No Time to Waste: The Plastic Crisis and the World’s Poorest
Crisis, breakdown, emergency – however you talk about it, the environment is high on media and political agendas across the world. A new cross-organisational report, No Time to Waste: Tackling the plastics pollution crisis before it’s too late, calculates that between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year in developing countries because of diseases related […]
Becoming a Bit More Social
One of the most recent exposés on life along the supply chain came from The Daily Mail. The article revealed that some factory workers in India suffer from horrendous burns when shelling cashew nuts. The burns come from caustic acids that naturally exist between the cashew nut and its outer shell. As is often the […]
In Benin, Young Entrepreneurs are Tackling the Plastic Problem
The room is unassuming, with pale blue walls and sunlight that filters in from the open door. Inside, Babatundé Oguidi meticulously arranges biodegradable bags and boxes on a large wooden table. A massive chalkboard covers one wall, filled with a seemingly endless list of new and completed orders. On the opposite wall, the company’s mission […]
Smallholder Coffee Producer Organisations Can Thrive as International Businesses
Coffee is the world’s most popular drink – around 2 billion cups are consumed every day. In the UK alone, we are responsible for approximately 95 million of those. There’s no arguing that it’s big business. For brands whose business is dependent on selling a consistent, high-quality product, having a reliable supply chain is essential. […]
To Boldly Go Where We’ve Not Been Before Doesn’t Need to be a Leap of Faith
Sometimes the future is not hard to predict – it’s totally logical. Widely cited, Star Trek’s Chief of Logic (COL), Spock nailed it when he said that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” If we are bold and if we act now to change our organisations and our systems we […]
Business as Usual – Or Business with Purpose?
While the debate on business’ social and environmental impacts (both positive and negative) is not new, when the CEO of Blackrock, one of the world’s largest investors, and the head of Oxfam International are both talking about the potential for business to help achieve inclusive and sustainable development, it feels like we’re at a tipping […]
How We Got Our Toilet Business Moving Again
By May 2018, we knew something was missing in the business model for Sama Sama, a toilet business iDE had started in rural Ghana in 2016.1 After two years of knocking on doors, sales were lower than expected or desired. This is a sure sign that another round of design is needed. Prior to starting […]
New Ideas are Essential to Ward off Global Water Shortage Threat
Agriculture is a water intensive sector, accounting for 69% of the world’s water abstraction according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. As climate change drives global temperatures higher, the pressure on our water resources will grow. Given there are already over 800 million people who don’t have clean water close to […]
Practical Action and the IKEA Foundation: Can Small Holder Farming Really Work for Some of the World’s Poorest?
Practical Action and the IKEA Foundation have launched a new partnership. Worth €6.4 million, the partnership will help rural people in Kenya earn a decent income from farming. Together, we want to break the cycle of poverty in rural communities. In the Lake Victoria basin of Kenya, farming is the main source of income for […]
Water-Wise Coffee: Making Sustainable Business Profitable in Ethiopia
Community members in the Aleta Wondo district of southern Ethiopia had a problem on their doorstep: their river was polluted. The students of Habaja Primary School, built on its banks, complained about the river’s smell and that they couldn’t use it for gathering water or washing. Their parents in the surrounding communities also struggled, as […]
Fashion has a Huge Waste Problem. Here’s How it Can Change
The biggest trends in fashion today are ones no one wants to be seen in. They include vastly increased clothing production and declining use, massive levels of waste and more greenhouse gas emissions than international shipping and flights combined. In the last 15 years the industry has doubled production, while the time clothing is worn […]
WE SOLVE: A Unique Partnership Creates Jobs for Women and Breaks the Barriers to Clean Energy
The Arusha region is home to Tanzania’s nomadic Maasai and other communities who farm and herd in the plains around Mount Meru. Communities here face life without light as soon as the sun sets, meaning that kids can’t play in the streets or study and families are often dependent on expensive and toxic fuel-powered resources […]
We Learned Simple Ways to Improve the Local Environment and Our Income
In the Nawa region in Côte d’Ivoire, Mondelēz International’s Cocoa Life partners with Impactum and CARE International to engage women and address climate change and deforestation through a Green Entrepreneurship pilot project. They are helping women learn the knowledge and skills needed to create a sustainable future for cocoa farming communities, and generate income for […]
Forests, Farmers and Cococa: Getting the Balance Right
The world needs forests. They are vital to maintain biodiversity and to help combat climate change. At the same time, forests have suffered since the invention of the plough, as people have cut them down to plant crops for food and cash. The bulldozer just made things worse. Over 70% of the world’s cocoa comes […]
Claims, Credibility and Landscape Approaches
The idea is a compelling one. Rather than looking at individual sites, suppliers or sectors, these approaches recognize that issues like deforestation, habitat conversion, land rights and rural development are often best addressed at a larger scale – across whole landscapes or jurisdictions. Bringing together all stakeholders – producers, sourcing companies, governments, civil society, NGOs, […]
How Can We Address the Global Sanitation Challenge? Insights from “Make a Splash! Toilets for All”
Japan’s maker of water and housing products, LIXIL, has invested in a sustainable social business – SATO – to help bring affordable toilets to those that need them. In 2018, their work on SATO led them to a new partnership, “Make a Splash! Toilets for All.” with UNICEF to tackle the global sanitation challenge. How […]
Spearheading Change within the Chocolate Industry to Protect the Forests where Cocoa is Grown
At Mondelēz, we know that real lasting change for the better can only happen via cross-sector collaboration and commitment. That’s why, as a founding member of the Cocoa and Forests Initiative (CFI), we are leading the way with ambitious action plans and calling on the industry to do the same, in order to protect and […]
Highlighting the Plight of Woman Agricultural Workers in Coffee Production #BalanceforBetter International Women’s Day 2019
When Florence Njiraini’s new husband gifted her 1,500 coffee plants on the slopes of Mt. Kenya years ago, she knew almost nothing about farming. Determined to make her plot a success, she set about learning as much as she could, and soon she was employing sustainable growing practices. Njiraini is not only successful as a […]
A Transparent Cuppa – Mapping Our Tea and Coffee Supply Chains
As we enter the second week of Fairtrade Fortnight, it’s a time to celebrate our Fairtrade products and reflect on our hard work building strong relationships with our producers and working on programmes such as empowering women in the supply chain. This year, Fairtrade marks 25 years since it launched in the UK; a pioneering standard, […]
The Tide is Coming in for Indonesia’s Seaweed
Along the coast of the province of South Sulawesi, villagers began farming seaweed to supplement their income from fishing several decades ago. As global demand for seaweed and seaweed products has taken off, prices have increased and many villagers have taken up seaweed farming full-time. Mangambe Daeng Siama, a seaweed farmer from the village of […]