Company commitments and practices on nutrition and environmental sustainability in Belgium

INTRODUCTION: INFORMAS developed a Business Impact Assessment for benchmarking and monitoring company commitments and practices on nutrition and environmental sustainability (BIA-Obesity & BIA-Sustainability). The aim of this study is to assess the transparency, comprehensiveness and specificity of company commitments in Belgium, as well as their related practices. METHODS: We selected 38 companies across supermarkets, quick service restaurants, catering companies, and packaged food, infant formula and non-alcoholic beverage companies, according to market share data in Belgium. For BIA-sustainability, company commitments were assessed for a series of indicators in 10 domains (corporate sustainability strategy, packaging, emission, energy use, water and discharge, biodiversity, food waste, environmental compliance, animal-based products and sustainable products). For BIA-Obesity, company commitments were assessed for a range of indicators across 6 domains (corporate nutrition strategy, product reformulation, product labeling, product and brand promotion, product accessibility and relationships with other organizations). Performance metrics to evaluate the size of efforts undertaken by food companies to improve their practices, alongside their commitments are under development. RESULTS: There is a wide variation in scores for transparency, comprehensiveness and specificity of commitments related to environmental sustainability across companies within sectors. Most companies have some overarching commitments for reducing environmental impacts but increasing sustainable or plant-based products within portfolios were hardly addressed in the commitments. In general, scores for BIA-Obesity are lower than those for BIA-Sustainability in Belgium. CONCLUSIONS: During the workshop detailed results of these assessments in Belgium will be presented, as well as linkages between BIA-Obesity and BIA-Sustainability and commitments in relation to practices.