We were at the OECD forum on due diligence in the garment and footwear sector, which brought together governments, businesses, unions, civil society, and academia to discuss challenges and risks, as well as learnings and solutions related to responsibly implementing due diligence in global garment and footwear supply chains.

For Solidaridad, we completed an assignment that involved reviewing tools and approaches used to assess purchasing practices and creating an assessment tool for Solidaridad’s partnerships. One of the deliverables of this project was a report with an overview and comparison of the different approaches and tools.

Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob was in Amsterdam for the kick-off of an International Accord programme aimed at making garment and textile factories in Pakistan safer for workers. The programme is contributing to improved working conditions for over 750,000 people, covering between 500 and 700 factories and fabric mills in Pakistan.

For Solidaridad and PAN UK, we developed the 2023 Cotton Ranking. The ranking revealed that only 9 of the 82 largest cotton-sourcing companies bought nearly all of their cotton from certified sources. We also co-authored a paper that underscored the imperative for brands to source cotton sustainably, ensuring farmers’ well-being and environmental protection.

We organised and facilitated a virtual discussion on sourcing sustainable textiles from Ethiopia for Solidaridad Network. Ethiopian factory managers shared their ideas on implementing sustainable processes in their factories and how Ethiopian companies can succeed in the global market.

On behalf of Grant Thornton, Ethics at Work organised and facilitated a community of practice (CoP) on socially responsible public purchasing for public buyers. It was an initiative of Rijkswaterstaat, a government agency that is responsible for the design, construction, management and maintenance of the main infrastructure facilities in the Netherlands.

From November 2022 to February 2023, Bart Slob helped manage Mondiaal FNV‘s activities in the Indian garment sector. Mondiaal FNV supports projects in over 100 countries located in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe through resources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, of FNV and its affiliates.

We presented our research for CNV Internationaal on complaints mechanisms in the garment industry at the annual human rights event organised by the Dutch Association for Sustainable Investors (VBDO).

We facilitated a workshop organised by Solidaridad Germany to discuss the opportunities for European companies interested in sourcing ready-made garments from Ethiopia. In the workshop, buyers and experts shared information on the latest developments in the Ethiopian RMG sector and discussed innovative solutions for sustainable sourcing.

During a webinar organised by CNV Internationaal, Bart Slob presented the results of a study on the role of trade unions in building and implementing effective grievance mechanisms. For this study we interviewed trade union and civil society representatives in Europe and in garment producing countries, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

On behalf of CNV, we made a presentation on effective grievance mechanisms to members of TruStone, a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to address social and environmental issues in the natural stone sector.

For CNV Internationaal and Mondiaal FNV, we wrote a paper on how to promote freedom of association and social dialogue among suppliers of garment brands. The paper marked the end of the AMPLIFY project, which was implemented by the unions in collaboration with 19 Dutch brands.

In collaboration with the International Cocoa Initiative and CBI, we helped organise child labour awareness training programmes in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The aim of the programmes is to monitor and reduce the incidence of child labour in the cocoa sector in both countries.

For CBI, we helped organise Women in Cocoa and Chocolate (WINCC) events in Liberia and in Sierra Leone, in collaboration with Solidaridad. WINCC’s objective is to help women in the cocoa value chain increase their impact, become more visible, connect with other women and inspire others.

On behalf of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency / CBI, we co-organised a workshop on sustainable business with cocoa cooperatives and companies in Kenema, Sierra Leone.

Until June 2021, Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob will organise Solidaridad‘s participation in the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textile. He will also advise Solidaridad Europe on advocacy and policy influencing.

Since April 2019, we have been conducting child labour risk assessments on behalf of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) / Fund against Child Labour (FBK). In this video, three companies (Muta Sport Nederland, Finma and Spicemasters) share how they have identified and addressed child labour with FBK’s support.

This year we have coordinated and co-written several reports for investors on soy and beef-driven deforestation in Brazil. All reports are available on the Chain Reaction Research website.

We helped the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment launch a call for proposals aimed at disrupting the employment status quo for young Egyptian women. The fund seeks to fund innovative private-sector solutions that address barriers and create new spaces for women to participate equally in the Egyptian workforce.

