Building Partnerships for CSR

This Danish foundation gives away $1.3 billion annually – and their secret isn't efficiency ratios, it's something far more radical: They implement nothing. Behind this Danish foundation's rapid rise is Ozempic – the blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss drug that's generated unprecedented profits for Novo Nordisk. The Novo Nordisk Foundation, which owns about a quarter of the pharmaceutical giant, has become one of the world's wealthiest charitable foundations with assets around $167 billion. Yet rather than hiring armies of staff like other major philanthropies, they've gone the opposite direction. In a recent interview, their Chief Scientific Officer for Health Flemming Konradsen revealed their secret to me: They don't implement – they only work through partners. Zero programs. Zero direct service delivery. The model: ➡️ Find what already works  ➡️ Partner with governments who own the strategy ➡️ Create sustainable markets, not dependency  ➡️ Stay for 15+ years, not 3-year cycles Example: Their school feeding programs create permanent markets for local farmers while training health workers and scaling AI solutions across continents. The hard part? Saying no to putting your name on things. Letting partners get the credit. Trusting that influence matters more than control. For development professionals: This approach creates new opportunities. These ultra-efficient funders skip the usual suspects and source partners who can be trusted with strategy, not just execution. They're looking for implementers who think like owners. If you can demonstrate government relationships, long-term thinking, and the ability to build sustainable systems (not just deliver projects), you become invaluable to this new breed of funders. What could your organization accomplish if it stopped trying to do everything itself? Disclaimer: I’ve edited this post as it’s been flagged that Novo Nordisk Foundation has 250 employees. #Philanthropy #Partnership #Foundation 📷 Novo Nordisk Foundation

After spending three decades in the aerospace industry, I’ve seen firsthand how crucial it is for different sectors to learn from each other. We no longer can afford to stay stuck in our own bubbles. Take the aerospace industry, for example. They’ve been looking at how car manufacturers automate their factories to improve their own processes. And those racing teams? Their ability to prototype quickly and develop at a breakneck pace is something we can all learn from to speed up our product development. It’s all about breaking down those silos and embracing new ideas from wherever we can find them. When I was leading the Scorpion Jet program, our rapid development – less than two years to develop a new aircraft – caught the attention of a company known for razors and electric shavers. They reached out to us, intrigued by our ability to iterate so quickly, telling me "you developed a new jet faster than we can develop new razors..." They wanted to learn how we managed to streamline our processes. It was quite an unexpected and fascinating experience that underscored the value of looking beyond one’s own industry can lead to significant improvements and efficiencies, even in fields as seemingly unrelated as aerospace and consumer electronics. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s more important than ever for industries to break out of their silos and look to other sectors for fresh ideas and processes. This kind of cross-industry learning not only fosters innovation but also helps stay competitive in a rapidly changing market. For instance, the aerospace industry has been taking cues from car manufacturers to improve factory automation. And the automotive companies are adopting aerospace processes for systems engineering. Meanwhile, both sectors are picking up tips from tech giants like Apple and Google to boost their electronics and software development. And at Siemens, we partner with racing teams. Why? Because their knack for rapid prototyping and fast-paced development is something we can all learn from to speed up our product development cycles. This cross-pollination of ideas is crucial as industries evolve and integrate more advanced technologies. By exploring best practices from other industries, companies can find innovative new ways to improve their processes and products. After all, how can someone think outside the box, if they are only looking in the box? If you are interested in learning more, I suggest checking out this article by my colleagues Todd Tuthill and Nand Kochhar where they take a closer look at how cross-industry learning are key to developing advanced air mobility solutions. https://lnkd.in/dK3U6pJf

While we're busy wrestling each other to the floor over whether carbon markets should exist, the rest of the world is just getting on with it. Article 6 implementation is picking up and more countries are (finally!) getting serious about implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and understanding where their mitigation opportunities are--and where they are not. Asia has been leading the way, with Japan and Singapore signing dozens of bilateral deals with other countries to trade emissions and purchase internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs) under Article 6.2. This is the eighth implementation agreement that Singapore has signed to date, and their first in SE Asia. The seven other countries that have agreements with Singapore are Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Bhutan, Peru, Chile, Rwanda and Paraguay. We need to keep a close eye on these agreements as they evolve to ensure that they are meeting the threshold quality criteria that has been recognized by the international community (e.g. the ICVCM). But there's no question that emissions trading and carbon pricing are here to stay, will be a core part of Paris Agreement implementation and, if done well, can help us dramatically accelerate climate action at drastically reduced costs compared to a world where emissions trading is not part of our toolkit. https://lnkd.in/gws_x__2

