#3BLchat – Building Sustainable Supply Chains From Farmer To Unilever

Sep 15, 2014 7:00 AM ET

Campaign: #3blchat: Your Voice, on Corporate Social Responsibility

By David Connor

Multinational businesses have a huge impact on the livelihoods of millions of people and communities across their value chains through employment, training or through numerous smallholder farms and lower tier suppliers.

Unilever chose to announce their most recent new partnership with Solidaridad via #3BLchat and to share their reasoning and hopes for their sustainable supply chain future.

“A2a We are partnering with @Solidaridadnetw to help improve the lives of 1 million people in our extended #supplychain. #3blchat” https://twitter.com/Unilever/status/506784678133899264

With a global operation as large and diverse as Unilever’s it takes the specific grassroots expertise and reach of partner organisations such as Solidaridad to turn cutting edge strategic approaches such as the Sustainable Living Plan into real world tangible social and environmental impact. The increasing pressure from regulators and consumers alike for greater product transparency requires industries via their pioneers to undergo a shift in stakeholder relationships to a much more collaborative role, as that of a patient yet firm facilitator and guide, rather than demanding parent.

“#3blchat @bbaue Have a look at how we supported #sugarcane farmer take care of herself and family http://ow.ly/AYX0v” https://twitter.com/Solidaridadnetw/status/506792904443305985

The early US morning audience was rich with expertise from NGOs, industry consultants, smaller suppliers and leading corporates including John Friedman (of Sodexo), Adam Elman (Marks & Spencer), Chainfood, Bill Baue and Elaine Cohen, all eager to professionally interrogate any impacts and support where best practice was obviously evident.

Unilever’s and Solidaridad’s roles and experiences across women’s empowerment, entrepreneurship, impact measurement, collaboration, labour conditions, scalability, supporting agriculture and land use management were all included in the main and parallel conversations.

“yes, big prob low interest in ag professions RT @Unilever: A7 - Part of the long term is young ag entrepreneurs &nxt gen of farmers #3BLchat” https://twitter.com/elainecohen/status/506796382833762304

With 45 years of global experience already behind them Solidaridad are perfect partners to amplify the Unilever call to sustainability action on their behalf across all the major commodity sectors including sugar cane, cotton, cocoa, tea, coffee, soy and palm oil.

For all the main questions and answers, plus further highlights check out our Storify version for this chat.

If after reading this and the Storify recap, you have any further questions to add to the ongoing conversation, please feel free to reach out to @Unilever and @Solidaridadnetw directly quoting the ‘#3BLchat’ hashtag to help frame your enquiry.

A #3BLchat is much more than the perceived focused 60 minutes of transparent opportunity to engage with stakeholders. The promotion of the event and the event itself on Twitter are the fuel for new relationships, open conversations and deeper learning.

Please also find below our resource hub on this sustainable supply chain topic as a curated list of those websites, documents, media and case studies shared by both the guests and the audience for easy access and accelerated knowledge sharing.

Don’t forget to follow @3BLMedia, and make sure you keep a #3BLchat search open to make sure you stay connected to the most inspirational and productive sustainability / CSR themed Twitter chat there is!

Resources shared and by whom

By @Solidaridadnetw