Laudes Foundation launched in 2020 with the aim to address the dual crises of climate breakdown and challenge industries to implement business practices that ‘regenerate and restore nature.’ The new foundation is a part of the Brenninkmeijer family enterprise which founded fashion retailer C&A, next to the COFRA businesses and the family’s other private philanthropic activities, including Porticus, Good Energies Foundation and Argidius Foundation.

CEO, Leslie Johnston, joined Alliance to talk about the work of Laudes Foundation.

Johnston: We purposefully designed Laudes Foundation to tackle what we see as the interlinked crises of climate breakdown and inequality. It is therefore critically important to us that we align our (internal) operations with our ambitious (external) commitment to using philanthropy to spur climate action by business, industry, and financial institutions. While we are still at the beginning of our journey, we have taken the following steps:

  • Most importantly, we commit to reducing our emissions consistent with SBTI guidelines;
  • In addition, we commit to offsetting 100 per cent of those emissions we cannot eliminate by investing in projects that prevent carbon from being released, focusing on initiatives in those Asian and Latin American countries in which the foundation operates. For 2020, we offset 222 Verified Carbon Units (VCUs), through Carbonext SA, a reforestation project in the Amazon;
  • Inspired by the ambition of others, we also commit to removing the equivalent carbon from the atmosphere, investing in restoration projects with a particular focus on biodiversity hotspots;
  • I And finally (and most challengingly), we commit to supporting our partners with their own climate action. To enable this, we are also exploring how the science-based targets methodology can be applied to the non-profit and philanthropy sectors.

Read the full article about emissions and inequality with Leslie Johnston at Alliance Magazine.