Improve Prosperity
For agricultural supply chains to thrive, it’s essential that producers, workers and their communities receive the support needed to achieve financial security and long-term prosperity.
Implementation
Our focus
ECOM's commitments to our farmers and workers are:
- - Empowering farmers, workers and their communities to optimise their profitability and ultimately reduce poverty
- - Eliminating breaches of human rights through proper risk identification and remediation
As a global company working directly with producers in our direct supply chains, we have implemented tailored initiatives with our clients and partners to identify and address these challenges for maximum impact. We identify and address the challenges producers and their workers face, and our sustainability commitments are designed to be adaptable to communities, build resilience and, ultimately, add to the long-term prosperity of producers and workers involved.
Areas for Strategic Focus
Assessing the risks
ECOM does not tolerate child or forced labour in our supply chains and we believe that farmers can and should be given the support to uphold globally recognised human rights, including safe and fair workplaces.
We have developed a set of policies that align with leading international standards, including: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights; The International Labour Organisation core labour standards, conventions 182 (worst forms of child labour) and 138 (minimum age); Applicable laws governing child labour, slavery, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking.
What this means in practice
CLMRS
Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) is currently the foundation of child protection programmes. It is a trusted system allowing for the identification and monitoring of child labour incidences, and reducing the cases found through that monitoring. However, ECOM recognises the limitations of individual household monitoring systems in terms of prevention and its ability to solve a systemic issue. We believe that focusing on protecting and providing an environment where children can develop and learn should be a central part of our strategy to mitigate the risks of child labour and will support transformative change.
Working with experts
We currently serve on the global advisory council for the Farm Labour Due Diligence Toolkit, a Verité led collaborative initiative to define good practice and create open-source resources for companies, suppliers and other stakeholders to eliminate labour abuses in global agricultural supply chains. We are looking to evaluate those resources and define our priorities for our cocoa, coffee, and cotton supply chain and potentially test/pilot the resources.
Prioritising education
Alianza de Sueños (Dream Alliance) is a project that seeks to protect the children of coffee pickers who come to the AAA farms during the harvest season to avoid child labor. Having many children on AAA farms, it became necessary to look for alternatives that would allow the project to expand. This is how the opportunity to create Casas de la Alegría (Houses of Joy) in the coffee farms was born.
Read more about Alianza de Sueños
Continuous Learning
Through a trusted network of specialists on the ground, we’re able to provide services and training on a range of issues, from soil management to labour practices. In this way we can support smallholder farmers to build capacity and resistance and gain greater market access, so that they can compete with larger producers in the international market.
Our incentives and training programmes encourage climate-smart agricultural practices and increase productivity. Diversification schemes help make farmer incomes more stable, while financial services allow them to invest in their own land. Wherever we source, we have roots in the community, for example with our programmes to educate and empower women and, with our partners, our work towards the eradication of child labour.
What this means in practice
Good Agricultural Practices
On the ground, our SMS technicians – many of whom are agronomists, forestry engineers or similar experts – play a crucial role in implementing vital functions such as certification, Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) training and serving as points of contact for producers. They are the backbone of successful project implementation, ensuring that operations run smoothly and that activities are carried out effectively.
Climate-Smart Agriculture
Across our direct supply chains, we provide training and technical support to producers to implement climate-smart agricultural practices and strategic initiatives for regenerative farming. These include the use of composting and mulching, as well as applying organic instead of synthetic fertilisers.
Community, livelihoods and resilience
At ECOM, we recognise that there are many challenges faced by the farming communities we work with and that we alone cannot overcome them. However, we contribute to improving the wellbeing and resilience of these communities with activities directly and indirectly related to our supply chains. Our projects and initiatives focus on improving issues such as access to education in rural communities, access to improved crops and training in GAPs.
Improving
gender disparities
Gender equity and social inclusion are key principles that promote fairness and equal opportunities for all, regardless of gender, background or social status. Gender equity seeks to address disparities in power and resources, while social inclusion ensures marginalised groups are fully integrated into society. Together, they create a just and inclusive environment where everyone can thrive.
At ECOM, we are committed to empowering women and youth both within our organisation and across our supply chains. Through targeted programmes, we support skill-building, education and training initiatives that help strengthen the communities where we operate.
What this means in practice
Gender Equity Index
The GEI is a tool that identifies opportunities for companies and their supply chain partners to enhance gender equitable service provision. Across our cocoa origin operations, the GEI has provided valuable insights and recommendations, laying the groundwork for tailored Gender Equity Development Plans and the development of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) strategies that are tailored to each origin’s specific context. You can read more on our gender KPIs in our 2024 Cocoa Sustainability Report.
