Sustainability initiatives in the European juice and nectar sector

2025-11-28

Across the juice sector, the SJC, SJP and AIJN operate under a clear governance framework, ensuring complementary action on sustainable sourcing, common challenges and sector alignment.

As part of the next step in implementing the AIJN Sustainability Strategy, AIJN is pleased to present an overview of how sustainability initiatives are coordinated across the European juice sector. Over the past years, several platforms have emerged, each contributing to sustainability from a different angle. The new governance framework clarifies how these initiatives work together, ensuring coherence, complementarity and efficient collaboration.

Across the sector, companies can engage in sustainability at 3 different levels:

The Sustainable Juice Covenant (SJC) brings together frontrunners committed to driving measurable change in sustainable sourcing. Members work towards the common ambition of reaching 100% sustainable sourcing by 2030 (with new rules for new members), supported by a shared product footprint methodology. The Covenant also leads common projects at farm-level. Learn more here
The Sustainable Juice Platform (SJP) provides a space for the entire value chain to collectively address sector-wide challenges, by initiating and co-funding external projects, identifying common risk hotspots and developing collaborative solutions that benefit the whole industry. Learn more here
Complementing these actions, AIJN plays a role by representing the whole sector and establishing the baseline for sustainability. This ensures that companies share a common understanding of key concepts, methodologies and expectations. AIJN developed its Sustainability Strategy with the help and support of the SJC and SJP to ensure complementarity in our work. Now, AIJN facilitates exchanges between all of them and ensures coordination in future actions so that sector initiatives are aligned to maintain a coherent long-term vision for sustainability.

These three components - SJC, SJP and AIJN - are closely connected and mutually reinforce each other. Together, they enable the sector to combine ambition, collaboration and alignment. For more information, please contact aijn@aijn.eu and any of these platforms.

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