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home >> charity search >> sustainable food trust
Finance Score: 5
Governance Score: 9
Support Score: 12
  • Good reserves management: +3
  • Strong growth: +2
  • Good trustee age range: +3
  • Dynamic board: +3
  • Gender balanced board: +3
  • Overall weighted support: +12
Overall GiG Score: 26 ?

SUSTAINABLE FOOD TRUST

Overview

The mission of the Sustainable Food Trust is to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable food systems. Rather than replicating the work of other organisations, they work as a catalyst on an international scale to build partnerships with individuals and organisations in leadership positions that help unlock the barriers to change.

A major project that has received international attention is their Global Farm Metric, a harmonised measure of on-farm sustainability used by land-managers to monitor their impacts on the environment and inform sustainable decision making. They hope to reach an international agreement, either voluntary or more formally, between governments on the adoption of their harmonised framework and to include it in negotiation talks at events such as the UN Climate Change Conference and Food Systems Summit. Conversations are ongoing with universities and farming groups overseas to conduct trials of the tool.

Source: Giving is Great

Mission:

We work to accelerate the transition to more sustainable food and farming systems that nourish the health of both people and planet.
Analysis by Giving is Great

Positives:

  • The charity has received backing from multiple prominent grant makers recently
  • Reserves management has been consistently within official guidelines
  • There has been strong growth in spending over the last 5 years
  • There have been no material income shortfalls in recent years
  • The Board appears to be well diversified in terms of age and gender and dynamic in terms of composition

Regulatory & Governance issues to consider:

  • One or more trustees receive payments or benefits from the charity for providing services to the charity

Financial Data ?

Income & Spending ?
Sources of Income ?
Y/E Income
£k		 Spending
£k		 Surplus/
Deficit £k		 Fundraising
Cost £k		 Total
Funds £k		 Unrestricted
Funds £k		 Mths
Rsrvs		 Staff Volun-
teers
31/03/23£2,154£1,826£327£0£1,051£6154228
31/03/22£1,574£1,517£57£0£724£5404.3158
31/03/21£952£916£36£0£667£3514.61410
31/03/20£919£819£100£0£631£34051110
31/03/19£721£743£-22£0£531£2954.8100
31/03/18*£743£738£5£0£553£2634.380
31/03/17*£678£624£54£0£548£2364.590
31/03/16*£802£619£182£0£394£207490
31/03/15£635£553£83£4£212£992.160
31/03/14£636£553£83£5£129£631.460
31/03/13£417£396£21n/an/an/an/an/an/a
Show more rows -->

Download accounts
Financial Ratios
Fundraising Costs/Relevant Income: 0%
Fundraising Costs/Total Spending: 0%
Senior Staff Costs/Total Spending: 30%
Highest pay band: £110,000-£120,000
Liabilities/Assets: 30%
Liabilities/Income: 21%
Unrestricted Funds/Total Funds: 59%
Reserves/Spending: 4 months
Net Current Assets/Spending: 7 months
Quick Ratio: 1.6
Asset Split ?
Balance Sheet History
Established: 12 years

WWW.SUSTAINABLEFOODTRUST.ORG

info@sustainablefoodtrust.org

0117 9871467

Charity Commission for England and WalesCompanies HouseFacebookInstagramX
UN SDGs
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How you can help
What it does
The Sustainable Food Trust enables a transition to more sustainable food systems by working catalytically and collaboratively, through a combination of high-level lobbying, coalition building, public campaigning, education and media networking. This is based on three key pillars of work – policy advocacy, measuring and valuing sustainability and public awareness raising.
Listed activities
  • Education/Training
  • The Advancement Of Health Or Saving Of Lives
GiG Classification
  • Environment conservation & animal welfare advocacy
How it operates
  • Acts as an umbrella or resource body
  • Provides advocacy/advice/information
  • Sponsors or undertakes research
Where it operates
  • Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Guernsey, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Romania, Scotland, South Korea, Sweden, Throughout England And Wales, Turkey, United States, Zimbabwe,
Who it helps
  • Other Charities Or Voluntary Bodies
  • The General Public/Mankind

Who supports them? ?

Donations from Grant Makers ?

We have details on the following donations. Multi-year donations are allocated to the years for which they are earmarked.

