Overview of past and future workshops and events

GRAS proudly introduced the GRAS Tool+, our latest innovation in advanced sustainability analysis, on November 22, 2023. The tool offers multi-language support, expanded global coverage, and innovative features like real-time fire alerts. The webinar had a live demonstration, which was also confirmed by the number of participants, with a total of 160 participants from 29 countries worldwide who were interested in the new features of the tool. Learn more about the event here.

Within the 4C Online Seminar Series 2023 – Sustainable Coffee Days on 19 April 2023, 1:30-3pm CEST, GRAS is presenting Innovative solutions to support companies to fulfil legal obligations from Due Diligence regulations.

GRAS conducts concise country- and sector-specific risk analyses on environmental and social risks, with a customised focus on the human rights risks relevant for the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains. This act came into effect in January 2023 for all companies with a domestic branch and a total number of employees of more than 3000. Within the seminar, GRAS will grant insights on the risk assessment, which has been conducted for the German Coffee Association (DKV).

Further, GRAS will present solutions for the monitoring of deforestation and implement full traceability of products through the supply chains, as required in the future by the EU regulation on deforestation free supply chains. Together with our partner 4C, GRAS provides tools to collect geo-coordinates of production sites, conduct an efficient and effective analysis against deforestation activities for these areas, and pass on the respective information through the entire supply chain.

We are looking forward to the 4C seminar. If you are interested in joining, please follow this link to the 4C website to register for the event.

As other global supply chains, the coffee sector will need to implement reliable, transparent and cost-efficient solutions to monitor deforestation-free supply chains soon, not only to meet the EC objectives of the Deforestation Regulation Proposal, but also to secure a high qualitative and quantitative coffee supply. Besides the threatening of biodiversity, coffee-related deforestation activities increase erosion, disturb natural water cycles and reduce soil productivity, leading to decreased productivity and reduced living income for producers. Stakeholders in the coffee sector, producers, growers, roasters and consumers will benefit from transparent, reliable and cost-efficient monitoring approaches such as provided by GRAS.

Please find more information on the agenda here.

The GRAS Risk Assessment Tool has been presented in the 8th BBE/UFOP-specialist seminar “Sustainability of biofuels”. The European Renewable Energy Directive RED II sets the framework for new fuel generations and will be implemented into German national law in 2022. The new regulations create the need for adjusted and improved verification and monitoring methods of sustainable raw material for CO2-neutral electricity and fuels. The GRAS approaches for the detection of land use and land use changes, including indirect land use change, support companies, governments and non-governmental stakeholders in secure monitoring and verification of respective criteria.

Please find more information about the event and the agenda here.

This session of the 4C Online Seminar Series “Sustainable Coffee Day III” focused on the challenges of biodiversity loss in the coffee production. Deforestation is one of the main drivers for biodiversity loss and needs to be addressed especially in the context of climate change and rising global coffee demand. GRAS uses advanced methods to identify coffee-driven deforestation on different regional levels, up to farm level, using remote sensing technologies. This approach allows the semi-automated identification of areas with a high risk of coffee-related deforestation to conduct focused in-depth detailed assessments of land use change activities and support an efficient monitoring of deforestation-free coffee supply chains.

Please find more information about the agenda and presentations here.

In June 2019, GRAS will be presenting at the Sustainable Foods Summit in Amsterdam. Organised by Ecovia Intelligence, the Sustainable Foods Summit is an international series of summits that focuses on the most recent and relevant sustainability issues of the food industry. The summit takes place each year in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North America.

During the 11th European edition in Amsterdam in June, the newest developments in ingredients, technologies and packaging will be presented. It will be discussed in how far greater traceability can be achieved, how plastic can be replaced by recyclable packaging solutions to close the loops and which new ingredients could help to tackle major food security issues on a global scale.

GRAS will be presenting relevant possibilities of latest remote sensing technologies to map and monitor small- and large-scale farming activities on the ground and hence promote sustainable food value chains from farm to fork.