For Aidenvironment and Chain Reaction Research, we coordinated the publication of a report on the fires that burned in Brazil and Indonesia last year. These fires were related to deforestation for agricultural land expansion, natural causes, and maintenance of farmland.

We made a presentation about decent work in a webinar for organisations that want to apply for a grant from the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE). The selected projects will lead to thousands of decent jobs for youth in Uganda.

For the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE), we were in Egypt to meet with youth groups, businesses, investors, and government representatives. The CFYE will soon launch a challenge to create decent employment opportunities in Egypt. The Fund aims to create a prosperous future for 200,000 young women and men in the Middle East, North Africa, Sahel & West Africa and Horn of Africa.

Tawakol is one of the Egyptian companies that we have been coaching on CSR, decent work and gender equality, on behalf of CBI. With CBI’s support, they have been able to adapt to more sustainable ways of working and grow their business.

A day before the start of Biofach 2020, the world’s leading trade fair for organic products, we organized a workshop with Indonesian and Nepalese exporters of medicinal and aromatic plants, essential oils, and natural ingredients. For the Import Promotion Desk (IPD) we have helped them develop and implement CSR action plans.

We were lucky enough to be in beautiful Sierra Leone and Liberia to train cocoa cooperatives and exporters on sustainable business, on behalf of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency / CBI.

We were at Palladium Europe’s office for a kick-off meeting with the team that will manage the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE). The CFYE is a six-year and € 114 million programme funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We were in Egypt again to train and coach companies on sustainable business practices, on behalf of the Import Promotion Desk (IPD). The companies that participated in the training course produce natural ingredients and fresh fruit and vegetables. We did an assessment of one of them in the Beheira desert, where they produce grapes and very tasty pomegranates.

We were in Egypt to coach companies on CSR and to conduct a workshop with Egyptian and Jordanian CSR experts, on behalf of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency / CBI.

Until October 2019, we will be responsible for Solidaridad‘s work related to the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textile. The companies that have signed this agreement are drafting and implementing action plans to make their supply chains more sustainable. We will also advise Solidaridad Europe on advocacy and policy influencing.

We were back in Egypt to train and coach engineering companies on corporate social responsibility, on behalf of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency / CBI – Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries, in collaboration with the Engineering Export Council of Egypt. The companies that participate in this programme produce and export car parts, kitchen equipment, sheet metal products, lighting, batteries and packaging machines.

About a hundred government officials, producers, processors, exporters, importers and retailers gathered in Utrecht to find ways of exporting more and better shrimp from Bangladesh to Europe. Commissioned by the Seafood Trade Intelligence Portal (STIP), we prepared and co-chaired this consultation with Maarten Mens.

For Aidenvironment we worked on a report about foreign farmland investors in Brazil. The report was published by Chain Reaction Research and details how deforestation rates on foreign-held farms in Brazil have dropped significantly since 2012.

For the Import Promotion Desk, we trained a group of suppliers of natural ingredients at the Indonesian Ministry of Industry. We are helping these companies develop CSR strategies and action plans.

On behalf of the International Trade Centre we visited cocoa farms, cooperatives and traders in the Bong and Nimba counties in Liberia. On this photo, farmers show how they ferment cocoa beans.

For the International Trade Centre we were in Monrovia, Liberia, where we met with the minister of agriculture, the deputy minister for commerce and trade services, and the DG of the Liberia Agriculture Commodities Regulatory Authority (LACRA). We also visited several cocoa exporters in the Freeport of Monrovia.

For ASN Bank, Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob moderated the launch of the Platform Living Wage Financials, a Dutch investor coalition aimed at raising the wages of workers in global supply chains.

We were back at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) to chair a CBI focus group on trends, sourcing strategies and requirements in the processed fruits and vegetables and edible nuts sectors.

In Amsterdam again, to kick off a mid-term review for the Chain Reaction Research consortium. Great workshop set-up, with Green Century Capital Management and Climate Advisers participating from two different locations in the US.

We were in Amsterdam to work on programme development in the processed fruits and vegetables sector, with some of CBI’s brilliant programme managers.

