Europe 2023

Highlights

CSDDD event (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive),

In 2023 we urged governments to take up their role to regulate markets and make sustainability the norm. Our advocacy work for smallholder-inclusive legislation in Europe concerned, in particular, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

Publication of research reports (pricing, sust cotton hub, coffee barometer)

To reflect on sustainability in global value chains and urge stakeholders to face the challenges, Solidaridad published several research papers and reports in 2023, including Price in Global Commodity Value Chains; the launch of the Sustainable Cotton Hub and the Coffee Barometer.

Palm-oil- supply chain sustainability-photo credits Henkel

In 2023, we worked with 54 corporate partners on implementing sustainable policies, practices and inclusive business models in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. This included partners in responsible sourcing, input provision, access to financial services, and those providing a marketplace for sustainable trade.

Superlijst Sociaal event in Pakhuis de Zwijger

One of our major campaigns in 2023 was aimed to mobilize Dutch supermarkets with our Superlijst Sociaal initiative, a collaboration with Question Mark and Oxfam Novib. Superlijst Sociaal examined Dutch supermarkets in the context of human rights, including benchmarks on transparency, payment of farmers and workers, and gender equality.

Fashion week Signawall Berlin ©Solidaridad Germany

2023 saw our first campaign in Germany, building upon our 2022 campaign in the Netherlands in support of the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Good Clothes Fair Pay.’ Hereby we supported the lobby towards EU living wage legislation in the garment industry, aiming to collect one million signatures from EU citizens by July 2023.

Solidaridad Climbing against climate poverty marathon- photo by-Irina_Raiu

In our effort to engage a younger audience through fresh and innovative fundraising concepts, we organized the Climbing against Climate Poverty event in November 2023, whereby we activated over 35,000 people and collected more than 25,000 thousand euros in donations.

2023 was the inception year of our new programme Pathways to Prosperity, made possible with funding from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We also undertook a mid-term review of our ongoing RECLAIM Sustainability! programme and continued to manage various other projects in partnership with the other regional Solidaridad offices.

In 2023, we successfully applied for the second 5-year phase of NISCOPS, our flagship programme on palm oil sustainability, with financial support from the Dutch and UK governments.

In 2023, we continued to ensure global coordination of processes in six programmes: RECLAIM Sustainability!, Pathways to Prosperity, Acting Now, NISCOPS, Climate Heroes, and Practise for Change, and actively supported learning for more effective programming across the organization.

In 2023, we worked on various knowledge products, which included papers on Good Practices and Agricultural Innovation, a position paper for the COP28, a field research paper on the Gender Action Learning System, and a desk study to check if companies lived up to their commitments in the European Partnership for Responsible Minerals.

Results

Klimaatmars 2023 / Climate march 2023, Amsterdam © Charlotte van den Arend / Solidaridad

Advocacy and collaboration in Europe and beyond

Our impact in 2023

2023 was a turbulent year worldwide with growing socio-political divisions that became increasingly visible; in Europe this included demonstrations by European farmers and climate activists. Citizens are worried about their social and economic well-being, now and in the coming years. Within this context, tackling global challenges requires partnerships and collaborations, which is an essential part of Solidaridad’s work. Stakeholders in Europe are well positioned to effect positive change and must act upon their responsibility to do so.

Amidst important milestones in advocating for smallholder inclusivity, our efforts must continue

The Policy Influencing team is advocating for the adoption of international supply chain legislation in Europe that will have a positive impact on smallholder farmers, workers, miners, and the environment in producing countries outside of Europe. In 2023 the European Union took important steps in the process of adopting legislation, and a number of our recommendations on smallholder inclusiveness were incorporated.

In 2023, our advocacy work for smallholder-inclusive legislation in Europe concerned, in particular, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). In our European advocacy we work with partners including Fair Trade Advocacy Office, Fairtrade International, Fern, Rainforest Alliance, Fairfood and Tropenbos International. We jointly held meetings with decision makers, sent letters, developed position papers, formulated recommendations and amendments, and generated media attention.

The European Union took important steps and decisions in 2023 to adopt regulatory frameworks for companies. Our focus thus moved partly away from advocating for the adoption and improvement of regulatory frameworks towards advocating for accompanying measures (as part of a smart mix of measures), promoting partnerships with producing countries, and advocating for implementation that will have a positive impact on smallholders, workers and miners.