Stakeholder Engagement Map for Sustainability 🌎 Sustainability advances when companies move from speaking to stakeholders toward building solutions with them. Engagement becomes powerful when it shifts from information-sharing to participation and co-creation. Employees are not passive recipients of corporate policies. When positioned as innovators and ambassadors, they can drive cultural change that scales faster than top-down initiatives. Investors increasingly evaluate not only financial returns but also resilience and impact. Open dialogue and credible disclosures create the foundation for financing models that reward long-term value creation. Regulators and policymakers shape the boundaries of what is possible. Proactive collaboration ensures that emerging rules both protect society and enable business innovation. NGOs and civil society connect business with pressing social and environmental realities. Partnerships with them help translate global challenges into concrete, measurable corporate actions. Customers bring more than purchasing power. Through collaboration and product co-design, they accelerate the adoption of sustainable solutions and redefine what markets demand. Suppliers and partners extend responsibility beyond a single enterprise. Joint innovation in sourcing, standards, and technology transforms sustainability into a shared endeavor across the value chain. Communities ground sustainability in place. When businesses co-invest in local development, they secure trust and create ecosystems that benefit both society and the enterprise. Media and opinion leaders influence how actions are perceived. Transparent storytelling backed by evidence strengthens legitimacy and reinforces accountability. Academia and experts contribute the critical lens of science and independent validation. Engaging them ensures that strategies are rooted in knowledge, not convenience. Risk and resilience demand collective approaches. Working groups and cross-sector alliances elevate sustainability from individual commitments to systemic impact. True engagement means entering a space of shared design. It is in these interactions that sustainability moves from compliance to transformation, and from promises to outcomes. #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg

Singapore doesn't just buy high quality Article 6 compliant international carbon credits. Some of our carbon credit proceeds can be used to support climate adaptation in Rwanda. "Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry’s deputy secretary Keith Tan and Rwandan Environment Minister Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Dec 2 to collaborate on carbon markets. To ensure a diversified portfolio of carbon credits, Singapore has signed at least a dozen MOUs with countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mongolia. The MOUs pave the way for possible implementation agreements with these countries, although this would depend on each country’s capability to begin trading these credits with Singapore. Both the MOUs and the implementation agreements are aligned with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which essentially allows countries to voluntarily cooperate to cut their greenhouse gas emissions as set out by their national climate targets. These carbon projects should be able to promote sustainable development and environmental integrity. For instance, Singapore is prepared to contribute 5 per cent of its share of carbon credit proceeds to support climate adaptation in Rwanda to ensure that the projects have broader sustainable development benefits." https://lnkd.in/gg4s4neb

Climate, Carbon, Corporations. All three are critically connected. They already dictate an incredible amount of modern life. But their future relationship is even more important. Can companies can cut carbon emissions fast enough to stabilize the global climate? Evidence to date shows most can't, or won't. Why not? That is a question my friend and colleague Elizabeth Willmott and I spend a lot of time thinking about. In our different ways we help companies develop and deploy sustainability strategies - with a focus on delivering net zero carbon balance sheets. That is difficult work, but it could be easier. In this week's issue of Nature Magazine we highlight six roadblocks we see slowing progress, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them. In short: ·      Pursue progress over perfection ·      Prioritize direct over indirect emissions ·      Focus on demand over delivery ·      Allow flexibility between emissions reduction and removal ·      Promote adoption over additionality ·      Support collaboration over competition I know our suggestions won't be universally welcomed, but I hope they inspire some reflection in the climate community on what is going well, what isn't, and meaningful steps we could take to speed progress. Because as we say in the paper... Allowing some companies to stumble on their net zero journey is not the biggest mistake the world can make. The biggest error would be building a system that discourages companies from doing anything at all.

