Hi everyone, my name is Teresa Gomes, I am a Climate Lead at Digital Opportunity Trust and I am so excited to collaborate and learn from you all here 
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/t-g/
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Hello, My name is John Mwakima, a community leader, environmentalist and climate action champion from Taita-Taveta County, Kenya.
Looking forward to great networking and discussion.
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Great to hear that, Small world :)
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Hello, Michael Ojo an architect, Founded Letâs Build for Humanity Initiative, focusing on reducing inequalities focusing on the fragile communities and the displaced Persons (IDPs) people group providing them with social impact infrastructure including Sanitation facility, housing, and also engage them in youth skill development, climate change advocacy .passionate about contributing solutions to environmental sustainability and societal inclusion at the intersection of economics, technology, and politics.
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Hello, my name is Nicholas Ngesa, working at Tembea Futures Institute as the Chief Operating Officer, I am glad to be here to share quite insightful discussions.
Thank you
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Hello, My name is Hayley Capp from CARE International UK, I work as New Business Manager for our climate justice work. CARE works with business to ensure gender equality is achieved in supply chains and that women and girls who bear the brunt of the climate crisis have access to finance and decision making spaces so they can adapt and thrive.
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Our first question today:
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Hi everyone, Verity OâShaughnessy here from The Partnership Collective
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Hi everyone, am Agathe Bukasa from The Fair Cobalt Alliance
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A1 â Part 1: Grean World Technologies is a clean energy company in Ethiopia that uses a women-centric village entrepreneurship model to sell clean cookstoves in rural areas. They pivoted from a centralized model to this decentralized sales model after piloting strategies and salary structures to find the right fit for increased sales and impact. They prioritized their women customers and, using them as the focal point identified the most effective, efficient, and responsible pathways to growth. Given that women are responsible for cooking and firewood collection in this context, and also on the receiving end of negative impacts of traditional cooking methods like indoor pollution, Grean World recruited women from the community to sell to the local women. The company provides sales and after-sales training and helps village entrepreneurs build inventory in their home areas. They also provide a small salary during the rainy months when sales are low to ensure the women entrepreneurs stay with the company for the long term. More about this company and their strategy can be found here.
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The Partnership Collective highlights projects prioritising people in their climate action strategies. These projects should be verified by project participants and stakeholders over time, demonstrating long-term commitment and impact. They should be facilitated through business models rather than stand-alone projects.
Project one
Reckitt, Fair Rubber Association and Earthworm
- During 2022, Reckitt rolled out the Fair Rubber Association (FRA) standard and started paying a price premium to farmers and tappers in its Thai supply chain. They worked with the FRA to engage with farmers, supporting them to establish a local Farmer Association to receive the premium and decide how to invest it in the community. Reckitt paid over âŹ970,000 of premium to the association in 2022, with farmers agreeing to spend it on a joining bonus, subsidised organic fertiliser and grant funding for income diversification activities including mushroom growing and livestock fattening.
- Reckitt is now supporting the association with developing governance structures to manage itself and develop a long-term plan for how to invest the premium. Reckitt is also partnering with Earthworm Foundation to improve farmersâ livelihoods in ways that make the supply network more resilient, including:
- Boosting farmersâ and householdsâ income from latex and other sources, like livestock-raising
- Encouraging regenerative agriculture practices like agroforestry, which can improve productivity and enhance ecosystems
Improving living and working conditions, for example with personal protective equipment
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Project two
- Veja and regenerative organic cotton
- VEJA prioritizes fair trade and sustainable practices in its sourcing of organic cotton. They work directly with producer associations like ADEC in Brazil to ensure a stable income for farmers.
- By setting prices in advance and providing financial support, VEJA helps farmers cover production costs and implement sustainable practices.
- Agroecological cotton farming, unlike intensive methods, integrates with subsistence crops in the same field, avoiding chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Cotton is grown alongside crops like corn, sesame, rice, beans, and pumpkins, providing various natural inputs to enrich the soil and diversifying livelihoods
- They also collaborate with NGOs like ESPLAR and Diaconia to provide technical assistance and promote agroecological farming methods. This approach benefits both the environment and the communities involved.
The cotton produced in Brazil is part of the Brazilian participatory guarantee system: a government-approved method in which small producers certify each other.
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A1 â Part 2: I am currently researching gender and community engagement practices within waste management companies in Kenya. In each company interview, I hear how critical it is to involve the community in effective waste collection and management. These companies work closely with community leaders, police, youth, and civil society organizations to enable access and build their value chains. These companies prioritize people and communication as part of their operations rather than as an add-on. We hope to write an article on collective findings soon!
Project 3
Nestle and Blue Marble
- Affordable weather insurance for Nespresso coffee farmers in Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Kenya, Zimbabwe to support sustainable livelihoods and mitigate the impacts of climate change on farmer incomes and livelihoods. Affordable crop insurance that pays out without delay when bad weather impacts coffee production. The initiative creates more secure and sustainable supply chains.
