Lisa Koep, Tirlán’s new Chief ESG Officer, chats to Overherd about her ambitions for her new role

Lisa Koep joined Tirlán as Chief ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) Officer last December in a newly created Executive Leadership Team role that will define and drive our organisation’s agenda as we advocate for a more sustainable and responsible business. Lisa is responsible for building on Tirlán’s existing ESG initiatives and plans, while guiding the execution of our strategy with further ESG ambitions and targets for our business.

Overherd at Tirlán was delighted to catch up with Lisa after her first couple of weeks in the job to learn more about who she is, her first impressions and what she hopes to achieve in her new role.

Lisa, thanks for taking the time to sit down with Overherd during what we’re sure has been a busy few weeks for you. Perhaps you could tell us a little about yourself?

It’s my pleasure, I’ve really enjoyed meeting as many people as possible since I started and I’m delighted to be introduced to Overherd’s readers.

I’m originally from a city called Kiel in Northern Germany, which is about 90km north of Hamburg. I’m 43, have two daughters aged 11 and 12, I’m married to an Irish man and we have a Cocker Spaniel called Johnny. I am currently living in Kilkenny and we are planning on moving to my husband’s family farm in Borris, County Carlow in the coming months. My family has had strong connections with Ireland for four generations and I’ve fond memories of frequent holidays spent exploring the country. While still in secondary school, I came to Dublin for a school exchange and liked it so much that I didn’t return to Germany for many years!

After school I went on to study economics and geography at Trinity College, with a focus on resource economics and sustainable development. I then did a Masters in communications before I started my professional career in 2006, when I joined Lidl Ireland in a project management role. One of those roles was to set up Lidl’s first CSR programme. After seven years with Lidl, I returned to university to pursue a PhD in business with a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability. For the first time in many years, I then returned to live in Germany where I lectured and researched sustainable business practices at a German university before re-joining Lidl as their Head of CSR/Sustainability in 2019.

It sounds like you went full circle with Lidl. That must’ve been a very interesting journey over the years?

It certainly was! I worked in many different functions with Lidl when I started, which was really exciting and interesting as I got broad experience in the food retail industry. It was also great to get out and do applied work as opposed to theory in college as I’m a very hands-on type of person.

I’ve always had a really strong interest in sustainability. As an undergrad studying geography and economics, there was a big focus on resource and environmental economics, as well as sustainable development. At the beginning of my career with Lidl, they were only just starting to embrace corporate citizenship and social responsibility, while not so much the sustainability side. I was very interested in sustainable business practices, so that’s when I decided to go back to university and do my PhD and also work as a postdoc, where the focus was on sustainable and responsible business management practices. What I really learned here was how to measure sustainability and translate it into business terms, in addition to the positive environmental impacts of sustainable business. In a nutshell, what’s good for the environment can be good for business too.

Following a number of years in academia, I returned to Lidl Germany as Head of their Sustainability Department. There, I was responsible for the environmental and also the social strategies to really drive and implement the sustainability agenda. I was also responsible for internal as well as external communications.

One of the most interesting turn of events during my time with Lidl was in 2020 when the company encountered farmers protesting against the retailer, with complaints that we were neglecting the supply chain. Even though Lidl didn’t deal directly with farmers, the company realised that there was a potential to provide support in the form of farmer advocacy on issues such as animal welfare. This led to us looking at the supply chain in its entirety, developing a successful programme which supported farmer’s interests and how as a retailer we could help them transition to higher animal welfare standards and future oriented farming.

Now, I’m delighted to return to Ireland and join such a professional and ambitious organisation with a really people-focused culture and a great commitment to sustainability.

ESG is a very broad ranging three letter abbreviation. With Tirlán in mind, can you tell us more about what Environmental, Social and Governance actually means?There is a lot of talk in the business world around ESG. Simply put, it refers to a business’s impact and two-way interactions with environment and society, as well as how robust and transparent its governance is. More specifically, it measures how a business integrates environmental, social and governance practices into operations, as well as the business model, its impact and its sustainability. In the agri-food-sector, it’s becoming increasingly important to reduce the environmental footprint and to report on it. As a result, it is a very dynamic area with plenty of new requirements and changes happening. At Tirlán, there are a lot of activities already underway from an ESG point of view; it’s a matter of tying these together and adding a little more structure and strategic outlook. There’s already so much going on in the organisation and a fantastic pool of knowledge and talent working on the Living Proof agenda. My aim is to further develop our sustainability strategy, to drive its execution and to strengthen the governance mechanism within the organisation to really push the sustainability agenda from an environmental and social perspective. That starts with asking a range of questions – how are our teams structured around ESG, how are decisions made around it and how do we make sure that we are fully compliant with the reporting aspects? We’re operating in a highly dynamic environment so it’s about translating everything that’s happening outside of Tirlán from a sustainability governance, regulatory and political perspective, understanding what this means for our organisation and developing proactive strategies around that to achieve the targets and progress required of the agri-food sector.

