Westland Kaas: Building a Sustainability Business Case in Food
Westland Kaas is a Dutch, family-owned cheese company aiming for 100% net climate neutrality by 2036. Westland has a brand-driven focus, and a partially outsourced supply chain. This makes it important to engage with suppliers to reduce supply chain emissions. Daan Mes spearheads all sustainability initiatives across the organization and its value chain.
Challenge
Deciding whether to join a costly supplier sustainability initiative
Daan faced an important decision: should Westland Kaas join a significant and costly sustainability initiative proposed by a key supplier? Before committing to this project, he wanted to make sure that participating in this project would result in tangible benefits for the planet and the company. He needed a clear path to either confidently support the initiative or justify declining it.
Solution
Validation questions and a business case structure, built with Spirefly
Daan was guided through a strategic workflow. Spirefly highlighted that the decision couldn’t be made without more information and proposed generating a list of targeted questions to ask the supplier. These questions were perfectly tailored to validate the program’s integrity and value. Taking it a step further, the assistant then suggested structuring all this information into a compelling business case, complete with a ‘cost of inaction’ scenario.
Result
A validated supplier initiative and a ready business case
The session transformed a single, blocking question into a clear, actionable strategy. Daan walked away with a tailored set of validation questions for his supplier and a ready-to-use structure for an internal business case. Spirefly provided not just the necessary tools, but also the strategic clarity and confidence needed to drive a significant investment decision forward.
“Unlike with a generic tool like ChatGPT, I trust the information provided on sustainability frameworks like SBTi. Checking for alignment with a leading framework is key for taking decisions.”
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