IDH - the Sustainable Trade InitiativeIDH accelerates and up-scales sustainable trade by building impact oriented coalitions of front running multinationals, civil society organizations, governments and other stakeholders. Through convening public and private interests, strengths and knowledge, IDH programs help create shared value for all partners. This will help make sustainability the new norm and will deliver impact on the Millennium Development goals.
IDH programs aim for economic empowerment of producers, sustainable economical growth and development of the private sector in origin countries. And for sustainable consumption and trade in western markets, addressing environmental and social issues on a global scale.
IDH roles in the market are five-fold:
1. Co-investing
IDH is initiated and funded by the Dutch government and has a five year match funding capacity of € 100 million. When companies invest in sustainable production and trade, IDH may match funds these investments to a maximum of 50%. This helps generate and accelerate hundreds of millions of auditable investments from companies in sustainable transformation of international supply chains.
2. Convening
IDH builds coalitions of businesses, civil society organizations and governments, thus aligning various interests so that stakeholders can cooperate in a pre-competitive environment. IDH co-creates and designs implementation of ambitious transformation programs. We analyze sectors and sustainability issues, and organize broad stakeholder consultation around this analysis.
3. Stimulating performance
IDH is engaged with individual players and within sector programs. By participating in steering groups and working closely with the lead implementation agent, IDH program managers help ensure triple value creation in the program. As a mission-driven investor, we strive for optimal sustainability value from public investment. We formulate program goals in SMART social & environmental sustainability targets. Examples are: the number of smallholders trained, volumes of certified products on the market, number of hectares of rainforests protected, the percentage of sustainable market share, etcetera.
4. Learning and capacity building
IDH organizes strategic reflection, promotes joint learning, facilitates innovations and helps strengthen capacities in the sector programs. We collect and exchange knowledge and best practices which we capture and distribute. We initiate and facilitate research into overarching themes such as cost efficiency of certification, good agricultural practices and methods for including smallholders.
5. Aligning
IDH actively works to strengthen the transformation drive of programs. We engage other players, build and keep momentum, and align visions and agendas. We promote the success of program participants and actively reach out to engage new partners and financiers for specific commodity sector programs.
www.idhsustainabletrade.com |
