GMA Presents with USDEC’s Nick Gardner: COP27 - Sector Engagement
Last week, Nick shared with GMA Presents best practices for engaging in COP27 and why it is so important. Read to see how your organisation can be involved with the conference in Egypt, engage with government, and positively promote industry.
Food and nutrition security shapes to be a key focus of COP27, and while it is still unclear if that will result in a positive outcome from the conference for the global meat sector, it’s obvious it must be part of our industry’s strategy moving forward.
Just four months remain until the start of COP27, and it is critical the global meat sector is engaged with conversations because at the conference will be the policy- and decision-makers who so significantly shape the livestock industry.
GMA is working to ensure that industry is ‘singing from the same song sheet’ to maximise the reach of our united voice.
Please, if you haven’t got them already, get in touch to start using our shared resources, which includes a suite of:
Key messages; in a pre-competitive, global space
Social assets
Media engagement resources
We will continue to develop these resources and ensure industry is best positioned to have its position heard at COP27, its preceding and side events, and the ensuing fallout.
To help aid this, GMA engaged Nick Gardner, Senior Vice President of Sustainability and Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. Dairy Export Council, to provide insights and expertise at our GMA Presents.
Nick Gardner, Senior Vice President at U.S. Dairy Export Council
While the sector has made giants strides in sustainability, Nick believes the view at the conference is that the global meat sector has a lot of work to do on climate crisis front.
“We are going to see increasing pressure on animal proteins and livestock,” Nick said.
“[But] despite all of our challenges, it’s worth being involved… COP is, at the very least, an opportunity to message and hats off to GMA for getting out those talking points and encouraging that media engagement. That’s what I would say is a minimum of what we need to do within the livestock sector and there’s much more we can do.”
“When we don’t show up, our opponents tell our story”
- Nick Gardner
But, if you haven’t been, what is COP and who are the 20-25,000 people attending? Nick says, it is really three meetings in one:
Treaty negotiations
Ministerial meetings
Gathering of organisations working to reduce climate impact
To be held from 7-18 November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Nick believes these logistics alone will have a major influence on what is discussed and the outcomes of COP27.
“Egypt is not the most logistically simple country in the world. Even when COP26 was in Scotland, you had a lot of complex travel issues,” Nick said.
“What we’re seeing in countries around the world in terms of political unrest, famine, hunger, significant reductions in productivity of harvests, I think food and nutrition security are going to be hot topics, wildcards if you will, for COP27.”
COP has traditionally been a platform to launch initiatives, “a watershed moment in time for the launch of high level commitments”, and 2022 will be no different.
It is expected that Food and Agriculture Towards a Sustainable Transformation (FAST) will be launched by the Egyptian Presidency. For more information, please get in touch.
This could present an opportunity for the sector to remind decision-makers of the value of meat in food security, especially when considering it could be argued industry is playing COP-catch up, which Nick now laments, as food and agriculture has increasingly come into focus.
“We been engaging in COP directly over the last five years, but we probably needed to be there 15 years ago because frankly, when we got there, our opponents already occupied a lot of the ground,” Nick said.
“When we don’t show up, our opponents tell our story.”
“We really need to remain in contact, we need to look for ways to share intelligence and we need to continue working together”
- Nick Gardner
Positively, from COP26, agriculture was identified as part of the solution for tackling the climate crisis. Flowing into COP27 from that, livestock will be in focus on the ‘Adaptation and Agriculture Day’ on 10 November 2022, and Nick recommends focusing your organisation’s strategy on the theme of adaptation.
Nick also encourages interested stakeholders to map out your network to understand who is attending and how this presents opportunities to leverage key messaging, to coordinate messaging and and media engagement during COP27 and start building a strategy for COP28.
“Other sectors are very successful at COP, they are incredibly well networked, they are incredible collaborative, they share everything among themselves and that has made them highly effective.
“We really need to remain in contact, we need to look for ways to share intelligence and we need to continue working together… We have to be nimble and we have to be prepared.”
Moving forward, Nick says planning is key.
“It’s not too late to have a presence at COP27, but it’s going to be easier for you to build out that programming and that engagement strategy now for COP28.”
If you do want to attend COP28 in the UAE, please note that Wednesday, 31st August 2022 is the deadline for accreditation.
USDEC will also be hosting an (unofficial) reception dinner on 10 November - around the same day that agriculture will be featured on the ‘Adaptation and Agriculture Day’. If you’d like to get involved and take advantage of fantastic networking opportunities and the chance to promote initiatives, then get in touch with Nick.
About Nick
Nick is responsible for managing USDEC’s sustainability portfolio and developing and implementing strategic programming that support science and evidence-based UN policy development and international standard setting. He also supports USDEC engagement with the Net Zero Initiative, a partnership of the U.S. dairy community seeking to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions, optimize water usage and improve water quality on farms. Collaborative work with the U.S. government, key organizations, and global thought leaders to ensure U.S. dairy is accurately represented in global discussions and convenings rounds out his portfolio.
Nick is a cleared advisor for the U.S. Department of Commerce, an active member of the International Dairy Federation, and leads the Food Industry Codex Coalition, a group of more than 70 food, beverage and agriculture trade associations and companies that collaborate with the goal of advancing science-based standards around the world.
Prior to joining USDEC, Nick was Director of Global Strategies at the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) where he oversaw GMA’s trade policy, standard setting activities and multilateral engagement. He has also worked with several other food industry trade associations representing numerous companies producing food additives, formulated nutrition products and other packaged food products. Nick began his career working in the offices of two Members of the U.S. Congress. He holds a master’s degree from American University and a bachelors from Franklin and Marshall College. Nick lives on a small farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where he employs no-till and cover cropping to produce corn and soybeans.