The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare has launched a consultation on the criteria that it will use to evaluate farm animal welfare management practices

There is growing investor interest in how companies in the food sector – retailers, service providers, manufacturers and producers – manage farm animal welfare.

There are a number of compelling reasons for this interest. There is a cost associated with regulation; there are opportunities presented by consumer demand for higher welfare products; and reputational damage has been incurred by companies whose standards and practices have fallen short of the expectations of NGOs and other stakeholders concerned about farm animal welfare.

Yet, to date, there has been relatively little discussion between investors and companies on this issue. This reflects the lack of consensus on how companies should manage farm animal welfare-related issues and the difficulties in differentiating between those companies that do a good job on farm animal welfare and those that do not,

The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) – an initiative funded by two of the world’s largest animal welfare NGOs, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals – has been established to help address this impasse.

The centrepiece of BBFAW’s work will be a global benchmark of how major food companies are managing farm animal welfare issues in their businesses and in their supply chain. The results of the first iteration of the benchmark will be issued in late 2012, and the benchmark will subsequently be repeated on an annual basis.

The criteria

The criteria that BBFAW proposes using as the basis for the benchmark has been developed by a technical working group comprising experts on food business and animal welfare.

In broad terms, company performance will be evaluated in three main areas: policy, governance and management, and leadership and innovation.

Policy questions will centre on companies’ views on critical animal welfare measures (eg the avoidance of close confinement, long distance live transportation), with a particular focus on the scope of these commitments (ie the range of animal species covered, the geographic coverage and the range of products covered).

Governance and management questions will consider the level of senior management engagement with farm animal welfare issues, the quality of the objectives and targets that are being set, company performance against these targets, and the quality of reporting on farm animal welfare performance.

Finally, leadership and innovation questions will consider the wider contribution that companies are making to raising farm animal welfare standards through activities such as investing in research and development projects to improve farm animal welfare and contributing constructively to public policy debates on the issue.

The assessment of company performance will be based on information published by the company (eg on corporate websites and in publications such as CR and annual reports).

The consultation

The consultation seeks specific feedback on:

  • whether the proposed criteria adequately reflect the key issues and concerns of stakeholders concerning the farm animal welfare practices of food businesses;
  • the practicalities of expecting companies to disclose this sort of information on their farm animal welfare practices;
  • whether the information requested is likely to be useful in assessing the performance of food businesses on their animal welfare practices; and
  • whether the scores and weighting appropriately represent the most important factors in farm animal welfare management.

The consultation runs up to 13 July 2012. Comment or feedback can be sent to Nicky Amos, programme director, BBFAW.

A short summary of the feedback received and of the changes made to the criteria will be posted on the BBFAW website in August 2012.

Nicky Amos is the project director of the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare. She has over 20 years’ experience in managing and directing corporate responsibility in global companies, including The Body Shop International. 

Dr Rory Sullivan is an expert adviser to the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare.  He is an internationally recognised expert on corporate responsibility, climate change and investment-related issues. He is strategic adviser, Ethix SRI Advisers, a senior research fellow at the University of Leeds and a member of the Ethical Corporation advisory board. 



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