Sourcing and supply chain, pointers from years of practical experience... 🧵 At The Pant Project we come from a family background of ~50 years of experience in textile manufacturing. As a brand, we work with vendors across India to procure the highest quality materials for our product. What have we learnt in this time about how to manage supply chains? 1. Trust is everything. If your vendors trust you to lift goods, make payments, and honour your commitments, then you are golden. If they don’t trust you, then no amount of legal documentation or paperwork can make the relationship work. Trust is built over time, with consistently honouring your commitments. Trust takes a lot of time to build up, and just a few bad experiences to lose forever. 2. Processes > people. At scale, if you are person dependent, things are bound to break. You need to have set standard operating procedures (SOPs) for everything from raw material inward to pre production processes, mid-line inspection, final quality control, packing and dispatch, else you have no way to control irregularities in quality. You also need a kaizen mindset to continuously make micro-improvements. 3. Cost is just one factor in deciding which vendor to partner with. While it’s important to optimise for the right purchase price, there are a host of other things to consider when choosing a manufacturing partner. Speed of delivery, flexibility on minimum order quantities, and quality of the product matter a lot. So it’s a vendor scorecard of all of the above that determine who wins the right to produce what & how much for your brand. 4. Diversify your supply chain, but not too much. While it’s important to have multiple partners for each critical component or SKU to minimise single party dependency risk, it is also important to give meaningful volumes to select partners so you are a relevant part of their annual operating plan and get the priority service that your brand needs. We see too many brands making the mistake of splitting volumes across too many factories before hitting meaningful scale, and they have no control anywhere. Like with any investment portfolio, while diversification protects against the downside, if you know what you are doing, some level of concentration into high conviction bets (factories) leads to outsized returns. 5. Invest in product R&D, it’s worth it in the long run. Becoming a pure commodity player is a race to the bottom. There are real innovations to be made at a yarn level, fabric technology level and garment design & engineering level, and you have to invest the $$$ upfront to reap the long term benefits. So invest in R&D to stay ahead of the curve, and co-create, collaborating closely with your supply chain partners, or run the risk of becoming irrelevant over time. The strength of your supply chain is the backbone of your brand.

24 May 2016. I made a move to the social sector after 27 years of corporate life. After managing a 1,500 crore business with thousands of employees, shifting focus to a non- profit rural initiative at a seemingly small scale raised many questions – internally and from my peers. But I am grateful to our co-founders Ronnie and Zarina who supported me as I navigated a new landscape – literally and figuratively. I visited Swades villages in Raigad and experienced first-hand, the transformation of our rural communities and the promise they hold when empowered with the right tools. Reflecting on these fabulous 8 years, here are some of my biggest learnings: 1. Earn community’s trust: Community, is the strongest catalyst to create sustainable social change. It is imperative that we earn their trust - through conversations, community-building exercises and above all, patience. The Village Development Committee that plays the eyes and ears of Swades on ground is an excellent example of how a supportive and aspirational community drives change. 2. Build team confidence: Understand the motivations, strengths and challenges of your key stakeholders and teams. Invest in building 3 Ps – process, people and performance. Engaging meaningfully with the team by way of town halls, competitions, recognitions goes a long way in creating a transparent and inclusive environment where one can leverage every insight (especially of those on ground) that’ll help collectively chase a common goal. 3. Share learnings to create replicable models: Social sector unlike corporate sector thrives on collaboration, not competition. There is excellent work happening the world over in the social sector and with regard to government initiatives. So expand your peer networks, indulge in knowledge sharing with corporate CSRs, other NGOs, governments, academicians. Swades model is a combination of some of the brightest ideas adopted from other institutions – for one, BRAC (Bangladesh) that is one of the few to adopt a holistic model of change.   4. Adopt a climate lens: At the outset include ways to make the model green – with renewable energy, local resources, mindful use of resources. The Swades toilet with compost pits, community-led water conservation efforts, solar-powered water / lighting programs are fine examples of how social change can be environmentally conscious. 5. All Hands (Head and Heart) on deck: Measuring social impact is not the same as measuring profits. Considering the human aspect of the effort is crucial to creating a compassionate model where the team, community and all other stake holders can work seamlessly and contribute most effectively. Hope you will find these useful. Ronnie Screwvala Swades Foundation

