From Silos to Synergy: Why we need greater dialogue and collective action in food and apparel value chains

Food and fibre industries are facing and further perpetuating complex and interconnected challenges across global value chains. However, these issues are being tackled in echo chambers and siloes. How can these industries come together to learn and collectively establish efficiencies and activities which benefit all stakeholders across the value chain? In this blog, Forum’s Associate Director for UK and Europe, Hannah Cunneen, explores what we’re seeing across food and apparel systems, and the opportunities for cross-sectoral collaborations in meeting social and environmental needs head on. ​​

For many of us, a morning without coffee seems unimaginable. Chocolate and cotton products are always to hand. These commodities are unassuming staples in European households, yet the industries behind them are fraught with complex challenges and hidden exploitative practices. From exhibiting reliance on commercial exploitation, labour-intensive farming, environmental degradation, and significant social challenges like abject poverty, forced and child labour, and gender inequality, the global value chains that underpin these industries are anything but straightforward. 

Despite efforts by some European businesses to improve their practices, achieving large-scale and meaningful change remains an uphill battle. In addition to this, persistent demand for raw and processed commodities by European retailers and consumers complicates efforts to address the underlying issues in the supply chain, making sustainable progress difficult to achieve.

The challenge of compliance

Some might argue that change is coming, and it’s a great start, but I’m not convinced it’s deep or urgent enough. The upcoming EU disclosure and reporting requirements for global value chains add another layer of complexity, requiring businesses to gain greater visibility into their cross-tier suppliers and report extensively.

While this is valuable — transparency and accountability are essential components of ensuring social and environmental outcomes — countless conversations with our food and fibre-focused partners have substantiated that oftentimes resources within businesses haven’t been right-sized to accommodate reporting requirements and maintain momentum on ambitious sustainability targets.  

In short, sustainability teams, in many cases, are now reporting teams. There’s little time for evidence-based action, learning, innovation and scaling. Even though this is needed now more than ever.  

A call for collective action 

Presently, our coffee, cotton, and cocoa industries are not future-fit, and this is because no single business — even those who are doing their fair share — is big enough to establish a regenerating system on its own.    

So, does this mean we can’t expect coffee in the mornings, chocolate in the evenings, cotton in our medical cabinet and on our feet? Are we prepared to accept this probability? I have my doubts. 

The good news is that there may be ways to assure resiliency in the products we’ve come to count on. 

What if, instead of looking inward to meet compliance, business functions looked outside of their immediate work, connecting across their value chains, and laterally into other like businesses?  

What would it take to reconfigure value chains, to re-write the script across industries and within our own businesses to drive just and regenerative outcomes?  

Banding together to acknowledge the uncomfortable and concerning truths in the way value chains currently operate, for example, would surely identify points of efficiencies and scalable change. Collaborating across tiers to fundamentally examine the power dynamics which underlie global food and fibre value chains would be transformative.  

We are all, after all, agents of change. 

Let’s reconfigure and ‘future-fit’ our industries  

What do we mean by collaboration?  

It means co-creating action pathways. By working together, key stakeholders can pool resources and jointly scale proven activities and partnerships to collectively address and overcome the multiple challenges encountered in cocoa, coffee, and cotton value chains. 

So what does effective collaboration look like?

  • Developing evidence-based, user-friendly, and open-source technical guidance that up and downstream stakeholders can easily implement. Jointly investing in developing and utilising such technical guidance ensures that these resources are accessible and practical for all stakeholders in the value chain, as well as those in like-industries. 
  • Fostering pre-competitive dialogue, to share insights and strategies without the pressure of market competition. To integrate these allied efforts, businesses can start by participating in industry forums and networks that promotes and shares best practice, learning from peers. We can ask each other: how are you working in this region? How are you ensuring gender equity? How are you safeguarding? How are you using data ethically and effectively to also support environmental outcomes?
  • Committing to transparent reporting and continuous improvement plans so that businesses can build trust, and adaptive but unified actions. We then move beyond compliance, together, co-leading regenerative and social outcomes, supported by equitable financial instruments. 

This collective approach not only prevents the duplication of efforts but also accelerates the transition to sustainable practices across the vast cotton, coffee, and cocoa industries. Only then can tier-one businesses effectively address the stark realities faced by producers, the planet, and people involved in these sectors. 

If you or your organisation are looking to leverage knowhow, build collective strengths and resources for a just, resilient and sustainable future, reach out to me at [email protected]

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