The 2023 DSF Annual Meeting in Chicago

It was great to see so many Members and stakeholders at the first face to face DSF Annual meeting since 2019, in Chicago last month. It was also fantastic that as many again were able to join in online. Over 85 delegates from six continents gathered and celebrated 10 years of reporting the global dairy sector’s sustainability progress and continued development.

Once again, the annual data reporting will be an invaluable resource at the upcoming COP28 meeting where dairy delegates will be able to demonstrate the sector’s efforts and progress.

DSF Chairman, Donald Moore, introduced the new Stage 1 membership category, which has been designed collaboratively with input from the DSF’s Advisory Council and Development Group. Stage 1 membership opens a door for dairy organizations who are just starting their sustainability journey or have extremely limited resources to be part of the DSF ‘family’. It does this by removing the complexity of the DSF implementation process and provides support for the individual member organization. The DSF will support Stage 1 members in developing the skills and processes required of Implementing or Aggregating DSF members. To learn more about this level of DSF membership, please click here.  Organizations who might qualify for this level of membership should contact the DSF secretariat.

Keeping ahead of the sustainability curve was the meeting’s theme and a key part of the day was a Panel Discussion when five experts from across the dairy supply chain discussed how dairy can best strategically manage to keep ahead. The Panellists each shared their insights on where they felt the main challenges are and how the sector might collaborate on these. ‘Power breakouts’ challenged delegates to prioritise the main points made by the panellists – these were then captured in a word cloud as a basis for more detailed discussions. Some interesting conclusions emanated from this exercise!

Implementing and Aggregating Members who were unable to attend the meeting can access the recording which is available in the DSF Members Area.