Global supply disruptions are intensifying due to a combination of factors including climate change, regulatory requirements, poor value chain management and exploitative labour practices. Therefore, businesses face mounting pressure to ensure their supply chains are resilient, sustainable, and ethically responsible. The Fairtrade Foundation is calling for pre-competitive collaboration to address these challenges. Recognising that no single company or producer can solve the scale of today’s supply chain challenges alone, Shared Impact is Fairtrade’s solution, uniting retailers to pool sourcing of cocoa, bananas, or coffee. Approved by the CMA in 2023, it strengthens supply chain resilience, boosts producer incomes, and enables long-term sustainability investments through fair pricing and strategic interventions.
Kerrina Thorogood, Partnerships Director at the Fairtrade Foundation:
“Ahead of The Economist’s 10th Anniversary Sustainability Week, where I’ll be speaking on 12th March, it’s clear that businesses are under increasing pressure to navigate global supply disruptions while ensuring their supply chains are resilient, sustainable, and ethically responsible. Climate change, regulatory pressures, and ethical concerns pose growing risks that businesses must address. However, tackling these challenges alone can be both costly, complex and incredibly difficult.
At the Fairtrade Foundation, we believe that pre-competitive collaboration is key to strengthening supply chain resilience. Our newly launched Shared Impact model enables UK grocery retailers to work together to pool sourcing of additional Fairtrade volumes from certified producers, reducing HREDD risks and ensuring supply continuity during disruptions while lowering costs through shared responsibility. By making longer-term sourcing commitments (3-5 years), businesses can help stabilise farmer incomes and mitigate supply-chain vulnerabilities through longer term programme interventions such as agroforestry. This, in turn, ensures that farmers have the resources to withstand economic and environmental volatility.
Issues such as poor value-chain management and exploitative labour practices demonstrate the urgent need for businesses to adopt a holistic approach to risk, sustainability, and resilience. Until recently, concerns over competition law had prevented collaboration, but that is changing. The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provided guidance supporting the Shared Impact model, confirming that businesses can work together to drive sustainability without breaching competition law.
At Sustainability Week on 12th March, I will be speaking on the panel ‘New Perspectives on Old Problems: Navigating Global Supply Disruptions and Building Resilience,’ where we’ll explore the critical pinch points in global supply chains and how businesses can tackle them through collaboration, ethical sourcing, and shared responsibility. I look forward to the discussion and to highlighting how innovative models like Shared Impact can help businesses strengthen their supply chains while exercising responsibility to stakeholders, investors and consumers.”