Following your first weeks here, what are your first impressions of Tirlán?

From an ESG perspective, Tirlán has a strong heritage of implementing environmental health and safety mechanisms, which is an excellent basis for good and strong sustainability management. There are a lot of experts already working together in the Sustainability Hub on these matters and I think for people that are not so close to this team, they might not realise how many people are already involved in sustainability and ESG related issues. The task in hand now is to structure all ongoing activity, making it transparent and ensuring everyone across the organisation is strategically aligned. I really must pay a lot of credit to what has been done already. The Living Proof strategy, the targets that have been communicated and the activity that’s already taking place are a great foundation and have put us in a good position to achieve our targets over the time frames that we’ve set out.

From a personal perspective and a more general perspective of Tirlán, I’m really delighted to have joined. It is hard to know what to expect when changing jobs, but as soon as I arrived in Abbey Quarter I felt very at home. This is due to a number of factors. One is the level of professionalism and business excellence which is comparable to any high-level international organisation. Another aspect that is impressive is the fact that Tirlán is a farmer owned cooperative. It shows how business can be done in a socially responsible way through cooperation.

Most importantly, there’s a very strong commitment to sustainability, which is fantastic – Tirlán is really positioning itself as a future oriented company. And of course, what makes all this work is the people. It’s a very people focused culture here with a little bit of a family feel which has been nice to experience – all while still hitting targets, which can sometimes be a difficult balance to achieve. People here at Tirlán are very committed, they work extremely hard and they’re dedicated to ensuring organisation’s success.

Looking in the short to medium term, what do you want to achieve in your new role?

That’s of course a very big question and there are a number of pieces we need to knit together to tell the story. Firstly, it is to review how do we work together to achieve our Living Proof targets. We have a very good foundation with our existing Living Proof strategy; now it’s about challenging it and then finetuning it to focus on results and progress. What’s going to be hugely important is the implementation and execution piece, documenting in an evidence-based manner how we are moving towards our targets and what actions and results we have achieved. A hugely important aspect for 2023 will be how we report on sustainability, thinking about the established reporting standards we want to adopt as an organisation and how we use them to help us drive our own agenda. Driving awareness of ESG KPIs within our business is hugely important as is our external stakeholder management – how do we let people know what we’re working on and what we have achieved? Showing what we’ve achieved and being evidence based is a very strong story – Tirlán has a lot to tell. We need to create that awareness amongst our customers and be a more proactive and confident about what we offer. And then of course, it’s about how we drive the sustainability agenda through our organisation by creating a culture in which every Tirlán colleague feels part of the sustainability agenda and understands how their actions make a difference – that’s hugely important in this journey. I really look forward to meeting more Tirlán folks over the coming weeks and months and achieving this together!

Tirlán catches the eye at FIE in Paris

Before Christmas, the Tirlán Commercial team continued with the launch programme for our company’s new identity by taking a stand at the largest Ingredients trade show in the calendar, FIE (Food Ingredients Europe). The show took place in Paris from December 6th to 8th and Tirlán had a great presence with an eye-catching stand, showcasing our new B2B packaging and our full range of dairy and plant-based solutions. Many Commercial team members attended the show to conduct customer meetings and build a strong pipeline of new leads.

Commercial team members (L-R) Ann Meaney, Aoife Herlihy, Lisa Robinson-Sweeney, Gwen Gould, Tess Kelly and Eve Mulcahy pictured at the Tirlán FIE stand in Paris

As part of Tirlán’s presence at the show, the Commercial team also had a wonderful opportunity to host a customer evening in the Irish Embassy in Paris with Ireland’s Ambassador to France Niall Burgess, where both he and Tirlán’s Director of Ingredients Aoife Murphy addressed the large gathering. The ambassador spoke of Tirlán’s “essence of being a company that is deeply local, but deeply global in its reach”.