Procurement: Treat suppliers as extensions of your enterprise, not transactions. Procurement Excellence | 23 NOV 2025 - In complex global markets, resilient supply chains demand partnerships built on shared destiny, not just contracts. Here are 9 Steps to Create Long-Term Supplier Partnerships: #1. Transparent Communication ↳ Co-develop comms protocols e.g. QBR ↳ Clearly share expectations, goals & challenges #2. Long-Term Contracts ↳ Replace short-term with multi year agreements. ↳ Share long-term roadmaps & cost-savings initiatives. #3. Shared Performance Metrics ↳ Jointly agree and track SMART KPIs. ↳ Define escalation paths & RCA templates #4. Early Supplier Involvement ↳ Involve and recognize vendor’s contributions. ↳ Include key suppliers in product development cycles. #5. Guarantee Timely Payments ↳ Automate payment & consider early payment discounts. ↳ Audit internal processes for bottlenecks. #6. Co-Create Innovation ↳ Create supplier ideation portals & protect IP collaboratively. ↳ Fund joint proof-of-concept projects. #7. Recognize & Reward Excellence ↳Formally acknowledge & reward outstanding suppliers. ↳Bronze (Operational Excellence), Silver (Innovation), Gold (Strategic Impact). #8. Uphold Fairness & Ethics ↳ Interactions & contractual terms are mutually beneficial. ↳ Ensure cost pressures don't force unethical labor. #9. Jointly Manage Risks ↳ Jointly identify risks & develop contingency plans. ↳ Map tier-2/3 suppliers collaboratively. In today's volatile market, Resilient supply chains are built on deep, strategic supplier partnerships. Achieving lasting, mutually beneficial supplier partnerships requires: ✅️ Deliberate strategy ✅️ Centered on trust ✅️ Shared objectives ✅️ Continuous collaboration ♻️ Repost if you find this helpful. ➕️ Follow Frederick for Procurement insights. #ProcurementExcellence #SupplierCollaboration

The Power of Compliance in Building Strong Brand-Supplier Relationships. In my 19 years in the manufacturing industry, I've seen both sides of the coin—working with brands and suppliers. The transformation in the manufacturing industry and factories, in these years has been nothing short of remarkable. From modest setups with a handful of machines to state-of-the-art facilities with cutting-edge tech, Indian factories are truly evolving. I’ve also had the privilege of working with many such suppliers and factories. But with this evolution, one thing has become crystal clear: manufacturing excellence thrives on strong brand-supplier relationships built on compliance. As we scale our Made-in-India journey, these relationships are vital to achieving quality, social impact, and sustainable growth. For me, this journey goes beyond profit. It’s about creating: - Job opportunities that empower communities - Positive environmental impact - A society uplifted through fair practices and shared values Why is Compliance Non-Negotiable in the Manufacturing Industry? Compliance isn’t just a need—it’s a responsibility, towards our people, our society, and our environment. Here are some lessons learned on building compliance- For Brands- When partnering with suppliers, ensure: * Fair treatment and wages for workers * Compliance with international standards * Operational and people safety are prioritised * Supplier's mindset is adaptable and growth-focused * The factory has technical competencies and certifications like ISO 9000, WRAP, SEDEX For Suppliers-  When opening a factory, focus on: * Fair wages and worker safety * Innovation and willingness to transform * Respecting local labour laws and holding necessary licenses * Targeting Social Compliance & Code of Conduct assessment Levels  of A, B, or C for best practices * Empowering your workforce with regular compliance training As India’s manufacturing landscape grows, local factories should look beyond domestic needs and focus on attracting exports and international businesses for manufacturing in India. This is achievable if we: * Upskill our workforce * Master advanced machinery and technical know-how * Focus on producing high-quality, technical products When the mindset is right, brands are automatically inclined to co-create and build manufacturing excellence and growth competencies in many factory units. Compliance is a critical priority for us and we actively involve our teams in working directly on factory shop floors and offices to cultivate strong, collaborative relationships with our suppliers. What are your thoughts on how brand-supplier partnerships can drive compliance and make a positive societal impact? #ManufacturingExcellence #MadeInIndia #SustainableManufacturing #Compliance