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Burgess COMMENTARY | ||
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About us We all need to eat, but we face huge challenges to the ways we produce our food. Challenges that will affect everyone. There are over 7 billion people on this planet, and 200-thousand more hungry mouths are being born, every day. Yet our ability to produce food is being threatened. There is a very real possibility that there will not be enough to eat in the future. We have to get involved and challenge the threats of climate change, decreasing oil supplies, and eco-system collapse. Our current food systems are destroying biodiversity and our environment. Whilst millions of people in developing countries starve, Westernised countries are developing life-threatening illnesses like obesity and diabetes. There are no simple solutions to these challenges, but as a society we must be engaged. The conversation about how we resolve these issues, the kinds of food we want to have access to, and the kinds of communities we want to live in, is fundamental to our future development. As citizens, our decisions about how and what we eat matter more now, than ever before. We are all in a position to influence a change. At the Sustainable Food Trust, we are committed to facing challenges and exploring solutions for a food production system that causes the least possible harm to both humans and the environment. We believe in the principles of good science and advocate for research that creates a deeper understanding of the complexity of our natural environments. We work to commission and share the findings of high quality, peer-reviewed research, and aim to communicate complex scientific messages in open and accessible ways. Everyone should have access to information and resources, and we encourage collaboration between all those who take an interest in food – from farmers and citizens, to heads of industry and policy makers. The key principles for sustainable food systems are that they should: Optimise the production of high quality safe food Minimise the use of non-renewable external inputs Maintain and build soil fertility Enhance food security and a high degree of resilience against external shocks Support plant and animal diversity and animal welfare Minimise environmental pollution Promote public health As a planet, we have never faced the scale of crisis that we do now. Time is not on our side. If we are to transform our food systems so that the maximum amount of people can eat nutritious food produced in a healthy way, we need to work together, share ideas, pool resources and connect as part of a global food movement. Every voice counts. Join us.
Gmail Peter Burgess
Dear Colleagues
I was excited to find a message somewhere in the flood of incoming information flow that made reference to True Cost Accounting.
But after that I have been disappointed to find little of substance about True Cost Accounting easily accessible through your organization.
Maybe it is simply because I am not very good at navigation ... or maybe the fact is that the idea is a very good one, but really nothing very much has been done about it.
I have done my fair share of ordinary corporate cost accounting and management accounting in my career and I do not need to be convinced of the power of numbers to change behavior.
I have also witnessed the results of failure in all sorts of socio-emviro-economic situations from famine and drought, the post war refugees and rebuilding, to health system failure and spread of killer diseases. These are all the result of a global socio-enviro-economic system where the incentives have increasingly become those that deliver short term profit and long term disaster.
I argue that incentives change when the measuring system changes ... and I therefore argue for true cost accounting. In my version of this I call it a true value system and I refer to the specific system as Multi Dimension Impact Accounting.
I have sorted out the basic data architecture that is needed ... and am now struggling with the process of quantification of everything that matters. As an old cost accountant, I see the answer to this to be using something akin to standard costs, but in this case also standard values. When we start to optimize decisions based on the value add in such a multi dimension system versus the profit in the conventional for profit only business organization focused system, all sorts of changes are going to happen and they will happen fast.
But the numbers have to exist and be widely used. Talk is just talk. It is numbers that enable the walk.
Peter Burgess
Contact us
The Sustainable Food Trust is a small organisation with a team that works from a variety of different locations.
The best way to reach us is by email: info@sustainablefoodtrust.org
We always love to get things in the post. So if you do want to send us anything, our address is:
Sustainable Food Trust
You can also contact us by telephone on +44 (0) 117 987 1467
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