Photos were taken last year at the Sustainable Foods Summit, 7-8 June 2018, Amsterdam

Source: Sustainable Foods Summit

GRAS will participate at the 4C Global Sustainability Conference on June 6, 2019 in Berlin, to inform about potentials of remote sensing methods for transparent and sustainable coffee supply chains.

The smallholder-dominated structure of the global coffee production system poses special challenges to the monitoring of coffee supply chains. Against this background, Pia Rothe from GRAS will outline possibilities to identify and verify sustainability criteria in the global coffee production and demonstrate how the GRAS approach can help to conduct focused risk assessments for efficient certification preparation, audits and continuous monitoring.

We cordially invite you to meet us at the conference and discuss with us about possibilities to map and monitor sustainability risks within the coffee production system.

Click here for more details about the conference.

We cordially invite you to participate in the next GRAS Webinar, taking place on 2nd May 2019, 05:00 pm (CEST). We will demonstrate, how GRAS can provide practical support to monitor your supply chains, to identify risk hotspots of your supply base and to prepare for sustainability certification. In addition, international case studies will be presented and the main functionalities of the GRAS Tool will be explained. Don’t miss the opportunity to get insights into GRAS methods and services and to ask your questions!

Watch the recording of the Webinar here:

GRAS participated at the first stakeholder workshop of the USDA-NIFA Next-Generation Land Use Change Project and presented methodologies how remote sensing technologies support certification of biofuels and sustainable food, feed and chemicals for European markets and sustainable global supply chains. GRAS uses remote sensing methods to make the preparation, conduction and monitoring of certification processes more efficient, reliable, and effective.

Key remote sensing experts from federal US agencies and important stakeholder groups shared state-of-the-art methodologies in the field of land use change (LUC) and remote sensing, recent advances in LUC data, analysis options, and current research gaps in this field.

The joint initiative of the Northwestern University, Northwestern-Argonne Institute of Science and Engineering, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, aims to develop a defensible, next-generation approach to quantifying and characterizing land use change using survey-based agricultural statistics, remote sensing data, and high-resolution satellite imagery interpreted through machine learning techniques.

The first of three stakeholder workshops took place at the Energy Resources Center of the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC).

In February 2019, GRAS attended the ISCC Global Sustainability Conference in Brussels. Before and after the presentations, GRAS was available for individual talks to confidentially discuss open questions and individual solutions.

The annual ISCC Global Sustainability Conference is a well-established platform for industry and trade representatives, NGO’s, associations, research bodies and authorities. Expert speakers from the European Commission, Member States, as well as business insiders discussed key elements, implementation steps and the impact on different markets. In addition, the conference included forward-thinking talks about the circular and bio-economy, as well as success stories from system users, the increasing importance of sustainable aviation fuels and innovative solutions.

Source: ISCC System GmbH

Dr. Mohammad Abdel-Razek presented at the Sustainable Landscapes Conference of the Innovation Forum on 6 November 2018 in London in the session: Farmers – How can business help provide smallholders with the necessary finance and funding that they need?

Together with representatives of the WWF, Bunge and Olam International, the panel addressed the role of businesses to build resilience in smallholder supply chains and estimate their farming as a profitable business model for the future on the first day of the Sustainable Landscape Conference.

The forum connects the main aspects and players of Land, Forest, Farmers and Livelihoods. Thus, smallholder farmer resilience, deforestation and sustainable agriculture will be discussed including one of the biggest issues faced by business in creating a net positive impact and ensuring sustainable and resilient agricultural supply chains.

For more information visit the website of the Innovation Forum here.

Pia Rothe presented GRAS at the Sustainable Foods Summit 7-8 June 2018 in Amsterdam. The challenges of implementing sustainable and deforestation-free supply chains can be tackled with new innovative and efficient technologies. The presentation underlined the options to use high-resolution satellite images and remote sensing technologies, mobile apps and innovative databases to proof sustainability criteria, support traceability, support certification and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

We cordially invite you to join the free webinar on how to “Implement and Monitor Deforestation-Free Supply Chains” with GRAS, taking place on 13 March 2018, 10:00 am (CET) and 5:00 pm (CET). The webinar will give you an insight on new functionalities of GRAS, outline recent case studies and give the attendants the chance to ask their questions.