Founder of the circular economy charity the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Dame Ellen MacArthur, will be speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC) on Friday 7 January in a session entitled, Navigating to a Nature Positive Food System.
Known for making history in 2005 when she became the fastest solo sailor to circumnavigate the globe, she remains the UK’s most successful offshore racer ever.
Dame Ellen will be in conversation with OFC Co-Chair Sarah Mukherjee MBE about her journey from world-class sailor, to the founding of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and its mission to accelerate the transition to a circular economy designed to eliminate waste, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature.
Earlier this year the Foundation launched the Big Food Redesign which looks at how food brands and retailers can make nature-positive food the norm. It sets out how, by rethinking the ingredients they use and how they’re produced, they can provide choices that are better for customers, better for farmers, and better for the climate and biodiversity
Commenting on her topic at the Oxford Farming Conference, Dame Ellen said: “With 45% of GHG emissions and 90% of biodiversity loss coming from the way we make and use things, including food, we need solutions that can be scaled fast. The circular economy gives us a framework to redesign and transform our food system into one that is nature-positive.
“Food companies and retailers embracing circular design for food to rethink their ingredient selection and sourcing decisions will afford farmers the opportunity to increase yields and profitability, reduce GHGs and biodiversity loss, and create resilience against the effects of climate change.”
Dame Ellen is a World Economic Forum Global Agenda Trustee for Environment and Natural Resource Security and sat on the European Commission’s Resource Efficiency Platform between 2012 and 2014.
“The Oxford Farming Conference prides itself on delivering innovative sessions and outstanding speakers who deliver the conference’s mission to inform, challenge and inspire our delegates,” added Sarah Mukherjee.
“Dame Ellen MacArthur epitomizes a thought-leader who is influencing change at a crucial time for agriculture and food systems, when climate, the environment and the supply chain are at the forefront of every agrifood business.”
