ERBS Annual Member Event 2022
29th June 2022
Overview
ERBS Annual Member Event
14-15 June 2022
Igniting positive impact together
The ERBS was excited to bring together in person over 30 members for a 2 day event in France, under the theme of “Igniting positive impact together”.
The event focused on recognising and reflecting the current and future challenges facing the beef sector, and how the ERBS can support our members in continuing to drive positive progress on key sustainability topics.
Day one started with a field trip to Conteville where members had the opportunity to see how the GHG tool, CAP’ER, and the animal welfare tool, Boviwell, are helping farmers to measure and improve their impact on farm. It was great to see first-hand how making positive changes for environmental impact also make sense from an economic and people perspective.
Continuing on the second day, we heard from Richard Brown, Director of Gira, about the unprecedented level of uncertainty and change, but also how the beef sector can make the most of the growing demand for beef.
Ruaraidh Petre, Executive Director of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) echoed the opportunity to share positive relatable stories to consumers, and the role that global and regional sustainability goals can play in sharing the values and level of care for environment and animals in the beef sector.
Thomas Duffy, the Vice President of the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) brought the farmer perspective on the challenges facing the beef sector, and the need for solutions to be farmer based.
Our six Platforms in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and UK brought to life the ERBS approach in uniting multiple programmes, projects and work on the ground all in the same direction, towards the same outcome targets.
Three ERBS members shared their case studies. Kepak shared on how they are bringing together science, customers and business in addressing climate action in Ireland. Tönnies spoke about how the BEST Beef programme in Germany is driving progress across animal medicines, animal welfare, farming resilience and GHG. And Interbev from France talked about their work in driving a common European approach in response to the Green Deal.
Overall, amidst the many challenges facing the sector, we were reminded of 3 opportunities:
- Sharing a relatable, simple story on the positive aspects of beef and the progress being made by the sector.
- The cohesion role played by the ERBS in the European beef sector.
- The value of sharing collective knowledge to tackle the complexity.
About the ERBS
The European Roundtable for Beef Sustainability (ERBS) unites actors across the European value chain to deliver measurable and positive impact and continuous improvement on key sustainability priorities. The Roundtable aligns everyone in working towards measurable progress to the same aligned targets, whilst recognising the diversity of production systems across Europe and providing freedom for delivering progress in a way that suits the local context.