Advocating for smallholder-inclusive regulation: CSDDD and EUDR

In December 2023, the European Parliament, Commission and Council reached a political agreement on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). At the time of writing, the agreement awaits a final vote in the Parliament and Council. In this political agreement we celebrate the inclusion of the four priorities Solidaridad has been advocating for with its partners: the recognition of the right to living incomes, the promotion of responsible purchasing practices, mandatory meaningful stakeholder engagement, and responsible disengagement as a last resort. These elements make the CSDDD better fit to effectively address the needs of smallholder farmers and have more impact.

The finalized EUDR entered into force in June 2023. This regulation will have a big impact within the concerned sectors, and already we see this happening with the risk that smallholders will lose entrance to the European market or face additional costs for compliance. Smallholder inclusion is the ongoing focus of our EU lobby efforts. Together with representatives of producing countries and the Dutch oils and fats sector we wrote a briefing paper to illustrate what the likely consequences of EUDR will be for palm oil smallholders and what should be done to make EUDR work out positively. The final version of the EUDR pays more attention to smallholder inclusion than the European Commission’s original proposal in 2021, but the risk of excluding smallholders from supply chains in Europe is still very real, making accompanying measures essential.

Working towards sustainable commodities and living income and wage

Our work with both the public and private sectors on various voluntary initiatives remains crucial, with a focus on commodities such as palm oil, cotton and textiles, cocoa, coffee, and artisanal and small-scale (ASM) gold mining. We continued to play an important role in advocating for improved private sector sustainability policies in a range of Multi Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs). In our work we strive to address root causes of sustainability challenges, such as the lack of a living income and living wage for smallholder farmers, miners and workers. In 2023, Better Cotton – an multi-stakeholder initiative where Solidaridad is on the board – included a target on monitoring the net income of farmers, an important milestone in our ambition for broader definitions of sustainability.

Publications on cotton, coffee and pricing research

Solidaridad published a number of research papers and reports in 2023, starting with Price in global commodity value chains: Key to achieving living income and living wage in March. This was an in-depth analysis of pricing in commodity value chains, commissioned by Solidaridad and carried out by AidEnvironment and Südwind.

June saw the launch of our new Sustainable Cotton Hub, where we published two papers on the cotton sector, which is rife with sustainability challenges. The new Coffee Barometer followed in September, in partnership with Conservation International and Ethos Agriculture.

All papers contained recommendations for policymakers facing the challenges in global supply chains.

Collaboration and partnerships for inclusive and sustainable supply chains

We aim to build and maintain impactful partnerships to work jointly with the private sector towards our mission of inclusive and sustainable supply chains. This year we worked with 54 corporate partners on implementing sustainable policies, practices and inclusive business models in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. This included partners in sourcing, input, financial services and market players in global supply chains.

Improving sourcing, trading practices and market connections

In 2023, we made substantial advancements with 34 corporate partners to enhance sourcing and trading practices, and strengthen market connections. We not only sustained the implementation of 32 ongoing projects, but also initiated seven new partnerships with the Albert Heijn Foundation, Oikocredit, BASF, COOP, Dugros, Puratos, and the Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC).

Our corporate partnerships develop in phases. New initiatives in 2023 concentrated on capacity building, the introduction of improved practices to benefit farmers and workers, and the cultivation of robust corporate relationships. In the meantime, advanced partnerships in coffee, palm oil, cocoa, textiles and leather focused on consolidating sustainability practices in the sourcing countries, and further development of sustainable procurement practices in the value chain, with successfully enhanced market connections in both the EU and USA.

Making technology inputs and services available for producers

Solidaridad partnered with 15 corporate partners to develop comprehensive strategies to address the accessibility of technology and services for producers. We made progress on seven multi-annual initiatives that focused on agricultural inputs, and we engaged with nine partners in new initiatives on processing technologies, inputs and business development services.

Partnership anniversaries and partnership endings

We celebrated the 10-year anniversary of our partnership with Henkel in 2023. As part of this collaboration, we currently implement sustainable palm oil cultivation practices in Colombia, Honduras, Nigeria and Indonesia. On the other hand, we decided not to proceed with a new phase of our partnership in Europe with Syngenta due to perceived insufficient commitment to the shared agenda.

Fostering access to finance for smallholders and SMEs

Solidaridad partnered with Rabobank to support the development of a smallholder agroforestry investment fund set to launch in 2024, with the aim to contribute to financial inclusion. Moreover, our collaboration with Oikocredit in 2023 facilitated projects benefiting over 20 small and medium enterprises in smallholder supply chains, enhancing their access to finance.