Major supporters in last 5 years
Esmee Fairbairn£550,000
Prudence Trust£400,000
CHK Foundation£155,000
Garfield Weston Foundation£150,000
John Ellerman Foundation£75,000
Specific Donations
Amount When
Months		 To be used for
Prudence Trust - Strategy advisor to support global advocacy for regenerative agriculture
£200,000 13/06/2023
Strategy advisor to support global advocacy for regenerative agriculture
Rothschild Foundation - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£10,000 01/03/2023
Cost of living supplementary grant
Esmee Fairbairn - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£50,000 30/01/2023
Towards unrestricted core costs as a Cost of Living Uplift
John Ellerman Foundation - Core costs (policy advocacy and public awareness raising work)
£75,000 24/11/2022
Core costs (policy advocacy and public awareness raising work)
CHK Foundation - CHK Discretionary Grant
£150,000 12/10/2022
to support specified work
The EQ Foundation - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£10,000 16/05/2022
Big Give Green Match
Esmee Fairbairn - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£500,000 26/04/2022
36
Towards project costs associated with SFT's Global Farm Metric - a common framework for measuring and reporting on-farm sustainability
Prudence Trust - Global Farm Metric
£200,000 10/06/2021
Global Farm Metric (unrestricted grant to support the work of the secretariat and working groups, etc)
CHK Foundation - CHK Discretionary Grant
£5,000 25/02/2021
unrestricted, to further the Charitable Objects
Garfield Weston Foundation - Multi-Year Grant (2 Years) award
£150,000 27/03/2020
24
The Harmony Project (Restricted)
Esmee Fairbairn - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£300,000 06/11/2018
36
Towards the costs associated with work that will inform and support the transition to more sustainable forms of agriculture.
Tudor Trust - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£10,000 08/11/2013
towards the cost of supporting small UK-based organisations addressing food and health issues to attend a conference on the true cost of accounting in food and farming
Esmee Fairbairn - Grant to Sustainable Food Trust
£60,000 06/11/2013
Towards the costs of a True Cost Accounting project that explores and communicates the true costs of the current UK food system and compares this to the costs of sustainable production and consumption.
Show more rows

Data sourced from Donors via 360 Giving

How do they operate?

True Cost Accounting

Objectives: To encourage collaborative research and thought leadership to help identify, quantify and monetise the external costs and benefits associated with agriculture

Beneficiaries: Humans and the planet

Location: Global

Description: True cost accounting (TCA) is an attempt to encourage the emergence of a new economic system, which takes into account the impact of agricultural practices on both the environment and public health. By influencing the development frameworks for policy change the charity aims to better align profitability and sustainable farming practices.
2019 report, The Hidden Cost of UK Food, can be downloaded here https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/our-work/true-cost-accounting/

Measuring and Valuing Sustainability - Global Food Metric

Objectives: To catalyse the development of an international common framework for assessing and benchmarking the sustainability of different farming and food systems

Beneficiaries: Humans and the planet

Location: Global

Description: The Global Farm Metric (GFM) Coalition, formed by the Sustainable Food Trust, now numbers over 90 stakeholder organisations including farmers, farming unions, government, banks, food companies and retailers with trials taking place in the UK, USA and Malawi and others in the pipeline. The Coalition is developing common categories, metrics and indicators to build a template metric that they believe has the potential to become an internationally harmonised framework for on-farm sustainability assessment, encouraging continuous improvement of farm sustainability, enabling governments to assess eligibility for public purse support, and providing consumers with a more accessible and easily understood means of evaluating the sustainability of food products in the marketplace.
https://www.globalfarmmetric.org

Aligning Diets with the Output of Sustainable Farming Systems

Objectives: To educate the general public about what constitutes a sustainable approach to food production and how this relates to eating a healthy diet

Beneficiaries: Humans and the planet

Location: Global

Description: Sustainable Food Trust approaches the issues of sustainable production and sustainable consumption by raising awareness and improving understanding amongst the public, food producers and key influencers about the central components of sustainable, healthy food systems and diets, so that more informed choices can be made about what to eat and how to farm.
Their most recent report, Feeding Britain from the Ground Up (https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/our-work/feeding-britain/), seeks to estimate the food production outcomes in the UK of a nationwide conversion to sustainable production methods and then to map how healthy diets can be shaped around that.

The Harmony Project

Objectives: To transform education both in the UK and around the world by working with educators to develop learning that is based upon a deep understanding of, and connection to, the natural world.

Beneficiaries: Young people

Location: UK

Description: The Harmony Project, established in 2018 and led by Sustainable Food Trust Director of Education, Richard Dunne, aims to transform education to ensure it is fit for purpose in preparing young people for life in the 21st century, not just to pass exams. By working with teachers and other educators to re-frame teaching and learning around natural laws and principles, The Harmony Project aims to show the world as an interconnected whole. This approach looks to help young people understand the world in which they find themselves and develop the skills they need to take action from this place of understanding. This will enable them to learn how to live more sustainably.
https://www.theharmonyproject.org.uk

How effective are they?
Commentary: It is challenging to quantify the impacts of Sustainable Food Trust as their interventions focus on influencing policy and steady changes in behaviours of the food and farming industry. However their expertise shown when conference hosting and report formulating has placed them in high regard with the capability to bring about a systemic change internationally. Their successes in building awareness of sustainable food approaches like true cost accounting and their global farm metric model indicate they have the potential to reach millions and have a major impact on climate change and environmental issues.