Ireland’s Ambassador to France Niall Burgess addresses the crowd at the Irish Embassy in Paris

Speaking to Overherd, Head of Ingredients Marketing Ann Meaney told us: “Europe is a strategic market for Tirlán where we have built significant partnerships and relationships over the years. It was fantastic to get back to FIE and to have our own stand. Meeting customers face to face again is vitally important to maintain strong links and create new ones, especially as we’ve our new co-operative story to tell along with launching our new brand identity. The networking opportunity at the Irish Embassy was the cherry on top of a great few days with our team and customers in awe of the beautiful surroundings afforded to us by the Irish Ambassador.”

Gordon Grey, Thomas Ryan, Grace O’Dwyer, Brian Hanafin at the New Zealand national agriculture outdoor event ‘Field Days’ in Hamilton

A recent trip to New Zealand provides Tirlán with an insight into how other global co-operatives operate

Four Tirlán staff members including Brian Hanafin, Head of Milkpool and Technical Development and Grace O’Dwyer, Retail Marketing Manager, recently embarked on an information gathering exercise to New Zealand. The team concentrated their learnings on areas including milk quality, on-farm sustainability, the evolving regulatory environment and how farmers are serviced from a commercial standpoint.

Thomas Ryan and Grace O’Dwyer with Fonterra/Farm Source Store Manager in Hamilton

Speaking with Overherd, Brian said: “Tirlán is on an ambitious journey to become one of the leading co-operatives in Europe, so it’s important we get a first-hand understanding of how other global co-operatives operate and what we can learn from them. Equally, it’s important for us at Tirlán to understand when we’re going above and beyond to deliver across the wide spectrum of activities we undertake on a daily basis. We took this trip to gain an insight into where farmers in New Zealand are in terms of sustainability, milk quality, procurement and equally to understand the country’s evolving regulatory environment. Similar to our own dairy industry, there are a mix of challenges and opportunities that New Zealand is grappling with. There’s a universal acceptance that some on-farm practices in New Zealand are no longer acceptable to regulatory bodies, customers and international consumers. The learnings and information that we’ve taken from the trip will prove invaluable going forward.”

Brian Hanafin and Gordon Grey discussing milk quality standards with Fonterra representatives

While there, the group met 12 farmers who shared the challenges facing the agriculture sector in New Zealand. “It was great to hear about the approaches they’re adopting to help them overcome these challenges. Sustainability and innovation are very evident in the solutions they employ to help them farm more efficiently. I also spent a number of days with Fonterra Co-operative Group’s commercial arm, which was really interesting,” said Grace. Tirlán has invested in building relationships with key personnel in the milk supply function within Fonterra over the last number of years, sharing similar experiences and solutions in a pre-competitive space. “It’s on this basis that we selected the study trip to New Zealand, as it offered the best opportunity to understand a similar milk production model where we could benchmark performance across similar performance indicators,” added Grace.

Professor Roger Delves says authenticity is key to developing a deep sense of purpose

Before the Christmas holidays, Professor Roger Delves hosted an exclusive Tirlán webinar which explored the theory behind developing a more authentic leadership style and the connection between integrity, values and authenticity.

In the webinar, Roger discusses how authentic leaders have a deep sense of purpose and are true to their core values. Having recently launched our new Purpose, Vision and Values (PVV), this is particularly important for our organisation as the core behaviour of authenticity can and should inform the actions of everyone in the organisation.

Make sure to watch the video below if you’d like to develop a very clear idea of why authenticity is such a desirable behaviour in organisations and also get a real sense of what changes you can make as an individual to increase your personal authenticity in our new organisation.

Roger Delves is a Professor, Hult International Business School, author & speaker with an interest in authentic and transformational leadership Roger Delves | LinkedIn

Tirlán staff dug deep this Christmas for Focus Ireland

Thanks to a big festive effort from colleagues across Tirlán, €10,000 was raised for homeless charity Focus Ireland this Christmas.

€4,835 was raised through generous donations from colleagues, which has been rounded up and matched by Tirlán to help people who find themselves homeless in Ireland.

Big thanks goes to everyone who got in the Christmas spirit and donned their favourite jumpers across all of Tirlán and congratulations to our four competition winners who each picked up a €100 One4All voucher.

Operation Biodiversity aims to plant over 450,000 native trees and hedgerows by 2025

Tirlán FarmLife and its family farm suppliers have set an ambitious new target of delivering 450,000 native trees and hedgerow plants to enhance the Irish countryside through the Operation Biodiversity programme.

