SourceUp Brochure 2021

What is sourcing and why is it important? Introducing a new sustainable market mechanism for landscape initiatives

SourceUp helps companies to source large volumes of agricommodities in line with their sustainability commitments at a competitive scale and price. Through SourceUp, entire production areas can be connected to global markets. 

In these areas, multi-stakeholder coalitions (Compacts) or landscape initiatives agree on a common sustainability agenda. Through SourceUp, they can receive direct support and incentives from global markets for doing so.  

Companies can use SourceUp to search for landscape initiatives in key sourcing areas, support the creation of Compacts, or support projects in line with their sustainability commitments. SourceUp will ensure the approach that companies use across regions and commodities is consistent and allowing for a structured participation of local stakeholders.  

Therefore, SourceUp enables the collaboration between local stakeholders and global buyers, traders and investors that want to address sustainability and social challenges that occur the farm level, and where coordinated action across different supply chains is needed.  

The SourceUp platform and supply chain sustainability 

The SourceUp platform is the future of inclusive and transparent supply chains. It is the place where the interaction between buyers and Compacts happens. Within the platform, Compacts introduce themselves by describing the jurisdiction, commodities produced, and which partners are part of the local initiative. Moreover, they report any sustainability progress made in their jurisdiction as well as current and future projects, to mobilise funding. All what is reported through the platform is validated at minimum by local stakeholders. 

Committed buyers can access to the platform to assess relevant sustainability information in relevant sourcing regions. Companies will be able to assess progress in their sourcing areas, support initiatives in strategic regions, or find potential partners that share an interest to initiate a Compact. 

A step towards collaboration in supply chain: How does it work?

In the producing region, a sustainability improvement deal is made between private, public and civil society stakeholders at jurisdictional level, e.g. a municipality, district or province (the Compact). The Compact details priority sustainability topics, targets, and responsibilities, seeking to make best use of the strengths of each of the partners involved. The Compact has a mandatory core: the SourceUp Impact Themes, which in current draft covers four key themes of global concern: forest and peat protection, labour, land tenure and livelihoods. 

On SourceUp, any buyer, trader or interested party will be able to easily assess the producing region’s status and progress on key sustainability targets and see who is already supporting the Compact. This way, committed end-buyers can get a better understanding of the products in their supply chain and improve sustainability with direct support for the producing region. The Compacts that achieve certain conditions will be granted a Verified Sourcing Areas status. 

However, any landscape initiative can report through SourceUp, regardless or not it intends to achieve a Verified Sourcing Area status. This way, the landscape initiatives can also become visible to the global community of buyers, traders and other organisations that are searching for commodities or projects to finance.