Author name: Joost Backer

Towards Futureproof Certification and Assurance: a Reflection between Textile Exchange and NewForesight

A conversation between Ana Garzon (Assurance and Operations Manager at Textile Exchange) and Joost Backer (Senior Consultant at NewForesight) As of 2023, the sustainability space is faced with two trends: a growing urgency of sustainability challenges (climate, human rights) and an increasingly high-risk market context around sustainability systems, including voluntary sustainability standards and private company […]

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What Other Sectors Can Learn from Palm Oil (and vice versa): 3 Observations from the Sustainable Palm Oil Dialogue 2023 through the eyes of a Sustainability Consultant.

When organizing a conference, bring an orangutan. Panelist Kamal Seth, Global Palm Oil Director at WWF, went on stage with his stuffed orangutan, showing that is the one he is accountable to. I found this a simple but powerful, visual, message, triggering other parts of our personality than just the ratio. What else can we

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Accelerating the Sustainability Transition in the Built Environment

NewForesight and Squarewise Recommendations on Sustainable Home Improvements in The Netherlands By Joost Backer, December 2021 Like many countries, the Netherlands faces the task to make hundreds of thousands of homes more sustainable by 2030. NewForesight and Squarewise investigated how this transition can be accelerated by focusing on so-called ‘caretakers’ (ontzorgers). Here are their main

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Halting Deforestation by 2030: Key Success Factors That Help You Integrate the Landscape Approach in your Sourcing Practices

Tropical deforestation continues to grow. At the same time, companies struggle to make clear commitments or give substance to pledges already in place. The existing ‘tool’ of commodity crop certification alone has shown to be insufficient to get the job done. A more holistic approach may therefore hold a better solution: the landscape approach. At

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