And now we are ready to go for Sustainable Trade...

On Monday we had a big meeting at one of Holland's business institutes, the offices of VNO/NCW, the Dutch employer organization. In The Hague, opposite of the monkey mountain, the nick name for the ministry of foreign affairs, that is the building... And opposite of the ministry of agriculture. We started off with André Haspels, chief de bureau of development cooperation. Bernard Wientjes did the opening, followed by Gerda Verburg, our agric minister. Then we had speeches by Unilever, WWF, Solidaridad and Ahold. After each speech right into the debate with the 7 MPs that were present. And lively it was. And we had general lift off! No new cabinet can ignore that!

Once upon a time there were NIMBYs...

Not In My Back Yard. That's the mantra nowadays. Stop & Shop, one of our banners in the US, is frantically trying to erect windmills on its stores. Maybe somewhat less attractive that the original Dutch windmill, but taking good care of the environment in a most pleasant and unobtrusive way. And now what. The NIMBYs are ruling the world. Everybody thinks putting up windmills on our stores is a really great idea, as long as it is in the neighboring town... And of course we do solar panels, lots of them, but the roof is only that big. We need those windmills to make a difference. So we are trying to make the NIMBY a WINMBY: Wind In My Back Yard!

Actionplan Sustainable Trade!!!

Today Dick Boer (CEO Ahold Nederland), Peter ter Kulve (CEO Unilever Benelux), Johan van de Gronden (Director WWF Netherlands) and Joost Oorthuizen (director of the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative) will present the Action Plan Sustainable Trade.

The Action Plan consist of a vison letter undersigned by more than 60 companies and 8 civil society organisations, and a portfolio with sectoral development programs.

The Action Plan is targetted at the members (and candidate members) of the House of Parlement of the Netherlands. With a annual turnover of 37 billion euros and 61.000 FTE, the supply chains of the development programs are of great importance to the Dutch economy.

Bollywood Fit and Fun

In Holland we have an employee fitness program by the name of Fit and Fun. We are running it to stimulate some healthy exercise of our employees. And then Anima arrived as an intern in our department. And she is a Bollywood expert. And then there was an idea. Why do we not marry Bollywood and Fit and Fun, and so we created the Bollywood dancing experience. A once off, that was well received!

Ghana-Netherlands 1-0

Wednesday was the day. I was going to meet Kofi Annan in person. He was responsible for me and my family moving to Ghana in 2002. After he had a discussion with our former CEO and they decided that Ahold would do something good in Africa, I was selected to pack my bags and go and find out what would be the right thing to do. And that's what we did. Together with the government, NGOs and our business we started Ahold Sustainable Trade Development. And now we are doing millions of business in a sustainable way, and backed up by community work through the Albert Heijn Foundation (www.ah.nl/ahfoundation).

Well, the night before I went to the soccer match between Ghana and the Netherlands in the Kuip in Rotterdam. A great game and a great score for Holland, 4-1. During and after the match we had a wonderful time with Ghanaian supporters dreaming about the final in South Africa with the same teams.

Meeting Kofi Annan was something I will not easily forget. In his patient way he explains that a company has to do what is good, no matter what the law is, not matter who the government is. Step by step introducing sustainable business, everywhere in the world. "No, you should not leave Zimbabwe, you are supporting all those families, do not leave them alone." Now, that is 1-0 for the world, for Africa, for Ghana!

Chocolate shows responsibility

Got together with students of the University of Amsterdam about sustainability and consumer. How do you communicate to the consumer? You may be shocked when I say that the consumer is not necessarily interested in sustainability in general, as we certainly hoped he or she was. The consumer is mainly interested in issues that have a direct impact on the lives of themselves and their families. They don’t put their money where their mouth is unless it’s something that clearly benefits them directly. Seems to be a logical reaction. Well, anyway, the students created a chocolate bar, trying to find out what split-marketing is and how it works, also in terms of sustainability. So one group created an interesting transparant packaging with Chocolate shows responsibility stamped on it. And a cartoon showing the production process inc. the farmer growing the cacoa.

The kangaroo, the wild cat and the penguin

What binds them together? They are all stakeholders that we can learn from. From the kangaroo that hops around in a very energy efficient way from issue to issue. From the wild cat, normally very wary of humans, but also related to the house cat, that bites itself into an issue and alerts the world about it. From the penguin, that lives in huge colonies, and is not always very fast when it comes to new issues.

How to find out about new trends and issues, that was the theme of the workshop I was presenting at the Ethical Corporation 2010 conference.

The kangaroo stands for the investors, the issue hoppers, not necessarily acting upon what they ask: CDP, Forest Disclosure, DJSI, FTSE4Good. New: CR and renumeration. Advise: put your money where your mouth is.

The wild cat stands for the NGOs, the issue biters, always on the look for new issues around sustainability in the supply chain. New: they follow an agenda. Advise: one voice please!

The penguin stands for the retailers, the issue freezers, not always very efficient in handling new issues. New: they cooperate with competitors on sustainability. Advise: do not be afraid of nobody.

And also listen to what is not coming out the ark, those things that nobody talks about: health, shortages, aging.

So goes the the story of the sustainability zoo!