10 February, 2016

In 2012, Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate rolled out an ambitious sustainability program called the Cargill Cocoa Promise, with well-defined high-level objectives and supported by strong programs on the ground. To support the development of its program, the company wanted to strengthen the connection between its strategy and its activities on the ground, as well as advance its reporting beyond looking at outputs (e.g., the number of farmers trained).

NewForesight worked with Cargill on the development of a results framework to make this connection. The goal was to connect actions on the ground to the overall impact objectives; allow for better planning, monitoring and reporting; strengthen the connection and flow of information between the central business team and teams on the ground; improve identification of best practices and learnings within the organization; and support external communications of Cargill’s activities.

Cargill Cocoa Promise now has a results framework in place to trace activity in local projects back to outcomes of the Cargill Cocoa Promise. This supports a harmonized and standardized message to which all projects on the ground can align, and which can then more effectively be monitored, evaluated (and improved) and reported. NewForesight also conducted a high-level assessment of the sustainability programs of Cargill’s competitors and customers to identify gaps, and addressed these in our recommendations. Furthermore, we developed a list of Cargill differentiators, and the key principles of the Cargill way of working.

Taco Terheijden, Director of Cocoa Sustainability at Cargill, noted that ‘the NewForesight experts have a genuine passion for market transformation, and know what it takes to guide an organization who strives for the same. They combine a strong process with in-depth market expertise.’

Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate used the work delivered by NewForesight to inform the M&E work taking place in the organization, including the definition of standardized project design documents and indicators to be captured and reported on the ground, leading up to clear sets of outcomes and impacts. In addition, NewForesight supported the company with a follow-up assignment to help formulate the Cargill Cocoa Promise Results Framework into clear communications material for external audiences, including customers.

The project description of this assignment can be found here.