Last year, the Operation Biodiversity initiative reached its original 100,000 tree and hedgerow target 12 months ahead of schedule. To celebrate, Tirlán donated 10,000 native Irish trees to its farm family suppliers, customers and community groups.

At the recent launch of Tirlán’s latest iteration of the programme, Tirlán Chairman John Murphy attributed the success of Operation Biodiversity to the enthusiasm and willingness of farm families working to enhance and protect the land for themselves and the generations to come.

“Operation Biodiversity has helped enrich our landscape and provide much-needed food and shelter for our native wildlife since its launch in 2020. Every native Irish tree and hedgerow planted builds on the ongoing biodiversity work that farm families are already doing as custodians of the land,” he said.

Seán Molloy, Chief Ingredients & Agri Officer at Tirlán, said: “We reached our original 100,000 target in record time. This shows the clear and unequivocal momentum behind our Living Proof sustainability strategy and the appetite for biodiversity and climate action on family farms and in the community.

“We’re proud of what we have achieved to date and look forward to working with our suppliers and in our communities to reach these new targets, which also align with the increased environmental ambitions of the next CAP from 2023 onwards.”

Specially selected planting packages

As the tree and hedgerow planting season opens, horticulturists and employees across Tirlán’s 52 local stores, including our 14 CountryLife Garden Centres, are helping farm families pick the right hedging plants and trees for their individual farms, providing shelter and food for wildlife while also boosting their sustainability credentials.

To help drive this initiative Tirlán FarmLife has committed to delivering excellent value, including low-cost bundles, along with providing horticultural expertise to help guide on selection of trees and hedging and planting.

Through Operation Biodiversity, the excellent value bundles include a hedging mix of native Irish hedgerow plants specially selected by Tirlán FarmLife horticulturalists. Each bundle includes Blackthorn, Whitethorn, Hazel and Alder and covers approximate 12 metres of hedging.

The specially selected, rich species tree bundle includes a mix of Birch, Alder, Oak and Mountain Ash trees. Both packages are available through the Tirlán FarmLife network of branches and Tirlán CountryLife garden centres.

“There’s space for nature on every farm and I’d encourage farmers to talk to our team of experienced horticulturalists and discuss the best tree and hedgerow options to boost biodiversity on their farms. Every tree planted makes a difference,” said Chairman John Murphy.

With Christmas just around the corner we’re officially in the festive season, with lots to look forward to over the coming weeks

December 14th

Making 2023 the Best Year Ever with Owen Fitzpatrick

As we find ourselves nearing the end of 2022, we prepare for another year full of opportunities, challenges and surprises. Many of us make New Year resolutions, but inevitably find ourselves reverting back to the same old habits. In an upcoming webinar on Wednesday, December 14th, you will learn why resolutions and best laid plans often go to waste and what you need to do instead to take advantage of the fresh new start of 2023.

You’ll discover how to prioritise what matters most and learn a brand new framework to organise your year, so you achieve what you want. You will become aware of the most important elements of taking care of yourself, maintaining high performance while achieving more work life balance and what science tells us about wellbeing.

December 15^th

Cookery demo with Catherine Fulvio, live from Abbey Quarter

Are you looking for the perfect festive meal that will impress friends and family without spending hours slaving away in the kitchen this Christmas?

Well look no further! As part of Tirlán’s employee activities this winter, we are delighted to announce that Avonmore ambassador and celebrity chef Catherine Fulvio will host a Live Cookery Demo exclusively for Tirlán employees from Abbey Quarter on Thursday December 15th!

What’s Cooking?

During the fun and entertaining cooking demo, you’ll learn how to prepare three scrumptious dishes for all the family to enjoy over the festive season.

Festive Maple Duck with Orange Cherry Sauce

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Creamy Braised Butternut Squash

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Christmas Delight – White Chocolate Ginger Mousse Tart

December 22^nd

Christmas Jumper Day and End of Year Message from Jim Bergin

Tirlán is happy once again to be supporting homeless charity Focus Ireland and their Christmas appeal. You can help raise money for those experiencing homelessness in Ireland by wearing your favourite Christmas jumper on Thursday, December 22^nd.

An iDonate fundraising page has been set up and Tirlán will match all donations from colleagues.  You can begin donating by clicking here today, or by wearing your jumper on the 22^nd and donating then!

Also on December 22^nd, Tirlán CEO Jim Bergin will host a MS Teams call for his end of year message. It’s been a momentous year for our organisation and we hope everyone from across the business will be able to join the call.