producers – spent over €14m and hired nearly 400 lobbyists. Biofuel producers spend as much on EU influencing as the tobacco lobby. EU decision makers must free themselves from the stranglehold of powerful corporate groups – and choose genuinely sustainable and renewable energy to meet their 2030 climate and energy goals.

A new paradigm of regulation and management of food safety and quality has been gradually gaining ground. It is based both on the evolution of public standards and the increasing involvement of the private sector, which promotes forms of self-regulation, by adopting standards whose requirements are often higher than public ones. That reflects the needs and wants of consumers to obtain better guarantees on food safety and quality requirements and, consequently, the crucial role that these requirements have in supporting the enterprise strategy in the present day competitive market. The emergence of private standards, operating in various modes of interaction side-by-side with the public standards, has an important impact on the governance of agri-food supply chains. Looking at the literature from national and international perspective, the paper addresses, after an introduction on the role of standards in response to market failures, the incentives for firms to improve food safety and quality by adopting private standards. Then, it examines the integration processes of public and private standards and the related problems of governance of agri-food supply chains, operating increasingly at global dimension. These problems are associated to dominant role of private governance structures in agri-food markets, whose impact is the subject of an ongoing debate. The paper concludes by suggesting potential evolving of some key elements.