Spotlight Takes Off

 “Spotlight is going to bring the SAI Platform membership closer by building relationships around common interests.” – Nick Betts, Programme Lead Arable and Vegetable Working Group, SAI Platform

Amsterdam, 1 February: SAI Platform’s latest collaboration enabling tool, Spotlight, was officially launched today. Members across both Crops Working Groups (Arable & Vegetable and Fruit & Nut) gathered at Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, in a full show of support for the launch of this interactive, member-driven online tool to foster collaboration on sustainability outcomes. Spotlight is available exclusively for SAI Platform members and will provide the foundation for prioritising all future Crops Working Group projects, events and initiatives.

It was almost a year ago to the day that the Fruit and Nut and the Arable and Vegetable Working Groups had their strategic workshops and developed three-year work plans, both of which identified a need for a solution to improve knowledge sharing and to better identify projects and partners based on members’ priorities, risks, opportunities and areas of interest. In just six months, the Crops Working Groups were able to develop Spotlight, a sophisticated online tool that enables and encourages collaboration amongst SAI Platform members, as well as focusing attention on synergies to drive adoption of sustainable agriculture practices at landscape-level. Nigel Davies, Director of Manufacturing and Sustainability at Muntons and Arable and Vegetable Working Group Chair, commented at the launch “Spotlight is exactly what we need, so we can shed light on areas that we’re interested in and on something that we’re doing but other members aren’t aware.”

The day was facilitated by Charlotte Cawthorne, from The Act Lab, who brought to life the real purpose and potential value of Spotlight through a series of activities to encourage trust, relationship building, and team work.

All attendees at the launch are excited and positive about the added value this new tool brings to the Crops Working Groups and SAI Platform as a whole. Joe Maguire, Head of Sustainable Sourcing at Diageo shared “With Spotlight we now have a fantastic tool to help members identify areas for collaboration, so that together we can drive greater collective impact on initiatives and shared challenges.”

The first phase of Spotlight was the inspiration and development of the tool for all SAI Platform Crops Working Group members (Fruit & Nut and Arable & Vegetable). The future of Spotlight will include multiple phases of engagement and further expansion of the tool to maximise value for all SAI Platform members from every sector, commodity-focus, and geographic region. Leon Mol, Director of Product Safety & Social Compliance at Ahold Delhaize, and active member of the Dairy Working Group added that “SAI Platform’s Spotlight will help generate further trust and transparency among the members. It will also help define a practical model for pre-competitive collaboration.”