How SB+CO Used Nala’s Platform to Support a Global Food Company to Build Resilience against Nature Risks
Nala partnered with SB+CO - a boutique sustainability consultancy - to support a leading food company to identify water-related risks in the global supply chain for its UK & Ireland business. Nala’s platform delivered actionable insights, highlighting material impacts, dependencies and risks, supporting the company to develop a detailed action plan to build resilience against water scarcity and water pollution, whilst ensuring alignment with emerging nature regulations & frameworks.
The Challenge:
SB+CO was tasked with helping the global food company navigate the complexities of water risks, including physical risks like water scarcity, and changing transition risks from evolving regulations. With thousands of sites spanning diverse geographies, they needed robust tools to assess impacts & dependencies across land, water, and biodiversity in a comparable, rigorous manner.
Traditional methods of analysis using individual tools were time-intensive and lacked the scalability required for such a complex supply chain. Alignment with leading frameworks like the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) was essential.
The Solution:
Nala’s nature risk and reporting platform enabled SB+CO to rapidly reach actionable and practical insights. By integrating geospatial data and framework-aligned metrics, the platform enabled a quick and useful evaluation of impacts and dependencies across the entire supply chain.
A key revelation? Water scarcity risks were unexpectedly higher in the fresh produce segment compared to animal products, challenging assumptions and highlighting opportunities for further analysis deeper in their complex supply chain.
Armed with this insight, the client could prioritise engagement with suppliers in high-risk areas, implementing measures like water stewardship programs and resilient sourcing strategies to build long-term operational stability. This is particularly critical as this spring was the driest on record in England in more than 100 years, and this June was the warmest on record, which will result in lower yields. These insights streamlined SB+CO's advisory process and empowered the client to consider the next steps required to continue building resilience.
Shoutout to the Lorna Davies, Megan Leeder, and Nick Wyver at SB+CO for their partnership on this project! Follow their LinkedIn accounts for excellent and distinctive sustainability insights.
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