Partnerships to scale and co-fund
To scale and co-fund our global work, we continuously built upon both our existing and new partnerships with the private sector. During the inception phase of the Pathways to Prosperity programme we developed a baseline and a corporate engagement strategy. In collaboration with other regional expertise centres in the Solidaridad Network, we developed propositions for 16 companies, establishing a promising pipeline for cocoa, coffee, palm oil, gold, and cotton and textiles, which are set to be further developed in 2024.

Ensuring visibility and action on many fronts to continue fostering our impact

The Communications & Campaigning (C&C) team aims to spark behavioural change of citizens, companies and governments. It positions Solidaridad as a credible working partner by building a strong brand profile and supporter base, and ensures consistent and powerful communications. The team also mobilizes funding from individual donors in the Netherlands, and maintain the relationship with the Dutch National Postcode Lottery.
In 2023 we ensured a potential reach of 2.85 billion worldwide, and mobilized more than 263,000 European citizens to take action. Our efforts also contributed € 3.2 million to our funding base.

Fostering visibility for smallholder inclusivity

In January 2023 we co-facilitated the opportunity for smallholder farmer representatives from Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, Mozambique and Malaysia to physically join EU Parliament members and share their stories during a session on CSDDD legislation. This event helped to not only directly influence Parliament members, but also offer the press and wider public an opportunity to consider the perspective of producers outside of Europe.

We published our positions on smallholder inclusivity on various media channels in 2023, together with the Policy Influencing team. This included our newly launched Sustainable Cotton Hub and the 2023 Coffee Barometer. These were widely picked up by the press, delivering valuable new press contacts, including Reuters and Bloomberg.

Campaigning for sustainable textiles and coffee

2023 saw our first campaign in Germany, building upon our 2022 campaign in support of the European Citizens’ Initiative Good Clothes Fair Pay. Hereby, we supported the lobby towards EU living wage legislation in the garment industry, and together with other civil society organizations in Europe, we aimed to collect one million signatures from EU citizens by July 2023. Solidaridad contributed a total of 21,500 signatures (on top of the 5,100 in 2022). Although the threshold of 1 million signatures was not reached, the topic received a lot of attention, contributing to our continued lobby work.

Moreover, we organized a coffee campaign around International Coffee Day supporting the publication of the Coffee Barometer, with an accompanying initiative in The Hague city centre, which gained much attention from the passing public and supported Dutch political efforts with regards to international corporate sustainability.

Mobilizing Dutch supermarkets with Superlijst Sociaal

One of our major campaigns in 2023, part of the Pathways to Prosperity programme, was aimed to mobilize Dutch supermarkets with our Superlijst Sociaal initiative. It was a collaboration with the Corporate Engagement team, and our research partner Question Mark and co-campaigner Oxfam Novib. Superlijst Sociaal examined Dutch supermarkets in the context of human rights, including benchmarks on transparency, payment of farmers and workers, and gender equality. The research showed that Dutch supermarkets don’t take enough action in these fields.

Individual fundraising

We renewed our beneficiary contract with the Dutch National Postcode Lottery, ensuring an unlabeled income stream of 1.35 million euros per year for the next five years. Moreover, we collected over 1.3 million euros from the Dutch public, including individuals, faith-based organizations, companies and family foundations. Together with the 1.9 million euros collected for the Dream Fund project, we raised a total amount of 3.2 million euros this year.

New fundraising initiative: Climbing against Climate Poverty
In our effort to engage a younger audience through fresh and innovative fundraising concepts, we organized the Climbing against Climate Poverty event in November 2023, whereby we activated over 35,000 people and collected more than 25,000 euros in donations. This new fundraising concept can be repeated and scaled up in the years to come, revolving around events to mobilize people to sponsor the participants of an ‘extreme challenge,’ echoing the extreme challenges that farmers and workers face worldwide.

Growing and diversifying income, and managing mutually trustworthy relations with donor community

The aim of the Donor Relations team is to grow and diversify Solidaridad’s income, and build and maintain trustworthy relationships with its donor community. The team raises funds from European donors to allow for the implementation of our global multi-annual strategic plan (MASP), and to grow the income of the network. Furthermore, the team is responsible for stewarding relationships with existing donors, and managing existing programmes and projects to the highest standards.

