Sustainable trade initiative IDH headquartered in the Netherlands bringing government, companies, CSOs, and financiers together released its 2019 annual report Sustainable Solutions for Business Impact. IDH has been successful in providing sustainable solutions that businesses and government can scale up and made progression on sustainable development goals.
“The apparel sector is one of the world’s largest industries, generating around €1.5 trillion in annual revenues and employing over 50 million people. Though often a catalyst for economic growth in largely agrarian economies transitioning to industrial production, the apparel sector is also responsible for high environmental impacts and social challenges, such as cheap labour and exploitative, unsafe and polluting factories,” states the report.
In the apparel sector, IDH operates in Vietnam, Pakistan, India, and China to address the challenges by developing sustainable business models, public-private partnerships that inform policy, and collaborative improvement programmes.
In 2019, IDH also explored replicating some of the programme’s successes in Ethiopia. “As a result, a Forum was formally established, convened by IDH, bringing together key public, private and CSO actors to facilitate the sustainable growth of the textile sector in Ethiopia, thereby achieving our goal to get five platforms up and running,” the report said.
