Viability possible for agribusiness in sustainability transition

Mr Allison, who is also the managing director at Elders, was the guest speaker at an AA event in Adelaide last week, where he outlined some of the findings from the recently-released report 'Changing Community Expectations - implications and strategies for the Australian agribusiness industry'.

"Previously the industry didn't have anything that assessed the points of difference between community and industry expectations when it came to the sector's growth and sustainability," he said.

"This report provides some of those facts, which we hope the industry takes something away from."

Mr Allison said what struck him about the findings was that the agribusiness industry basically had the same concerns and desires as the broader community when it came to these challenges.

"The main difference was the timeline," he said.

"The broader community want that transition now, because they don't have skin in the game. While agribusiness wants to be practical, long standing and commercially viable with any transition - the drivers are exactly the same though.

"Yes we have animal activists with alarmist views on one fringe and agricultural people that just want to make money and don't really care about their environment on the other fringe, but they are right at the edges.

"The middle ground is much larger than people may realise and has shared views. It highlights that it is possible to make changes for the better, while still remaining commercially viable."

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But, Mr Allison said community expectations of agribusiness were mounting, so the sector needed to "increasingly engage with the Australian community and adopt new and innovative ways to validate its social licence to operate".

"The Australian agribusiness industry...is making encouraging progress towards their objectives, but the process is just the beginning," the report said.

"Achieving sustainability is a constant work in progress, and a virtuous cycle that rewards progress.

"A cycle in which the industry's ability to produce the products that society demands of it in a sustainable manner will ultimately govern its ability to avoid excessive regulatory costs and burdens, to maintain efficient access to vital resources, and to access the high-value markets and customers that will be critical to a prosperous future."

Mr Allison said for the past 182 years, Elders had undertaken a "significant" amount of work in rural and regional Australia when it came to sustainable practices, but it never had an official department set-up to showcase or benchmark these efforts.

"We had external people help us initially on what was best practice, but we really wanted it to be authentic," he said.

So 18 months ago, Elders established its own Sustainability Team, tasked with documenting the progress the company had made already and recommendations for the future.

They released their first sustainability report at the Elders annual general meeting in December, which highlighted achievements such as more than $1.51 million in donations and sponsorships; zero employees stood down due to COVID-19; and the launch of a new work health and safety system.

It also set a better diversity strategy for the coming 12 months, and talked of investigating further specific climate-related risks and opportunities for the business, plus reducing energy use and emissions.