AgriVision 2013: The shared value in an era of constrained resources

At the seventh AgriVision conference, the world's foremost authority on strategy, competition and competitive advantage, Professor Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School explained the concept of shared value and he showed how companies need to go beyond corporate social responsibility to understand their role in society.

The principle of shared value involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. A host of factors, such as the scarcity of natural resources, will drive unprecedented opportunities to create shared value. Michael Porter: "The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy."

While corporate social responsibility programmes focus mostly on reputation and have only a limited connection to business, shared value is integral to a company's profitability and competitive position. Shared value offers major opportunities in the animal nutrition industry to innovate and grow while contributing to one of the world's most important human needs.

Knut Nesse, Nutreco CEO, "We are very pleased that Michael Porter explains the concept of shared value creation to key stakeholders in international feed-to-food chains here at AgriVision. In a world with limited natural resources and a growing population, there is a rising demand for high quality animal and fish proteins. At Nutreco, we aim to create shared value by providing innovative and sustainable nutritional solutions that best support the performance of farmed animals and fish. At this AgriVision we want to stimulate and inspire stakeholders in the agri-business to go beyond corporate social responsibility and embrace the concept of shared value creation."

AgriVision 2013, organised by Nutreco from 18 - 20 June, identifies enabling factors and opportunities between a broad spectrum of key stakeholders in the agri-business value chains. 'Feeding the future' is Nutreco's mission and AgriVision explores ways to sustainably feed generations to come.

The global population is growing in number and income; many more people expect to eat more and animal proteins, such as meat, milk, fish and eggs, rank high on their list of preferences. Numbers are predicted to stabilise at around 9 billion people by 2050. Can the world produce enough food and keep on producing that food year after year without jeopardising the environment? What must we do in order to double our food production while halving our footprint?

The AgriVision conference looks at how to provide more food from less of the world's resources through more efficient and sustainable extraction, conversion and use. Shared value can play a role in this.
AgriVision 2013 is organised by Nutreco and sponsored by Evonik, DuPont and Rabobank.

English: Harvard Business School Baker Library 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)