We developed and conducted a training course on sustainable business, on behalf of the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). We developed ambitious CSR action plans for 13 Egyptian engineering companies.

We are involved in a project called Chain Reaction Research, which combines detailed satellite imagery, supply chain data and field research to track deforestation in the Brazilian Matopiba region. We use this information to identify investment risks. This report shows that clearing for soy is still in full swing, despite zero-deforestation commitments made by large agribusiness companies.

Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob spent a couple of days at Aidenvironment‘s amazing Amsterdam office. In the coming months, he will help Aidenvironment conduct sustainability risk analysis for financial analysts and investors, with a special focus on Brazilian soy and livestock.

For CBI, ProColombia and Inexmoda, Rupa Ganguli and Bart Slob led a study on market opportunities in Europe for Colombian swim and shapewear producers. We had a close look at opportunities in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

This book explains why so many people love craft beer nowadays, even in wine and spirit-drinking countries. We contributed to the chapter about the Netherlands. Unfortunately the book’s price is so high that it would buy you 56 pints of craft beer in a Wetherspoon pub! If you’d like to read the chapter on the Netherlands, we can send it to you for free. Just drop us an email.

We facilitated a session on the production of sustainable pima cotton in Peru, at two locations at the same time (the Dutch embassy in Lima and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency in The Hague). CBI, in close collaboration with partners in Peru, supports Peru’s apparel sector, from pima cotton farmers in Piura, to UPC’s design school and young designer talent in Lima, to small and medium-sized alpaca and pima cotton apparel brands that are on their way to access the European market.

In the coming months we will be in charge of Solidaridad‘s work related to the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textile. The companies that have signed this agreement are drafting and implementing action plans to make their supply chains more sustainable. We are also advising Solidaridad Europe on advocacy and policy influencing.

Oxfam Novib published a paper that called on the Dutch government to combine a high development budget for agriculture with a solid strategy for resolving hunger by 2030, to scale up climate finance for adaptations in the agricultural sector, and to supply improved data on the impact of agricultural investments for each target group and gender. Ethics at Work’s Jolien Schure and Bart Slob did the research for this paper.

We were at the University of Geneva to teach a module on supply chain responsibility for the executive education in CSR programme. ITC’s Mathieu Lamolle was one of the guest speakers.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) invited us to participate in a practitioner workshop and a conference on inclusive and sustainable agribusiness development.

What a great way to start off 2017! We announced our sponsorship of Kenilworth Ladies Rugby, a fantastic local team that is doing brilliantly in its league. In 2016, we moved our office from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Kenilworth in the United Kingdom.

Oxfam Novib published a report about the use of development aid funds to provide financial assistance to companies in the Netherlands and in developing countries. Ethics at Work’s Jolien Schure and Bart Slob did the research for this report.

We helped the Girls Advocacy Alliance, a lobby and advocacy programme carried out by Plan Nederland, Terre des Hommes and DCI-ECPAT, to develop ideas on how to engage with the private sector. This video provides an example of how the Alliance wants to increase the economic participation of young women in developing companies.

Members of the class of 2016 receive their diploma of Advanced Studies in Corporate Social Responsibility. For this executive education programme at the University of Geneva, Ethics at Work develops and teaches a module on CSR standards, value chains, supply chain responsibility and stakeholder engagement.

We participated in a meeting of the UN Value Chain Development Working Group at the FAO headquarters in Rome. The theme was inclusiveness in value chain development.

Four Colombian shapewear and beachwear companies participated in the Mode City trade fair in Lyon. Ethics at Work provides these and other Colombian companies with market intelligence on European markets, on behalf of CBI / Netherlands Enterprise Agency.

At a high-level conference on responsible supply chain management in the garment sector, Rupa Ganguli and Bart Slob presented policy options to make garment supply chains more sustainable.

This video shows some of the work Rupa Ganguli and Bart Slob have been doing with the European Commission to promote supply chain responsibility in the garment sector.

 For CBI / Netherlands Enterprise Agency we facilitated a peer group on processed fruits and vegetables at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).

UNIDO invited us to discuss trends and best practices with the UN Value Chain Development Working Group.

