Zahid Torres-Rahman

The role of social procurement for inclusive value chains

By definition, social procurement leverages the purchasing power of companies to achieve broader social impact objectives. It goes beyond responsible sourcing which integrates and manages ESG criteria into the procurement process. Instead, it focuses on buying goods, materials, or services from social businesses with the explicit intention to create net positive impact.
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At COP26, the Future of our Farmers and our Food is at Stake

A new report, titled Fairtrade and Climate Change and conducted by researchers from VU Amsterdam and Bern University of Applied Sciences on behalf of Fairtrade, is explicit in identifying how climate change will impact specific regions and Fairtrade crops. Above all, it presents a clarion call for immediate and comprehensive climate action.
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How cooperatives benefit smallholder farmers with Hileena Eshetu and Mark Blackett

Smallholder farmers and agribusiness are benefiting from market ecosystem alliances. Hileena Eshetu and Mark Blackett from AMEA explain how. Hear about cooperative farming, access to business supply chains and resilience.
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Investing in poverty reduction and global growth with Alicia Phillips Mandaville

How do you effectively spend billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to help fight global poverty? And how do you invest for climate resilience and account for the unknown such as the risks of pandemics? We hear from Alicia Phillips Mandaville who is the Vice President of the Department of Policy and Evaluation at The Millennium Challenge Corporation (the MCC)
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Putting People at the Heart of Climate Action: 3 Reasons Business Must Care

We’re just over two weeks away from a critical milestone in the fight against climate change. The UK will host the COP26 climate conference, bringing together countries to enhance their commitments for the first time since they made them under the Paris Agreement in 2015. Zahid Torres-Rahman shares 3 reasons why business must put people at the heart of climate justice.
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Why does so little funding go to women entrepreneurs, and what can we do about it?

According to the World Economic Forum, it will take over 250 years to achieve gender economic parity. Currently, only two per cent of venture capital goes to women-led startups. While investing in women entrepreneurs alone cannot fix the problem, it could help bridge this gap and reap benefits for men and women alike. What can bankers, entrepreneurs, and support organisations do to shift more capital to women entrepreneurs?
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Equality, justice, and investment in nature must be at the heart of the corporate climate response

With the release of the latest report from the IPCC on climate science, the planetary emergency sirens are sounding louder than ever. And as the world awaits the outcome of crucial international climate talks in Glasgow, momentum is building for ambitious global action that delivers net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050.
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Creating Economic Opportunity in the Northern Triangle: Breaking Down Barriers to Growth to Stimulate Recovery

The Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Fragility caused by poverty, violence and corruption are drivers of migration — exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and two back-to-back hurricanes in November 2020. A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recommends the U.S. government prioritize reforms and programs that will reduce the barriers to growth for small and medium enterprises.
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Walk with Push, talk with Push, in the push for climate justice

In December 2009, Push embarked on his first long walk – his ‘Walk for Climate Justice’ – from Oxford, UK, to Copenhagen, Denmark, to raise awareness of the issues of climate change and poverty in advance of the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen, COP15. In 2011, he repeated this effort in another Walk for Climate Justice in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, to call attention to the plight of small producers such as coffee growers in an era of climate change. This walk was supported by the Karnataka Growers Federation (KGF) and Centre for Social Markets (CSM), and reached 30,000 people directly, and through radio he was able to reach a million listeners a day!
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Let’s learn from local communities and step up more to create climate and social impact

An article from the latest edition of CLUED-iN, giving hands-on insights on how exactly inclusive businesses are already living up to climate and social impact expectations ahead of COP26, and what is needed to help other entrepreneurs to step up.
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Failing to Win: Lessons from an entrepreneur who went ‘all in’

After backpacking across Africa in search of changemakers building scalable, high-impact businesses, Canadian entrepreneur Mike Quinn convinced his retired parents to mortgage their house and lend him $100,000 to co-found Zoona, one of the continent’s earliest fintechs. That risk paid off big time, as Zoona went on to process $2.5 billion of transactions and generate $26 million in income for thousands of micro-entrepreneurs across Zambia and Malawi.
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Going beyond sustainable: Is regenerative agriculture the future for raw material supply chains?

Our farms, and the wider ecosystem, need regenerating. That’s why I’ve been working on the REEL Regenerative Code for Cotton to introduce various regenerative farming practices and new techniques to cotton farmers, which not only enhance but also enable them to foster mitigation and adaptation to climate change. It’s a win-win for the farmers and for the environment.
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The pandemic, supply chains and gendered impacts

Rita Mendez, impacts senior coordinator at ISEAL, shares the findings of a recent paper on gender and gender risks across the supply chain.
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Sustainability systems in the next decade of action on business and human rights

Vidya Rangan, impacts and evidence senior manager at ISEAL, discusses the role of sustainability systems in providing an enabling environment for the systemic change needed to holistically progress on human rights.
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Parag Khanna

Parag Khanna explores our future, providing us with a cutting-edge guide to the megatrends shaping humanity’s next decades. He dives into questions such as: where will we be living in 2050 and how will we get there?
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Addressing inequality is essential to building a sustainable food system

Sheila Senathirajah, innovations senior manager at ISEAL, discusses the importance of equality in building inclusive and fair value chains for producers.
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Active Adaptation – making progress in an uncertain world

A new report from Charities Aid Foundation and Forster Communications is urging sustainability leaders to adopt a new mindset of ‘active adaptation’ to make progress in this world of uncertainty. Building on the original ‘Bold Thinking, Brave Action’ report published in July 2020, the research highlights new enablers and inhibitors that are impacting organisational decision-making.
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Sharath Jeevan

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Building Skills for a Sustainable Future: From Learning to Action

Day 5: Building Skills for a Sustainable Future: From Learning to Action
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Vaccine Literacy and Access: The Role of Business Partnerships

Day 5: Vaccine Literacy and Access: The Role of Business Partnerships
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