ABNB Focus: Adaptation to Climate Change
08.02.2021 – Action Alliance for Sustainable Bananas (ABNB)
The Action Alliance for Sustainable Bananas (ABNB) advocates for a sustainable banana supply chain. In doing so, the ABNB supports sustainability efforts along the three pillars: economic (fair pricing), social (livelihood income) and ecological (adaptation to climate change).
Despite many efforts, and in the shadow of other global challenges such as the Covid 19 pandemic and TR4, climate change remains the sword of Damocles for many areas of agricultural production. The banana supply chain must also adapt to the impacts as well as contribute to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the ABNB members have decided to focus on the issue of climate change adaptation.
The vision of the ABNB is a banana supply chain that is adapted to climate change, produces in an ecologically sustainable way and has no negative economic or social impacts for producers.
The ABNB, together with GIZ, HFFA Research and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), recently published a comprehensive study on the impacts of climate change, particularly in the banana-growing regions of Latin America, which you can find here.
The identified impacts imply that certain measures in production are necessary to be able to produce sustainably. The ABNB will therefore publish a handbook by 2022 that will provide guidance to producers on how to implement climate change adaptation measures and the consequences of these measures.
In addition, the ABNB has conducted an expert survey together with the University of Bonn to prioritise climate change adaptation measures in terms of effectiveness, costs and other effects. The study can be found here.
Based on the scientific evidence and the exchange of experts, 7 measures were identified that are inextricably linked to the goal of adapting production to climate change and reducing the negative impacts of production on the environment (…).