Results and challenges in income diversification

Results in 2023 were overall positive, though we also had to face setbacks and respond to challenges. We renewed our partnership for another five years with the government of the Netherlands for NI-SCOPS (National Initiatives of Sustainable & Climate smart Oil Palm Smallholders), our flagship programme on palm oil sustainability, and ensured the UK government joined as a donor to the programme, providing half of the 23 million euros programme budget. This not only allowed us to scale our interventions, but also contributed to our own income diversification agenda.

Furthermore, we signed contracts with the EU delegation in India on a new project on regenerative agriculture, secured a new partnership with the German Postcode Lottery for a coffee campaign in Germany, and were successful with an application to the Danida Green Business Partnerships. Meanwhile, we supported other Solidaridad regions with their fundraising efforts, resulting in, among others, two new EU contracts in West Africa on the implementation of EUDR. Sadly, however, some proposals in which we invested significant time and effort, were turned down, notably our proposal to the EU to raise awareness of products ‘Not made in Europe’ in 8 countries in Europe, as well as applications to Norad and IKI.

New and ongoing programme implementation

2023 was the inception year of our new programme Pathways to Prosperity, made possible with the funding from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With this programme, we work towards viable and resilient production; inclusive service delivery tailored to the needs of producers; and strive to ensure that market actors adopt and mainstream inclusive trade, sustainable sourcing and pricing.
We also launched our three-year programme on food security in nine African countries called Acting Now, and undertook a mid-term review of our RECLAIM Sustainability! programme. We continued to manage various public-private partnerships (PPPs) to the highest standards. These are very valuable collaborations for us, and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), German Developpp and Danida remain our key partners. Challenges in relation to implementing our programmes included increased costs/inflation rates, security concerns in particular project areas, underspending on some programmes, and implementation challenges with some partners.

Continuous learning towards an increasingly more effective organization

The Knowledge Management & Learning (KML) team plays an important advisory and facilitating role in the development and implementation of quality planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) processes in the organization. The team aims to ensure that evidence of our effectiveness is captured, and that there is a continuous improvement of our programming and organization.

Continuous attention to PMEL in our programming

In 2023, we were responsible for the global coordination of planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) processes in six programmes: RECLAIM Sustainability!, Pathways to Prosperity, Acting Now, NI-SCOPS, Climate Heroes and Practice for Change. Within these programmes, we developed monitoring frameworks, led the development of inception and baseline reports, managed external evaluations, and ensured quality planning and reporting. In addition, we supported the Policy Influencing team in harvesting and substantiating the outcomes of our policy influencing work in Europe, and provided advice to the Corporate Engagement team regarding the monitoring of outcomes in our corporate partnerships (e.g., Henkel, Albert Heijn Foundation and Pathways to Prosperity). This work resulted in evidence-based accountability reports and learning for project adaptation. Finally, the Knowledge Management team provided advice during the development of new projects and research proposals, and decided to develop a guidance document for the design and implementation of quality PMEL processes.

Learning agendas: knowledge products and learning sessions

We continued our support to the development and implementation of learning agendas, both thematic learning agendas at the Network level (e.g. Climate Finance & Food Systems) as well as team learning agendas at Solidaridad Europe.

Within the framework of these learning agendas, we produced various knowledge products. In 2023, these included a paper on good practices and agricultural Innovation, a position paper for the COP28, a field research paper on the Gender Action Learning System, and a desk study to check if companies lived up to their commitments in the European Partnership for Responsible Minerals. We also started describing the key solutions that Solidaridad offers as part of its climate and natural resource management approach and its food systems approach. This is part of a long-term ambition to develop a systematized set of evidence-based solutions and to ensure effective programming.

In addition, the team facilitated various learning events. We organized a series of sessions related to climate and natural resource management: e.g., on deforestation regulation, locally-led adaptation, biochar, and incentives for behavioral change by farmers. All these knowledge products and learning sessions generated insights that helped the organization to implement its core activities more effectively. Moreover, we contributed to the success of the Solidaridad Yellow Week (a Solidaridad Network-wide internal learning event); facilitated the annual retreat at Solidaridad Europe where organizational plans are revisited and consolidated for the upcoming year; and organized sessions to reflect on our public-private partnerships and learn from rejected proposals.

Change that Matters Stories

SUSTAINABLE COTTON HUB

The Cotton and Corporate Responsibility paper was published simultaneously with the Ranking and marked the first of the series of publications on sustainability in the cotton sector.