The insurance product uses âparametric dataâ satellite-based climate data to determine when coffee output has been impaired by either too much or not enough rainfall during each growing phase. When the satellite technology detects that there has been too much or not enough rainfall for a phase in a specific location, payouts are made directly to the registered coffee grower of the affected hectares, graduated according to the severity of the weather. No notices of loss, formalities or claims processes are required.
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One that people might know is Unileverâs âSustainable Living Planâ which integrates both environmental and social impact. They worked to reduce its carbon footprint, and at the same time, it focuses on improving livelihoods in its supply chain. They partner with farmers to promote sustainable agricultural practices, which helps communities adapt to climate change and create resilience while also driving positive environmental impact.
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At the UN Foundationâs Universal Access Project (UAP), we focus on womenâs health in global supply chains â health beyond the narrow, albeit critical occupational safety and health focus. Climate change has elevated worker health as a material risk â heat, flooding etc. These are all happening now.
But the health impacts, especially to women workers, go beyond heat and flooding.
The question for us is not just whether companies prioritize people in their strategies (yes essential!) but also that they recognize their investments in worker wellbeing and womenâs health as important existing responses to climate change. These need to be amplified â and integrated.
As an organization that convenes, networks and promotes good practices, UAP has been advancing various approaches to womenâs health as essential to empowerment but also now Just Transition. So there are companies who have taken important steps on womenâs health and well-being â and these need to be amplified within the Just Transition Framework. A few examples of important work â many of which are also examples of collective action:
⢠The Resilience Fund for Women in Global Value Chains â 10 corporate investors support this pool fund in flexible funding. It invests in grassroots, women led organizations working on health, safety, and economic resilience. These organizations do not have the environment by their names but all of them are helping their communities respond to climate. Here is an Fund Insight Report on what they are experiencing.
⢠Swasti (Indiaâs) I4e cluster model for health services â Swasti works in industrial zones with multiple factories and brands to create economies of scale and provide information and services to workers. This model showed the value of workplaces in ensuring workers have access to health services and government benefits. Tufts research on this, funded by UAP, show how this increased the number worker who were able to access benefits and how access to family planning increased mental health.
These services and benefits will be critical to worker health and wellbeing as climate impacts increase.
⢠Corporate commitments to Womenâs Health and Empowerment. UAP has a host of examples of companies that have taken action on the womenâs health through their polices, programs and practices.
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This sounds super interesting Yaquta, is there anywhere we can find out more or do we need to wait to see your article and results?
A1 â Part 3: This research is a bit old but during our G-SEARCh project, we developed case studies with Nova Coffee (Rwanda) and Sanergy on how they embed women in their climate adaptation strategies â both programs were co-designed with key stakeholders to ensure they addressed key needs and challenges.
Nova Coffee implemented an 11-month training program for coffee farmers to change their farming practices to mitigate or adapt to the adverse effects of climate change and increase the participation of women and youth farmers. In addition, they provided various high-quality inputs such as seedlings and fertilizers to the farmers to increase the uptake of new skills. Here, the program was co-created through a participatory diagnostic exercise with Nova Coffee leadership, managers, employees, and farmers, and an action-planning workshop with all these stakeholders to share findings and co-design an evidence-based engagement.
Sanergy implemented a sales training program for new and existing agrovets in their distribution network to empower women in distributing agricultural inputs and increase sales of organic fertilizer. The training program included several technical and communication sessions, including educating and sharing resources with female smallholder farmers who are often not household decision-makers (hence focusing on how to help them convince the male head of household). The program was co-developed based on the results of a gender diagnostic assessment and conversations with Sanergy staff on critical gender and business challenges â highlighting the importance of co-creation to improve business practices, gain financial benefits, and scale impact.
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Innocent Muno, CEO and founder CEDIL Uganda, a social enterprise in Uganda
There are millions of enterprises around the world that are choosing to prioritise people and the planet over profit maximisation, including in their climate action strategies. The scale of this movement is not fully visible because it emerged bottom-up, and it tends to be fragmented by language, regional differences, registration types, economic sectors, and other divides.
By focusing on shared minimum standards and simple language, the People and Planet First verification is able to work across traditional divides. It can include social enterprises, fair trade enterprises, cooperatives, mutualist organisations, post-growth enterprises, not-for-profit businesses, earned-income nonprofits, social businesses, regenerative businesses, steward-owned companies, and any community that meets the standards and puts people and planet first.
The verification has five standards.
- Purpose: Exists to solve a social and/or environmental problem
- Operations: Prioritises purpose, people, and planet over profit in operational decisions
- Revenue: Has a self-sustaining revenue model
- Use of Surplus: Reinvests the majority of any surplus towards its purpose
- Structure: Chooses legal structures and financing that protect and lock-in purpose long term.
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