Snapshots of our work. We create teams from our network with focussed expertise for supply chains and research.
Etico trading partnership
Social Business Network is the major shareholder in Etico, The Ethical Trading and Investment Company. Through Etico’s relationship-focussed trading, we increase the economic value to farmers, their cooperatives and communities in commodity supply chains. We combine this with delivering excellent quality, value and impact to our brand or market partners and consumers. We show that our businesses are making a difference with powerful stories of change and impact.
Gender equality initiative
In 2010, we pioneered the Recognition of the Unpaid Work of Women Initiative with The Body Shop and Juan Francisco Paz Silva Cooperative in Achuapa, Nicaragua for their sesame oil production. We have since expanded the initiative to coffee production, working with roasters.
The initiative factors in previously unrecognised costs of production. Domestic and care work are largely carried out by women and they receive no pay. This pioneering initiative highlights that this work is critical to production and so should be remunerated. We drew on the work of two of our academic associates to develop a methodology to define and quantify this work. The value captured is invested in enterprises led by or impacting on women members of the cooperative.
Partnerships between brands and growers
Mozzo Coffee and Rebuild Women’s Hope, DR Congo
SBN works with UK coffee roastery Mozzo Coffee and its farmer cooperative partners through its Community2Community Fund to manage and deliver programmes to support the cooperative businesses and social and health developments in their communities.
In 2020/21, this included working with Rebuild Women’s Hope to build , equip and run a maternity clinic on Idjwi Island on Lake Kivu in Eastern DR Congo. Rebuild Women’s Hope intends to ensure the long-term sustainability of the clinic through contributions from its coffee sales to a social fund for the clinic and other social projects.
c2cfund.org mozzocoffee.com rebuildwomenshopedrc
Divine Chocolate and the IDH Cocoa Origins Program, Sierra Leone
SBN is working with the Ngoleagorbu Cocoa Farmers Union on the edge of the Gola Rainforest to support them in strengthening their farming practices, their cooperative and grow markets for their Fairtrade, organic, Forest Friendly cocoa.
divinechocolate.com idhsustainabletrade.com
Karma Drinks and the Tiwai Communities, Sierra Leone
SBN worked with Karma Drinks, the ethical drinks company from 2018 to 2020 on its charitable foundation, to develop its programme on sustainable livelihoods, education and healthcare with cola nut growing communities in Sierra Leone and supported the brand to extend its ethical impact.
Wales/Uganda Fairtrade coffee community
Supporting the partnership between Mount Elgon Agroforestry Coffee Cooperative in Uganda and a Welsh fairtrade coalition as they build strong connections between communities in Wales and Uganda through Fairtrade coffee and grow their coffee social enterprise, Jenipher’s Coffi.
Covid-19 Rwandan cooperative response plan
Social Business Network is supporting Challenges Worldwide and its cooperative partners in Rwanda to analyse and plan for the implications of COVID-19 on their coffee sales.
Advocacy
We advocate for models of multi-stakeholder collaboration in supply chains and the role of smallholder farmer cooperatives in resilient food systems.
SBN’s directors are connected to a number of networks. They are actively engaged in developing Fairtrade, supporting small producers and lobbying for improved food sustainability and the real price of food. They participate in the Specialty Coffee Association of America Expo lectures, are supporters of the Small Producer network (SPP), members of the Food and Ethics Council in the UK, board members of a number of social enterprises and working groups. With the aim of building new models of fairer and more ethical trade within the Social Economy.
Solidarity with cooperatives
Successful smallholder associations invest in their communities and enable self development. We think it is important that they are supported to be successful. We offer targeted support for cooperatives to stay in business in difficult times.
For example, following the political difficulties in Nicaragua in 2016 and the coffee price crisis, one of Nicaragua’s most established and renowned coffee cooperatives was in financial difficulty and risked bankruptcy. Through Etico, we worked with the farmers, the cooperative, their ethical lenders and buyers to find collaborative long-term solutions to continue to supply coffee, restructure and, over time, re-pay the debt through coffee deliveries. This is important because we know successful trading co-operatives deliver greater direct benefits to their local economies and communities. We have a tailored methodology for this form of support.
The Nicaragua Cooperative Collaboration
Social Business Network facilitated development projects with the Juan Francisco Paz Silva Cooperative in Achuapa and the Del Campo Cooperative in Leon, Nicaragua. This collaboration included funds from Fairtrade and from Raleigh International, through its volunteer programme.
Achievements: installed gravity-fed water system to provide clean water to the health centre, school, church and childcare centre. Built composting toilets. Reforestation and cultural activities in rural community centres. Additionally, the projects have facilitated youth development programmes for hundreds of young people from the UK and Central America.