COFFEE BAROMETER 2023

The Coffee Barometer, an in-depth report on the state of sustainability in the coffee sector, revealed some worrying new findings.

PATHWAYS TO PROSPERITY

With the launch of our Pathways to Prosperity programme, Solidaridad continues the work towards long-term sustainability and inclusivity, with our ultimate ambition being transformative system change that benefits all equally. This seven-year programme is implemented across several global regions and commodities.

Coffee farmer Diego Édinson López harvests coffee beans during a visit to the Limasol farm, in La Sierra, Cauca department, Colombia, on September 27, 2023.
Photo: Jaír F. Coll for Solidaridad

PAYMENTS FOR CARBON SEQUESTRATION

The Acorn CO2 trading platform is turning coffee farmers into climate heroes. We went to see how the project is being implemented on the ground in Colombia and to meet the farmers who have received their first payment.

RECLAIM SUSTAINABILITY!

In January 2023, Solidaridad was involved in co-facilitating an event at the European Parliament in Brussels, whereby smallholder farmer representatives from Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, Mozambique and Malaysia were invited to speak about their perspectives on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). This ambitious directive has the potential to improve the working conditions and livelihoods of millions of workers and smallholder farmers, and their families.

This advocacy work is part of our ongoing RECLAIM Sustainability! programme (2021-2025), a 5-year consortium between Solidaridad, Fairfood, Business Watch Indonesia and TrustAfrica. In 2023, we undertook a mid-term review of this programme that we commissioned and had carried out by an external party. This mid-term review was a good opportunity for the consortium partners to reflect on our shared progress and collaboration, and identify where we need to take steps for further improvement in order to reach, and hopefully even exceed, our envisioned results. One of our key learnings was that for sustainability measures to be truly effective, local governments need to be closely involved.

Organization & Governance

Organization

We recruited and onboarded many new colleagues in the course of 2023. Ten new employees from different nationalities joined us and added to our diversity. The goal of the diversity policy is that Solidaridad’s staff should reflect the European population as much as possible. We are happy to see that the new employees all fit in well in their teams, and we are looking forward to seeing them grow and blossom in our organization.

Country	Female	Male	Total
Germany	3	3	6
Netherlands	42	17	59
Total	45	20	65

Staff division Solidaridad Europe per country and gender

Solidaridad has a job and salary framework that is based on job descriptions. The tasks and responsibilities are described for each job function. The functions are weighed on the basis of the following four characteristics: knowledge and experience, independence, social skills, and risks, responsibilities and influence. Solidaridad’s salary policy follows that of the Dutch government (BBRA).

Integrity

In 2023 zero integrity breaches were reported. The employee survey showed an overall score of 84 percent on integrity and values, with 82 percent of staff indicating they feel they can raise any concern they have, and 84 percent indicating they would report a breach known to them. This suggests the integrity system is working well and staff feel they have a safe place to work. Nonetheless, we will continue to improve and provide a safe place to work, while enabling safe participation in our projects.

Finance

History of Solidaridad Europe’s income over the years

The total income in 2023 was 36,002,032 euros; a decrease of 2,054,726 euros compared to 2022. Income from subsidies increased by 3,958,124 euros compared to 2022, and was 278,092 euros higher than budgeted. The increase is mostly due to a new grant received from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Pathways to Prosperity). Income from other fundraising decreased by 6,012,850 euros compared to last year, and was 1,291,228 euros lower than budgeted. This is mostly due to the Dreamfund project of the Dutch Postcode Lottery.

The total expenditure in 2023 was 35,842,232 euros, which was 2,292,980 euros lower than in 2022, and 2,970,768 euros lower than budgeted. Of the total expenditure, 34,608,666 euros was spent directly on our objectives. Interest and income from investments was 38,706 euros. This led to a positive result of 198,506 euros in the statement of income and expenditure in 2023, whereas 2022 had a negative result of 165,650 euros. The result of 2023 was affected by movements in the reserves and designated funds that led to an addition of 428,199 euros to the continuity reserve.

The full audited annual statements of 2023 can be found below.

Netherlands audited
financial statements Germany
financial statements Europe audited
financial statements

2023 ANNUAL REPORT

Global Annual Report 2023

Asia 2023

East & Central Africa 2023

Europe 2023

Latin America 2023

North America 2023

Southern Africa 2023

West Africa 2023

Highlights