Greetings from the GMA Executive Conference
The Siemens team is here in beautiful Colorado Springs at the GMA Executive Conference. The past few days have provided excellent opportunities to speak with the industry leaders in food & beverage, and hear some great insights on topics such as food safety, value chain collaboration, leveraging emerging technologies like social media and mobility to engage customers, and sustainability.
Siemens Corporation CEO Eric Spiegel moderated today’s panel discussion on sustainability strategies – a lively, varied conversation among a retailer (Kroger), a manufacturer, and a water industry EPC. Dave Dillon, CEO of Kroger, Greg Page, CEO of Cargill, Lee McIntire, CEO of CH2M Hill all spoke to their sustainability strategies as noted in previous posts (see http://blog.industrysoftware.automation.siemens.com/?s=gma). The topics of innovation (how can sustainbility innovation do good for the world, and drive business), minimizing impact (meeting the needs of feeding 9 Billion people while not compromising the environment) renewable packaging (because of the tremendous positive affects on the environment downstream), CO2 emissions (the Carbon Disclosure Project a focus for Kroger and Cargill now), improving production efficiencies (using less energy to produce the same product), and water conservation (wastewater pre-treatment, water reuse) were all big topics of conversation.
As far as key takeaways of the event: Dave Dillon from Kroger cited looking at the totality of your sustainability impact and the need for supply chain transparency, Greg Page of Cargill talked the importance of working in an interdependant world where business and government need to work together to solve the world’s sustainability problems, Lee McIntire of CH2M Hill cited the challenge of meeting the food needs of the world in an efficient way that conserves water and energy. Eric Spiegel of Siemens wrapped up with reiterating the importance of water conservation, as well as improving production plant efficiency, and waste reduction. You can learn more about sustainability solutions from Siemens, including our 2011 US and Canada Green City index, at this special GMA Executive Conference microsite.
