Valuing the SDG prize in food and agriculture: unlocking business opportunities to accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth
Just ahead of World Food Day 2016 (Oct 16), companies are being told they could unlock US$2.3 trillion a year in food and agriculture sectors by 2030 if they investment in sustainability. New research from the Business and Sustainable Development Commission shows sustainable business models could also generate 80 million jobs by unlocking opportunities across 14 areas, including food waste, low-income markets, aquaculture, farm technology, micro-irrigation, product reformulation, restoring land and forests, cattle intensification, changing diets, reducing package waste and urban agriculture. Its new report, Valuing the SDG Prize in Food & Agriculture, estimates a range of value for each opportunity; the lowest in the range is US$15 billion per year (for cattle intensification) while the highest goes up to US$405 billion per year (for reducing food waste across the production process, or value chain). The report estimates that 90 percent of new job creation would be in developing countries, including 21 million in Africa and more than 49 million in Asia, with a further breakdown of 22 million in India, 12 million in China, and the remaining 15 million in developing Asia. There could also be an additional 5 million new jobs in Latin America.