Brazil is a country in deep transition. Since the 2017 labour rights reform, workers’ rights have been continuously eroded and the number of people living in poverty has reached 62 million, or 29% of the population. With the election of a new government in 2023, civil society is again invited to review the labour right law to promote decent work and reduce inequality. 

Building on these opportunities, the Labora Fund, or Fundo de Apoio ao Trabalho Digno, was launched in December 2022 to promote labour rights reforms across Brazil. Laudes Foundation is the key convenor and supporter of the fund, helping secure investments from Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundations to join the initiative. In total, USD 8.5 million has been committed to the urgent mission to promote decent working conditions for all, including protecting and advancing the rights of urban and rural workers and empowering those most vulnerable, such as informal, migrant, and care sector workers.

The fund is implemented and managed by local non-profit Fundo Brasil de Direitos Humanos. Its initial call for proposals resulted in a strong response, with the Labora Fund awarding 25 grassroot organisations working to defend workers’ rights in Brazil a EUR 10,000 organisational development grant each. In addition, five organisations will receive up to EUR 20,000 to develop initiatives that address worker rights in the country. 

Labora is a culmination of an extensive commitment to our philanthropic giving in Brazil. Over the past 10 years, Laudes Foundation – and previously C&A Foundation and Instituto C&A  – have supported fashion becoming a force for good in the country. By catalysing philanthropic action, Labora will continue and scale this legacy as we transition our work in labour rights in Brazil to a third-party organisation. 

Buildings currently account for almost 40% of all carbon emissions and can exacerbate social inequalities due to legacy planning development models and housing policies. 

To help secure a just transition in Europe one of Laudes Foundation’s partners, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), is mobilising stakeholders across different countries through its flagship #BuildingLife project, launching national decarbonisation roadmaps for the building sector across Europe. Developed with the support of a coalition of more than 35 leading industry bodies, roadmaps on how to decarbonise the whole lifecycle of buildings have been launched in Ireland, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK, with Italy the most recent to launch in December.

This work had a direct impact on national policy in 2022. In the Netherlands the DutchGBC developed a Whole Life Carbon policy manifesto, which led to the Dutch Ministry for Housing and Spatial Planning announcing its intent to include embodied and whole life carbon in its new buildings legislation. Meanwhile, the UKGBC has developed a scorecard analysis of UK Government action against its roadmap policy recommendations.

WorldGBC is also working to strengthen international collaboration and engage more funders in efforts to decarbonise the built environment worldwide. At the Buildings Pavilion at COP27 in November, it was part of the coalition of Laudes Foundation partners and 15 national governments, led by the governments of France and the Kingdom of Morocco, that called for a Buildings Breakthrough for “near zero emissions and resilient buildings to be the new normal by 2030”.

With its ability to take risks, fund new ideas and invest long-term, philanthropic capital is a powerful catalytic force that can accelerate public and private investment and unlock the funds required to ensure a transition to a just, climate-resilient and regenerative economy. To achieve this, many more philanthropic organisations need to work together, and at scale.

Laudes Foundation is a founding partner of Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA), a global World Economic Forum initiative to fund and grow new and existing public, private and philanthropic partnerships (PPPPs) and help secure the USD 3 trillion of annual financing needed to reach net zero, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity by 2050. To date, GAEA has attracted 51 supporters and the community is continuing to grow.

We continue to support WINGS and Philea, together with the European Union and The Rockefeller Foundation, to encourage international funders to commit to the International Philanthropy Commitment on Climate Change (IPCCC). By signing the pledge, philanthropic organisations commit to using their resources, independence and influence to tackle climate change and inequality. The pledge is structured around seven pillars of action, including a commitment to consider climate change in relation to the source and management of our operational and any endowed funds; to allocate resources to accelerate climate action; and be transparent about the steps taken in relation to each pillar. 

The commitment launched in 2021 ahead of COP26 in Glasgow with the support of around 170 philanthropic organisations. It now has 626 philanthropic organisations committed to taking climate action.

We know that to achieve scale, we need collaboration. While co-funding is critical to achieving impact at scale, leveraged resources are an important indicator of our success at catalysing action. 

As our work and impact deepens, we are gaining opportunities to help influence and unlock additional funding and support for our partners. Last year, we helped drive EUR 63.5 million of co-funding to partner organisations where these resources directly supported the implementation of Laudes Foundation’s partners’ initiatives, and EUR 95.5 million of leveraged funds, where resources were committed by others as a direct or indirect result of our initial investment.

In addition, our first industry transformation initiative, Fashion for Good, has unlocked over EUR 1.1 billion in new capital for its innovators over its first six years of operation.

Fashion for Good (FFG) celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2022. Since its launch, Fashion For Good has – in its ambition to inspire change and drive the collective movement to make fashion a force for good – partnered with 26 leading brands (representing more than 12% of the global fashion industry). As the organisation looks towards the next five years, the focus is on scaling the most promising solutions disrupting the global supply chain, through deep partnerships with leading innovators, industry pioneers, and enabling investors. 

Through its Innovation Platform, Fashion for Good connects those working on sustainable innovation with brands, retailers, manufacturers and funders to bring new ideas and technologies from niche to norm. Since its launch, it has supported 159 innovators, conducting 326 pilots in partnership with brands and retailers, and unlocking EUR 1.1 billion of private capital to scale their work.

With a focus on practical action, Fashion for Good facilitates consortium style engagements unpacking the most challenging spots in the supply chain to validate next generation solutions that will fundamentally transform business as usual. Building on the success of the Full Circle Textiles Cellulosics consortium in 2021, Fashion For Good developed the next phase aimed at polyester recycling. The most common fibre in the world, polyester represents 73% of textiles that are landfilled or incinerated annually. 

Textile-to-textile chemical recycling is crucial for operating in a closed loop system and reducing the environmental impact of textile waste. In 2022, the project brought together nine brands with four innovators to find ways to tackle the fossil-based materials issue. The innovators will be producing chemically recycled polyester for use in fabric and garment production from post-consumer textile waste. This project aims to validate the chemical recycling technologies and the scaling potential of the innovations. The results will be used to prompt further implementation and offtake agreements to drive chemical recycling in the industry, and mobilise more funding into the technology.

The Fashion for Good Museum, located in the heart of Amsterdam, provides a space to learn about the past, present and future of the fashion industry as well as discover actionable ways to make a difference. Since opening, the museum has welcomed over 100,000 visitors. In 2022, Fashion for Good launched its latest exhibition, ‘Knowing Cotton Otherwise’, highlighting the relationship between cotton and the fashion industry, and the role of cotton in an increasingly intertwined web of global cultures.

With the building space expected to double globally by 2050 we must reimagine the way we build, from a carbon-intensive industry to one that helps remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it adds. 
Built by Nature is a network and grantmaking fund, dedicated to accelerating the timber and bio-based material building transformation in Europe. 

Since its launch in October 2021, Built by Nature’s pan-European network has grown to 26 organisations from 12 countries. The Built by Nature Fund supported 10 initiatives in 2022. To date, the Fund  has allocated EUR 2.3 million to projects and leveraged a further EUR 2.6 million in co-funding (52%).

Built by Nature-funded projects work across the built environment value chain: from architects to policymakers and insurers to developers. For example, along with the City of Amsterdam and AMS Institute, Built by Nature is co-funding CircuLaw, a digital platform, open public service and community of practice for policymakers and civil servants in the Netherlands. CircuLaw’s aim is to overcome regulatory silos and the complexity of the policy landscape to accelerate cities’ adoption of timber. By the end of 2022 it had already unearthed over 30 instruments to benefit timber construction in the Netherlands.