Deirdre Ryan
Director of Sustainability and Quality Assurance, Origin Green at Bord Bia
An annual awards event recognises sustainability excellence.
Origin Green, Ireland’s national sustainability programme has awarded 55 food and drink companies Gold Membership in recognition of their industry-leading sustainability ambitions in 2022.
Rewarding efforts
The annual Gold Member event, now in its third year, acknowledges the efforts of companies that have achieved exceptional annual performance on their sustainability targets in areas such as raw material sourcing; water and energy efficiency; waste reduction; packaging; and social sustainability based on the assessment of our independent verification authority, Mabbett.
Since the establishment of the awards in 2020, 130 Irish food and drink companies have been awarded Gold Membership. The annual Gold Member awards highlight the meaningful focus companies are giving to their sustainability efforts in response to the urgency of climate action and the need for sustainable food production.
This year, three companies celebrated their third consecutive year of Gold Membership: Butler’s Chocolates, Norfish Ltd and Slaney Foods Ltd.
The aim of Origin Green and its members is to inspire the entire Irish food and drink industry towards sustainable production.
Striving to be sustainable
Speaking at the awards, Deirdre Ryan, Director of Origin Green and Sustainable Assurance with Bord Bia, says:
“The aim of Origin Green and its members is to inspire the entire Irish food and drink industry towards sustainable production. It gives me great pleasure to announce 55 new Gold Members for 2022. It’s wonderful to see the range of awardees from all areas of the industry this year, as the assessment of Gold Membership allows smaller companies to be recognised alongside large organisations for the strength of their sustainability achievements. Since the inception of the Gold Membership in 2020, it has strengthened the ambition of our members and encouraged Irish food and drink companies to increase their sustainability efforts to differentiate themselves from the competition in the marketplace.”
Measuring national sustainability
Deirdre Ryan says: “Ten years since this world-leading programme was launched, we have held the unique position of being the only sustainability programme, globally, to measure and monitor sustainability across the entire national food supply chain.
“Since the programme’s inception in 2012, we have grown to collaborate with 55,000 farms and over 300 leading Irish food and drink companies to prove and improve their sustainability practices to meet the evolving needs of global customers and consumers.”