• In its second annual meeting, the Sustainable Food Systems initiative - led by Forética and composed of 19 companies and organizations - has analyzed the impact for the food sector of the so-called 'greenwashing' and the importance of creating value for all links in the food chain.

The Sustainable Food Systems initiative -a sectoral work platform led by Forética and promoted by Grupo Cooperativo Cajamar, with the leadership of Grupo Calvo, Grupo Lactalis, HEINEKEN and Nestlé, and composed of 19 companies and organizations- addresses two major challenges facing the food sector. On the one hand, the so-called 'greenwashing', which consists of making inaccurate (or even false) claims about the ecological properties of products or services in order to attract the consumer's attention. On the other hand, the trade-offs or opportunity costs of prioritizing one aspect over another along the value chain of companies and the importance of value creation for all links in the chain.

The European Commission estimates that within the EU 53% of green claims provide vague, misleading or unsubstantiated information and that 40% of messages are not supported by evidence. Greenwashing is therefore one of the issues of greatest concern not only to committed consumers, but also to a large number of companies that want to provide sustainability information on their products.

In response to this situation, the Commission has communicated in March 2023 a new proposal for a Directive on Green Claims, which complements the March 2022 proposal for a Directive on Consumer Empowerment in the Green Transition. The Directive consists of a series of measures to ensure that consumers are correctly informed about the qualities of the products and services they purchase and to enable them to verify this information.

On the other hand, in the food sector there are opportunity costs in matters such as sustainability, price, nutrition, local production versus international trade, among others. The 'Observatory on the Spanish agri-food sector in the European context', recently published by Grupo Cooperativo Cajamar, shows some data in this regard as, in Spain, although the productivity of agriculture is 32% higher than the average of the European Union, the labor cost in our country is 26% below the average.

The second annual meeting of Sustainable Food Systems has had the participation of Alicia Boyano, policy officer of the Directorate General for the Environment of the European Commission, who explained the new European regulation on 'greenwashing' and the impacts it will have for companies. In addition, the companies that are part of the initiative have provided their views on the challenge of greenwashing for the sector and the opportunity costs they face, as well as the measures to address them. All this with the aim of defining, together with representatives of the food value chain, the keys and solutions for the transition to a sustainable food system by 2050.

The Sustainable Food Systems initiative, promoted by Forética, aims to contribute to the sustainable transformation of the sector, based on the leadership of companies to increase ambition, accelerate action and strengthen the necessary alliances. In 2023, it is driven by Grupo Cooperativo Cajamar with the leadership of Grupo Calvo, Grupo Lactalis, HEINEKEN and Nestlé, and is composed, in turn, of the following companies and organizations: Alltech, Bayer, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Dia, Ebro, Fairtrade Ibérica, Gullón, Iberostar, IBM, ILUNION, SEO/BirdLife, Smurfit Kappa, Suntory and World Vision International.