Companies are increasingly pledging to buy from sustainable suppliers and invest in good production practice. Nonetheless, some businesses do better than others at honouring these corporate social responsibility commitments. We aim to be a constructive yet critical partner. This can prompt a range of actions, which sometimes includes criticising companies to prompt them to continue to act on their good intentions.

While Europe is dealing with its problems, populist and nationalist political movements are rising in many countries. Foreign aid budgets are under pressure and further spending cuts are foreseen since accommodation of refugees and military interventions are done at the cost of aid budgets.

For a transition to socially and environmentally sustainable sectors, collaboration at landscape level and an enabling policy environment are key ingredients to support ongoing efforts for good practices in farming, mining and industry.

The Norwegian government pledged grants for two new programmes. One of them aims to create further collaboration between governments, farmers and coffee companies in South America to shift coffee production and sourcing towards zero deforestation. In this programme, companies invest in, farmers adopt and governments design policies for climate-smart agriculture.

The Dutch Postcode Lottery continues to be a major promoter of sustainability with their annual contribution and support for our special programmes.