Who works here?

  • PATRICK HOLDEN
    Founder and CEO
    Appointed: November 2011
After studying biodynamic agriculture at Emerson College, he established a mixed community farm in Wales in 1973, producing at various times: wheat for flour production sold locally, carrots and milk from an 85 cow Ayrshire dairy herd, now made into a single farm cheddar style cheese by his son Sam. He was the founding chairman of British Organic Farmers in 1982, before joining the Soil Association, where he worked for nearly 20 years and during ....more
  • ADELE JONES
    Deputy CEO
Adele has been with the SFT since 2013, primarily focusing on projects including true cost accounting in food and farming and the harmonisation of farm-level sustainability assessment. In 2020, Adele undertook a part time secondment to the Welsh Government working on an annual sustainability assessment for Welsh farmers called the ‘Farm Sustainability Review’. Between September 2018 – 2019 she undertook a part-time secondment with DEFRA ....more
  • RICHARD YOUNG
    Policy Director
Richard is a past editor of the journal New Farmer & Grower (now called Organic Farming) and chairman of the Soil Association’s Symbol Committee, which first drew up detailed organic food and farming standards in the 1980s.
  • RICHARD DUNNE
    Director of Harmony in Education
Richard has 30 years teaching experience and was Headteacher of an Ofsted graded Outstanding School for 18 years. His work in redesigning a curriculum around Nature’s principles of Harmony has already begun inspiring the next generation of teachers and children, with the approach to learning already in place in several schools across the UK.
  • MEGAN PERRY
    Head of Communications
Megan studied International Politics as an undergraduate and then gained a Masters degree in Food and Water Security at Aberystwyth University. Following this, she worked on a farm in Devon before beginning an internship with the Sustainable Food Trust. Megan began working full time for the SFT as a policy assistant before moving into Communications and campaigns.
  • CLAIRE PEETERS
    Head of Operations
Claire spent eight years as Project Manager for Ecoworks, a community urban food and environmental organisation in Nottingham. There, she managed a number of projects including the box scheme and café alongside community horticulture and healthy eating projects.

How is it governed?

Trustees (6)
Current Trustees appointed
Gender Split
Based on 5/6 persons

Age Range of Trustees: 32-79
  • CHRISTY BROWN Appointed: 2013, Occupation: Businesswoman
  • DR ARLO KRISTJAN OLIVER BRADY Appointed: 2023, Occupation: Ceo
  • EVELYN HOOVER STEYER Appointed: 2022, Occupation: Entrepreneur
  • GEORGE PALASIS KAILIS Appointed: 2012, Occupation: Director
  • JANE PARKER Appointed: 2020, Occupation: Director
  • PETER SEGGER Appointed: 2012, Occupation: Director
Legal constitution
  • Charitable company registered in England & Wales on 20/08/2012, number: 1148645
  • Registered at Companies House on 24/03/2011, number: 07577102
Gift Aid
  • Registered with HMRC for Gift Aid
Policies in force
  • Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
  • Campaigns and political activity policy and procedures
  • Complaints handling
  • Complaints policy and procedures
  • Conflicting interests
  • Engaging external speakers at charity events policy and procedures
  • Financial reserves policy and procedures
  • Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
  • Internal risk management policy and procedures
  • Investing charity funds policy and procedures
  • Investment
  • Paying staff
  • Risk management
  • Safeguarding policy and procedures
  • Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
  • Social media policy and procedures
  • Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
  • Trustee expenses policy and procedures
  • Volunteer management
Filing Record
11 returns made; AR18: 1 days late, AR17: 2 days late, AR16: 2 days late,
Main office

38 Richmond Street
Totterdown
BRISTOL
BS3 4TQ

Objectives

1. THE PRESERVATION, CONSERVATION AND PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE PRUDENT USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES, INCLUDING BY THE PROMOTION OF SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION METHODS;2. THE ADVANCEMENT OF HEALTH, INCLUDING THE RELIEF OF DISEASE AND HUMAN SUFFERING BY:A. ENCOURAGING THE CULTIVATION OF FOODS AND THE UPTAKE OF DIETS (TAILORED TO LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND REGIONS) THAT BRING HEALTH BENEFITS TO INDIVIDUALS AND POPULATIONS IN TERMS OF BETTER NUTRITION AND LOWER INCIDENCE OF DIET RELATED DISEASE;B. THE IDENTIFICATION OF FOOD PRODUCTION METHODS THAT IMPROVE THE NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF FOODS AND THE DISSEMINATION OF THIS INFORMATION; ANDC. THE RELIEF OF MALNUTRITION.3. TO ADVANCE THE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC IN FOOD PRODUCTION METHODS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH.

Defined Area of Benefit:

NOT DEFINED

Data Sources

Charity Commission for England and Wales
360 Giving

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