AIJN Sustainability Strategy: a common direction for a sustainable juice and nectar sector
2025-11-28
At AIJN, two priorities guide our actions: promoting healthy lifestyles and advancing sustainability within the sector. These priorities complement and reinforce each other, shaping the choices we make as an industry. Sustainability, in particular, is a continuous thread that runs through the entire value chain, from the orchards where fruits are grown to the bottles that reach consumers. In recent years, significant progress has been made by individual companies and through collective initiatives such as the Sustainable Juice Platform (SJP) and the Sustainable Juice Covenant (SJC). Nonetheless, certain challenges we face are systemic and interconnected, and no company can address them alone. A coordinated response at the sector level is essential.
During internal discussions in 2024, sustainability managers from companies of different sizes and from different countries expressed a clear need for a unified industry strategy. To determine future sectoral action, three main challenges were identified.
- Achieving a sustainable and resilient supply chain.
- Sustainable fruit and vegetable sourcing: what it means and how it can be measured.
- Availability of high-quality ESG primary data (environmental, social, governance).
These needs guided the development of the AIJN Sustainability Strategy, which provides an overarching framework to set a common basis, and guide sectoral actions on sustainability. It focuses on sustainable sourcing and juice production, the areas that make up the largest share of the sector’s environmental footprint and offer the strongest opportunities for shared and coordinated actions. The strategy builds on the foundations created by SJP, SJC and many company driven initiatives. Its purpose is not to replace existing work but to provide a coherent structure that brings these efforts together.
To this end, AIJN has developed a Guidance Document on Sustainability Definitions and Standards, to create a common language for the sector and provide them with concrete standards to choose from, driving the sector towards further harmonisation.
The AIJN Sustainability Strategy is built around four pillars, each one representing one overarching action to answer the challenges mentioned above. They are:
- Pillar 1: Further guidance on sustainability standards.
- Pillar 2: Increasing ESG data availability and quality.
- Pillar 3: Collaborating on sector impact areas with the SJC and SJP.
- Pillar 4: Communicating to engage on sustainability.
As of now, the strategy goals are defined and will be further detailed and implemented. This is also meant to be a living to document, serving to share knowledge and foster engagement within the sector. Indeed, by working together, sharing knowledge and aligning around a common framework, the juice industry can enhance its competitiveness while achieving real and measurable impact on the ground. If you wish to know please read the summary below and contact aijn@aijn.eu.