2024 ECOM Cocoa Sustainability Report
Empowering women
Women are key to agriculture, and their role in the supply chain is often misrepresented. ECOM works with its network to identify women who are community leaders and support them with specialised training and support. Through collaboration with stakeholders, ECOM is able to train women in areas such as farm and nursery management. Participation in these activities contributes to enhancing the women’s decision making power on the farm and in their communities, thereby empowering them to make strategic choices and put them into action.
Supporting communities
When work at the farm becomes tough and communities come together to work together, women are a key part of the process. In coffee communities where women coffee pickers are not able to leave their children in safe locations, ECOM unites with local partners to bring communities together and provide secure communal homes for children to stay and benefit from educational and health services as mothers are able to participate in economic activities during the coffee season.
What is a living income?
A living income is a fundamental human right, and we have a collective responsibility to ensure that our staff, and the producers and workers we work with in the supply chain, achieve a living income. Achieving a living income is a complex, multidimensional process influenced by a wide range of factors, many of which are beyond a single company’s direct control, such as land size, market prices, weather variability and national infrastructure.
ECOM works with producers, cooperatives and partners for a long time, ensuring access to finance to those who need it. This can include financial services, such as crop insurance mechanisms, and opportunities to improve financial literacy, such as training sessions and workshops.
What this means in practice
Improving access to financial services
Living income is one of ECOM’s material issues, and access to finance is a key barrier to achieving it. To address this, we implement initiatives alongside our partners to enable access to financial services for producers to develop productive, cost-efficient and resilient businesses. Support like this can make a transformative difference to producers and their communities, as investment in their farms can sustain production that maintains their livelihoods. One such initiative in our direct cocoa origin supply chain are Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs). VSLAs are small groups set up and run by producers themselves within their communities. Each member pays an affordable, regular amount into a fund (with a maximum amount that everyone can contribute). In 2024, there were 2,089 active VSLAs across ECOM’s direct cocoa origin supply chain, reaching more than 50,000 producers.
Farmer and worker livelihoods
For agricultural supply chains to thrive, producers, workers, and communities must have the support to achieve financial security and long-term success. Our SMS technicians, often agronomists or forestry engineers, are key to implementing certification, GAP training, and serving as trusted contacts for producers. They ensure smooth, effective project execution. We’re dedicated to helping communities build sustainable, resilient livelihoods through income diversification, yield improvement, and climate adaptation.
Making farm equipment affordable
Innovations in agriculture are helping farmers rapidly transition to new and more productive processes, but for many farmers, financial constraints can put these developments out of reach. At ECOM, our package of measures to engage with and improve life for farmers and their families includes: developing resilience through tailored training on new technologies; farm renovation and rehabilitation; providing digital support in the form of accessible, app-based platforms; making farm equipment affordable with low-cost machinery, flexible payment choices and post-purchase training.
Cocoa
Child Learning and Education Facility (CLEF)
In Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, child labour is common in cocoa-growing areas, keeping many children out of school. CLEF, a coalition of government, industry (including ECOM), and philanthropic partners, is working to improve education by building schools, training teachers, and involving parents.
In 2024, CLEF trained more than 7,000 teachers, 120 national trainers, and 300 advisers. It helped 4,277 out-of-school children, 44 percent of them girls, return to class, many for the first time. To support remote areas, 143 motorcycles were given to education advisers.
More cocoa sustainability in action
Coffee
Sustainable coffee farming in Uganda
Ms. Ithungu Kighoma, a coffee farmer and mother in Kitsutsu, Uganda, faced challenges common to many smallholders, including low yields and limited resources. Seeking to strengthen her farm, she joined the Ugandan Smallholder Livelihoods Initiative, implemented by Kawacom with support from USAID. The program provides training in good agricultural practices such as pruning, organic fertilisation, and post-harvest handling.
With 75 percent of her income coming from coffee, improved yields have enabled Ms. Ithungu to invest in her children’s education, her home, and her farm. Her success has made her a local example of sustainable farming, encouraging other women in the community to adopt similar practices.
To date, Kawacom has trained 45 producers in Kitsutsu, 40 of them women, on sustainable farming, certification standards, financial literacy, and income diversification.
More coffee sustainability in action
Cotton
Incentivising change in Mexico
ECOM is the biggest buyer of cotton in Mexico, with Mexican cotton accounting for around 20% of our global volume annually. There are approximately 175'000 hectares dedicated to the cotton production. With 80% of production going towards national industry, public-private partnership will be pivotal to developing initiatives in the country.
ECOM is committed to playing a key role in transforming cotton farming in Mexico so that it can start consistently to meet global cotton standards. Our approach there is focused on water management, soil remediation, biodiversity and labour rights.
By incentivising the transition towards regenerative farming and sustainable cotton production, we can make farmers less reliant on institutional support and more resilient.
More cotton sustainability in action