The new year is often a time when produce industry businesses set sustainability goals. In this time of ambition and planning, however, the most important thing for companies on a sustainability journey is to set goals that are ambitious but achievable, says Kieran Ficken McNeice, director of sustainability programs for consulting firm Measure to Improve.
“Setting your team up with a set of goals and priorities for sustainability that is achievable for them means that you’ll make a meaningful amount of progress on at least a few of those things instead of making almost no progress on all of them,” she says. “Because everyone is stretched way too thin to be able to do that.”
This time of year is also a great opportunity to take stock of sustainability successes while preparing for the future, says Corrine Carney, director of sustainability solutions for Measure to Improve.
“Do an internal debrief or review what you asked this [past] year,” she says. “How did you do? How did you feel about it, and what do you want to do in the future? Do you want to repeat anything or change anything?”
Measure to Improve offered its own advice on what produce industry businesses should do heading into the new year. Building on that piece, Ficken McNeice and Carney offer some suggestions on what produce industry businesses should do to better prepare for the new year.
Move Beyond the Reporting Season
Carney and Ficken McNeice say it’s important to remember that while sustainability compliance inquiries from retailers and partners would typically happen in the fall, that’s changing. It’s important to look at compliance and reporting as a year-round function.
“Others who are positioning themselves to be better prepared and can see that the frequency of these requests are increasing — they’re scattered throughout the year — are those companies [that] are likely thinking more long term and beginning to plan now for the future,” Carney says.
Both Ficken McNeice and Carney say organizations should also think about what types of information retailers and partners asked for this year, as those are likely an indication of what to expect for the future. McNeice says a good example is extended producer responsibility (EPR) reporting.
“There’s also a number of new regulatory requirements coming up that people haven’t been asked to comply with before,” McNeice says. “They have not had to provide this kind of information in the past, and so especially when you’re dealing with a new request like that, it’s going to take some time to prepare.”
Build the Reporting Foundation
Ficken McNeice says many retailers and buyers follow the same cycle of requesting information around the same time every year, so it’s important to look ahead to the spring and summer to see what kind of changes could be coming in terms of new information requested.
Carney recommends that businesses fielding a new compliance question look at it as building a foundation that can highlight a commitment toward progress on this metric.
“Sometimes you can’t just jump into something with two weeks’ notice and make a whole supply-chainwide change,” she says. “That’s why we tend to recommend people, you know, get started early so they feel a lot more confident and they have put in that work, and they have that effort and that foundation.”
Ficken McNeice says this could be something like a retailer asking about greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Then the following year a retailer could ask about setting a goal to reduce emissions.
“It’s all about showing progress over time,” she says. “No one goes from no reporting to everything in a year, but being able to build year on year on that foundation is key to showing buyers and retailers and other people who are asking for this information that you’re serious about it.”
Another place where produce industry businesses could run into snags along a sustainability journey is trying to tackle all the requests a buyer or retailer might have.
“One of the things we try to do is to kind of narrow in your focus onto some key topics and also start with a more manageable set, like a pilot or a smaller set of data or a smaller scope, and then expand over time so that you feel confident you can grow on that,” Carney says.
The other risk, Ficken McNeice says, is that an organization could accidentally over- or under-report some of the metrics and then have to either walk back some progress or account for a change in numbers.
“So, keeping in mind that you are going to have to continue to answer these questions, [make] sure that you don’t stretch yourself too far and then give an answer that later on isn’t really representative of the work that you’re doing,” she says.
Carney says a good example of this is the changes that Walmart made to its Project Gigaton reporting in 2025. She says this year, produce industry businesses just had to accept the Project Gigaton action plan on a topic like integrated pest management, for example.
“Then next year, theoretically, if they were to ask, ‘What have you done in these areas?’” Carney says. “You may have overpromised or been really optimistic as you were accepting those ... ; you might find yourself in a precarious position.”
Meet the Buyer’s Bottom Line
Ficken McNeice says it’s also important to remember that retailers and buyers have metrics and goals, too.
For example, some retailers set a goal of offering 100% Integrated Pest Management-certified products; while those retailers and buyers made progress, thanks to growers and other fresh produce businesses, it may not have hit the mark. She says it’s important to think about sustainability goals in a broader scope: Did it help a retailer reach a target?
“We are seeing more and more retailers asking to follow up on responses, to follow up on reporting that companies have done,” she says. “Maybe you felt good about your reporting, and then you got an email from your buyer asking for a little bit more information about something that you put down ... and if you’re prepared, then that’s doable. And if you guessed, it might not be super doable.”
Ficken McNeice says this sustainability self-reporting is following a similar trajectory to food safety reporting, where it went from good practices in place to collecting good metrics to successful audits to certifications.
“All of those things are more work, but they are more assurance for a buyer that you are doing the things that you say you’re doing and that they’re asking you to do,” she says. “That’s very much the trend, whether we are talking about IPM, whether we are talking about greenhouse gas emissions or something else.”