We chaired a conference on living wages organised by the Dutch National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines. The conference was attended by 140 experts in the field.

For the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) we were in Ankara to present a study on promoting agricultural value chains in the member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

We helped La Strada International and SOMO develop a resource guide on engaging the private sector to end human trafficking.

We facilitated a three-day CBI conference on the inclusion of African companies in global value chains. Great atmosphere, with trade promotion officials from over 20 African countries.

We chaired a CBI market intelligence peer group on tea, with European importers and Vietnam’s Trade Promotion Agency, at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT).

We helped cyber security company Fox-IT develop a CSR policy, which was endorsed by Fox-IT’s board of directors in March 2015.

Ethics at Work organises part of UNIGE’s executive education in CSR program. As part of the module on supply chain responsibility we visited the Bacardi-Martini production facility in Meyrin, where we learned about the supply chain arrangements of the largest privately held spirits company in the world.

Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob participated in the SA8000 advanced auditor course in Istanbul, Turkey.

We moderated the three-day launch event of the Inclusive Business Action Network (IBAN) in Berlin, organised by GIZ and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The conference was attended by more than 150 social entrepreneurs, development bank representatives, investors, government officials and other stakeholders.

We facilitated a conference that gathered top biodiversity scientists from all over the world. The conference was organised by the Diversitas network, which is now part of Future Earth.

For CBI we trained the bright auditors and trainers of the Ethiopian Horticultural Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA).

Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob visited flower growers in Ethiopia to do due diligence for CBI’s flower programme and to improve CBI’s audit and risk management system.

Karen Brouwer and Bart Slob coordinated the research and data collection process for the KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2013, which covered 4,100 companies in 41 countries.

We helped Prohumana to organise a visit to the Netherlands for a delegation of 10 Chilean business leaders. They met with representatives of Dutch companies, governmental organizations and civil society organisations. The objective of the visit was to learn and exchange knowledge on corporate social responsibility (CSR). The video is in Spanish.

At the Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity, in collaboration with Natasha Walker, we moderated roundtable discussions on the implementation of biodiversity targets. The conference was attended by 400 high-level experts and country representatives.

We chaired a CBI peer group session on the automotive sector. CBI peer groups are discussion groups that bring together representatives from the European private sector (i.e. importers, wholesalers, retailers etc.), trade associations, research institutions and sector experts to share views, opinions and experiences on key market and trade trends and developments.

For CBI we organised a workshop on responsible supply chain management with factory owners in the surgical instruments sector in Sialkot, Pakistan.

We organised a CSR Meetup with HRH Prince Jaime de Bourbon Parme, who was then Special Envoy Natural Resources at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He talked about his efforts to make mining more sustainable.

We organised a CSR Meetup with Willem Lageweg, the passionate director of MVO Nederland (CSR Netherlands). We discussed sustainable business opportunities in times of crisis.

Giving a lecture on corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the Ukrainian CSR Academy, via video conferencing.

The Spanish CSR Observatory invited us to participate in a workshop on Business and Human Rights. In this video, Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob discusses the evolution of rules and regulation in this field (in Spanish).

In collaboration with SOMO, we wrote a report for Greenpeace and Actionaid about lobby and advocacy in the Dutch biofuel industry.

Ethics at Work’s Bart Slob participated in the SA8000 basic auditor course in Athens, Greece.

In collaboration with Natasha Walker, Niels Ferdinand and Bart Slob facilitated a fantastic group of over a hundred scientists, IT experts and policy makers at the Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference in Copenhagen.

We facilitated and organised a CSR Meetup with Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International’s executive director. We discussed the impact of the Rio+20 negotiations on corporate accountability.

© Photo: Kimberley Harris / Greenpeace.

 Making a presentation on public policies on CSR at the 7th Sustainability Management Conference, organised by the Korean Standards Association and hosted by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

Our research on corporate lobbying for Friends of the Earth was featured in Inside Story Americas, an Al Jazeera TV programme.

For CBI and UNIDO we helped surgical instruments factories in Sialkot, Pakistan, to write and implement CSR action plans.

Prochile invited us to deliver a keynote speech on “sustainability as a key element in export promotion”. This photo was taken on the roof terrace of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.