Reflecting this commitment, the share of core support grants made by Laudes Foundation increased by 28% between 2020 and 2021.

Brazilian NGO Repórter Brasil investigates human rights violations and threats to the environment by mapping and tracking the supply chains of the largest economic sectors.

In recent years, facing increased political polarisation and a divisive national government, it became challenging for the organisation to continue its work. Hackers took down Repórter Brasil’s website and demanded the organisation delete some of its reporting, while individuals attempted to invade its office space.

When the Covid-19 crisis hit, Laudes Foundation moved quickly to ensure our partners could cover basic operating expenses, as well as providing support to the communities they serve. To build partner resilience, our Covid-19 emergency response offered partners in need with additional funding, grant flexibility and non-financial technical support.

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, we provided EUR 4 million of funding and leveraged EUR 8 million of additional funding. The emergency response reached 61 partners – mostly across Asia and Brazil – assisting more than 500,000 people.

To drive improvement and identify key lessons, Laudes Foundation commissioned an external evaluation in 2021 that analysed our approach. Watch the video and read the full evaluation to learn more.

Laudes Foundation convenes experts and practitioners and facilitates dialogue to create a shared vision, commitment to change, and pathway to action. In 2021, we supported more than 30 membership bodies and multistakeholder initiatives, and hosted multisector gatherings to drive meaningful partnerships and collaboration.

Before the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Laudes Foundation, Quadrature Climate Foundation and The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation convened a climate finance forum at Glen House in Scotland. More than 50 leaders from philanthropy, the public and private sectors, law, civil society and academia gathered to activate the climate finance community to deliver the net-zero commitments necessary to meet the Paris Agreement and keep the global temperature increase below 1.5°C. 

The collective challenge was clear: the capital is available to decarbonise global systems but needs to be deployed at an unprecedented scale and speed. While private finance is stepping up by making ambitious net-zero commitments, broader and experienced stakeholder collaboration is required to ensure private sector commitments translate to prompt, systemic change.

At Glen House we identified six areas where climate finance and philanthropic collaboration could accelerate decarbonisation in a manner that preserves and protects social equity.

Laudes Foundation continues to support this community and its collective action.

Laudes Foundation recognises collaboration takes time and is not sufficient to create systemic change on its own. Contributing towards change in a complex, interconnected industry such as the fashion supply chain needs to be sustained over the long term by industry buy-in and policy change. In 2021, we assessed what works and doesn’t work in long-standing multistakeholder collaboration initiatives:

Both examples show that broad collaboration takes many years to deliver change, and more sustained action is required. Read the external evaluations to learn more.

In conjunction with Future Impacts and 4CF, Laudes Foundation launched a systems baseline assessment outlining the challenges in these industries.

The systems baseline assessment resulted from a review of more than 50 papers and articles and three real-time Delphi surveys. Its initial results were refined during an expert workshop and interviews with 27 practitioners from philanthropy, and the built environment and fashion industries, and finance and capital markets sector.

The systems baseline assessment shows the outcomes and impacts of our interventions within these industries.  

Despite some positive signals of change, the assessment found that the overall status of the system is ‘unconducive’, because of the slow pace at which finance, fashion and the built environment are mitigating their negative impacts. As the report notes, “the situation is still barely survivable, causing stress and other environmental and health problems, as progress remains too slow and systemic issues persist.”

With less than 2% of philanthropic funding dedicated to addressing climate change in 2020, and programmes, on average, lasting less than a year, the assessment also underscores the need for philanthropic foundations to increase funding into climate action, and support longer-term programmes.

The systems baseline assessment will help guide Laudes Foundation’s strategic actions and inform how we monitor and evaluate our work, providing a reference point for impact assessment.