A better
world through positive SDG Impact.
Many
speakers and exhibitors on this year’s Greentech will focus on technical
solutions to minimize CO2 emissions. I will only briefly comment on one of our
technical solutions later, but not focus on them in this presentation. They are
of course very valuable and extremely important to avoid the disasters that are
awaiting us if we continue on the road we have been on the last 200 years. Avoid
disasters is how my feeling is on pessimistic days – it is already very
close to 12 o’clock. But today I prefer to take the optimistic view – create a
better world.
My name is
Freerk Visser, and I speak to you in my role as Program Manager
Sustainability at Batenburg Techniek, mother company of Hoogendoorn Growth
Management and LetsGrow.com.
A better
world! It may sound
like an idealistic, somewhat “head in the cloud” idea but be aware, there are
well defined goals with specific targets and performance indicators that
clearly specify how a better world should look like. 17 Sustainable Development
Goals, adopted by all UN member states in 2015 – a blueprint for prosperity for
our planet earth and its nearly 8 billion inhabitants. An urgent call for
action to end poverty and inequality, while at the same time tackling climate
action and preserving our oceans and our forests. A sustainable road to 2030.
Talking
about climate action, we usually think about reducing our own CO2 footprint.
For a company, an organization this means gas and electricity, cars and other
transportation, and materials and energy used in production processes. For a
company like ours, creating software and dealing with knowledge, data and algorithms,
our CO2 footprint is minimal compared to the impact we can have on
sustainability for our customers, our positive impact on many of the
sustainable development goals. This is one of the methods we use at Batenburg
Techniek to measure our performance on sustainability. We picked 6 of the 17
SDGs, and we track our score, our positive impact on each of them. For us at
Hoogendoorn SDG2 is the most important. Zero hunger is the very short
description of SDG2, but if you drill down to the targets for this goal, promote
sustainable agriculture is one of them, and that is where we – as sector
Controlled Environment Agriculture can of course play an important role. I will
come back to this at the end of my presentation.
A short
sidestep. A study in 2021 by amongst others Wageningen University investigated
the potential impact of growing tomatoes
in high tech greenhouses on 7 relevant SDGs. Amongst them of course SDG2 (zero
hunger), SDG3 (good health) and SDG6 (clean water). But also SDG15 (Life on
Land and biodiversity) .
I will not
go into detail, but the general finding was that this method of growing food
has a positive impact on all of the selected SDGs, with the exception of one –
SDG7 – energy use.
We know
that of course, and the current gas prices have once again demonstrated this
clearly. But possibilities for improvement are huge, and many technical
solutions are on display at this Greentech exhibition.
For
Hoogendoorn (software) and LetsGrow.com (data), impact far exceeds our own CO2
footprint, obviously this is different for companies like BOAL, where material
matters. Or for Koppert that has an altogether different impact on sustainability.
Of course I will leave this to the other speakers.
Sustainability
is more than the environment. Investors often speak about ESG - Environment,
Social and Governance when they speak about a sustainable investment portfolio.
Large investors are entering the attractive area of Controlled Environment
Agriculture, and not only because of its attractiveness on financial ROI, but
also because of the potential for positive impact. Portfolios with a high risk
for climate change may lose value in the near future, so you’d better change
towards sustainability now.
Batenburg
Techniek is fully owned by such an investor, a so-called Family Office, with an
ambitious plan to be the most sustainable Family Office in Europe. This calls for action on all 3 aspects of
ESG. Environment I have mentioned already. Social deals with physical and
social safety for all our employees, with education and development, with employee
satisfaction, but also with diversity and inclusion. Governance deals with
doing honest business, fair trade, with transparency, and anti-corruption. Be
aware that these aspects are also covered in the Sustainable Development Goals.
For example SDG4 about education and SDG5 about gender equality.
Our sector
can also play a role in these goals. With all our Dutch knowledge we can teach
the rest of the world our methods of growing food in a sustainable way, and
thus not only contribute to SDG2 zero hunger, but also to SDG4 Education. We can bring greenhouses to the cities in
developing countries where large communities of people live, and have a
positive impact on SDG8 – decent work and economic growth.
But -
sustainability is also a buzzword. I do not think you can find one exhibitor in
this year’s Greentech that does not use the word somewhere in their marketing.
This is good – the subject is finally on everybody’s agenda. But what does it
really mean, how positive is your impact? Do you do sustainability like you do
R&D, or HR? You have an HR department but do you really care about your
people? You are sustainable, but are you really making progress? Or are you
like the burglar who says “I robbed 10 houses last year, and this year I have robbed
only 5, does that make me a better burglar?”
One of the
buzzwords in Hoogendoorn’s marketing campaigns is Autonomous Growing. It
is a buzzword for many others as well, but luckily we have evidence to show
what this really means, when we won the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge in
2020. I am proud to be part of that team. Plant Empowerment, the use of data,
domain knowledge and intelligent algorithms can definitely make a difference –
more with less. This is what I meant when I spoke earlier about the very small
impact we have as a company when we minimize the CO2 footprint of our office
and our cars, and the huge impact we can have when we produce 20% more
vegetables per m², with up to 20% less input in gas, electricity and other
inputs.
Prove that
you are on the right track. Certification with a well-established certification
office is another way of proving where you are on the road to sustainability,
and setting targets for continuous improvement.
And if the
proof is there – be proud and tell it. Our sector needs the attention for
positive impact – we are under attack of environmentalists because of the huge
need for fossil fuel in greenhouses.
Our
investor is B Corp certified. B Cope certification means that you meet the
highest standards on social and environmental performance. I am proud to be in
this investment portfolio. An ambitious investor like this forces us at
Hoogendoorn and LetsGrow.com to make real progress.
B Corp
companies can be recognized as Best for the World. And thus we close the
circle with my opening words. “Towards a better world”.
