Insights from industry leaders, Volume 2: Bertel Haugen, Head of Innovation and Sustainability at Rude Health
For the second instalment in the Sustainability Spotlight series, I met up with Bertel Haugen, Head of Innovation and Sustainability at Rude Health at the Rude Health Café. A passionate and inspiring speaker, Bertel’s career arrived at sustainability through an appreciation of organic food, having grown up on a farm. Bertel highlighted some of the key issues for sustainability in the food and beverages sector and also shares some thoughts on how to pursue a career in sustainability.
What’s one thing you want people to know about sustainability at Rude Health?
“Being a Certified B Corp organization means that when we speak about the labels and terminology that have come about in the last few years, those things are already at the heart of how Rude Health operates. Sustainability is a fundamental part of everyone’s role here and the focus on organic food means topics like biodiversity have always been fundamental.”
What are the biggest challenges for sustainability in your sector?
“The biggest challenge is actually calculating the emissions within agriculture and it’s not black and white. Growing the ingredients is often the most emissions intensive part of the process and it’s the least quantifiable. SBTi have only just released the FLAG standards which start to look at these emissions. Packaging becomes a bit of a red herring given the proportion of emissions it’s responsible for”
What is one thing you’d like to see happen in this space this year?
“More of the same! From a global perspective, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions are the main issues and we need to make sure these continue to decrease. Biodiversity is really important too and contributes to greenhouse gas emission reductions anyway so it’s good to see that being spoken about more. I was disappointed to see very little conversation around oils and gas at COP, it felt like everyone was focused on coal so reduction of these would be good. It would also be great if people knew more about how food is grown, from what organic food really entails to fertiliser use, pesticides and soil degradation. Businesses and government have a role to play in educating the public and consumers about the choices they can make and about regenerative farming practices too.”
What is one piece of advice you’d give someone starting a career in sustainability?
“You don’t need to start a new role to have an impact, you can make a difference in any role. Every organization needs sustainability advocates and you already have the transferrable skills that let you make a difference. Sustainability jobs aren’t necessarily a thing, every job should involve sustainability.”
More Sustainability Spotlight interviews
You can read last weeks interview with Gabrielle Ginér, Head of Environmental Sustainability at BT Group here.
Stay tuned for next week: Volume 3 with Evri.
If you would like to be featured in one of our spotlights please contact Amy.Hayward, Amy.hayward@iac-recruit.com.