Lionel Hitchen launches sustainability report in partnership with University of Southampton
Flavour supplier Lionel Hitchen have published their first Sustainability Report in the partnership with Southampton Business School.
The family-run business based in Andover, which supplies flavours and flavour ingredients to the food and beverage industry, compiled the report in partnership with the Southampton Business School (SBS), who are training their BSc and MSc Accounting and Finance students on how to produce sustainability reports.
The training was facilitated by Dr Lakshi Doorgakunt, Dr Jatin Pancholi and Dr Renata Konadu of University of Southampton Business School, and supported by Lionel Hitchen's Technical Director Helen McNair.
Dr Renata Konadu and the project's Principal Investigator, Professor Ven Tauringana met Helen McNair and Fran Padgham, Marketing Manager at Lionel Hitchen’s offices in Andover, where they were presented with copies of the report to take back and show their students. (pictured above)
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Eva Agnew, CEO at Lionel Hitchen, said: “Sustainability has been on our minds for many years, but this is the first time that we are reporting on our activities and commitments. It is a subject that we have been growing increasingly passionate about and it is now at the forefront of everything we do, our values and our decisions. We are a family-owned business, and we want to ensure we will be securing a sustainable business for all future generations of the Hitchen family.”
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability standards were adopted to prepare the report, a framework which is based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). These standards enable any organisation to report in a comparable and credible way, thereby increasing transparency on their contribution to sustainable development.
Lionel Hitchen's Technical Director, Helen McNair said: “The support from the team at the University of Southampton has been crucial in creating this report through a very structured process; we acted as the ‘guinea pigs’ for the process which the students will use to support other small-medium enterprises in the region.
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"Using the internationally recognised standards will help us drive continuous improvement around sustainability where we can have real impact.
"This report demonstrates to all our stakeholders we are serious about sustainability and give us an opportunity to talk about all the great work that we have been doing around this subject.”
