The Netherlands-based sustainable trade initiative IDH raised more than £37 million (€42.7 million) worth of private investment towards sustainable business practises last year.
The organisation’s latest annual report revealed that throughout 2022 it had collaborated with a range of partners, including multinationals, governments brands and SMEs across 55 countries.
Work spanned a range of sectors including coffee cocoa, palm oil, acquaculture and apparel, leading to over a thousand new jobs in the Ghanaian grain industry as well as higher living wages for the workers.
The IDH report also highlighted that 395,000 hectares of soil were restored and rehabilitated as a result of the organisation’s initiatives. It also revealed that structural building issues were remediated to help prevent safety issues in textile factories in Vietnam and India.
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In addition, IDH said the Belgian government released funding for the second phase of the Beyond Chocolate Partnership, which the organisation said would help its work in the industry, which has notorious difficulty in tracing supply chains.
Last year the group was part of the Mastercard Grains for Growth campaign, which secured finance for programmes in the cotton industry and horticulture.
This news comes after the UK government has been warned by groups including legal NGO Client Earth about the need to review its environmental legislation post-Brexit, including laws around biodiversity and waste reduction.
The UK is also falling behind in green skills, with fears that the gap could leave the country with less people able to carry out ESG tasks like supply chain audits than EU nations like France and Germany.
“2022 presented our team and partners with complex challenges but also new opportunities. The breakdown of many traditional systems also created a space to rethink and rebuild those which have contributed to our current global dilemma of inequality, and environmental degradation,” said IDH ceo Daan Wensing.
“Led by our guiding belief in human ingenuity to solve the world’s complex problems, we are encouraged by what we see as a widespread movement of many rising to the challenge of creating a more positive future for all”.
