What we do
Accelerating the transition to a green, fair and inclusive economy.
At Laudes Foundation, we are addressing the defining challenges of our time: climate change, nature loss and social inequality. We are driven by the belief that business, when guided by values, rules and incentives, can be powerful agents for positive change. Our approach combines the catalytic power of philanthropy to work with and through business and industry to advance system change.
Our vision
Economies that value all people, climate and nature.
Our mission
We support brave action to inspire and challenge industry to transition to a green, fair, and inclusive economy.
Programmes
Tackling systemic challenges requires a multifaceted approach
We focus on driving a just transition in four key industries with outsized impact on climate change, nature loss and inequality: built environment, finance and capital markets, fashion and food. Across these industries, we have cross-cutting programmes in labour rights and narratives, and support initiatives to unlock capital for transitions across all industries.
Fashion: Spurring a green, fair and inclusive transition in fashion.
Laudes Foundation is working with partners to foster supply chain and materials innovation, promote accountability and workers' rights to ensure a just transition, through a range of interventions.
Built environment: Catalysing the transition to an inclusive, climate and nature positive built environment.
Laudes Foundation is working with partners to foster supply chain and materials innovation, promote accountability and workers' rights to ensure a just transition, through a range of interventions.
Finance and Capital Markets: Harnessing finance, as a sector and as a lever, to increase momentum for a just transition.
Laudes Foundation is working with partners to foster supply chain and materials innovation, promote accountability and workers' rights to ensure a just transition, through a range of interventions.
Food: Advancing the transition to a healthy and affordable food industry within cities that benefits the climate, nature and people.
Laudes Foundation is working with partners to foster supply chain and materials innovation, promote accountability and workers' rights to ensure a just transition, through a range of interventions.
Industry Transformation Initiatives
Fashion for Good and Built by Nature act as catalysts for innovation and collaboration in two of our key industries of focus. These initiatives leverage philanthropy to ignite bold ideas and collaborations to accelerate leading companies ahead of the field in pushing innovations and business models into the mainstream.
Fashion for Good
Fashion for Good, founded by Laudes Foundation, unites the entire fashion ecosystem to collaborate and drive change towards a regenerative industry. At its core, Fashion for Good enables disruptive innovators on their journey to scale, working directly with brands, retailers, suppliers, innovators, and funders to bring the most powerful innovations to market and catalyse system change with solutions that are better for climate, people and nature.
Visit Fashion for GoodBuilt by Nature
Built by Nature, founded by Laudes Foundation, is a network and grantmaking fund dedicated to accelerating the timber building transformation in Europe: radically reducing embodied carbon; safely storing carbon in our buildings for generations; and sequestering carbon by championing forest stewardship and regeneration.
Visit Built by Nature
APPROACHES
As a philanthropic foundation, we see our value not only in the resources we bring to the table but also in our ability to experiment, build the field, connect unlikely allies, and form communities of changemakers. The six approaches we believe will help us achieve the greatest impact are:
Accelerating advocacy
Build capacity, support, scale and amplify policy advocacy efforts by partners.
Strengthening accountability
Fund mechanisms, including transparency, to motivate progress and enforce standards and protections.
Scaling research and innovation
Enable adoption, monitoring, and evaluation of proposed tools, models, and solutions.
Cultivating alliances
Convene partners, coalitions, networks and movements towards collaboration.
Amplifying narratives
Change the dominant narrative around the economic system to build support for change.
Redefining value
Support creation of new models, solutions, tools, narratives and policies to redefine the purpose of the system and actors within it.
Working with five actors
We focus our support on initiatives that influence key actors we believe are critical to enable a systems change and accelerate a just transition across industries.
Business leaders
Champions of bold thinking and action, business leaders centre environmental and inclusive practices into their core strategies, driving a just transition that respects people, climate, and nature.
Government officials
Government officials develop, implement, enforce, and protect laws and policies that embed positive environmental outcomes, fairness, and inclusion across all sectors of society.
Investors and financiers
Investors and financiers use their influence, policies, practices, and valuation methodologies to steer economies towards practices that support environmental stewardship and promote equity and inclusion.
Workers, producers and the communities they serve
Workers, producers, and the communities they represent are entitled to agency and inclusion in shaping the policies and practices that impact them, and accountability for delivering on a just transition.
Media practitioners
Media practitioners amplify the urgency of environmental degradation and social inequality, equipping decision-makers to pursue industry transitions.
Theory of Change
Our interactive Theory of Change illustrates how our interventions contribute to short- and long-term changes. It guides our actions, shapes our decisions on partnerships, informs how we monitor and learn from existing relationships, and provides a framework for impact assessment.
Theory of Change
Economic System Map
In shaping our Theory of Change and initial five-year strategy, we engaged 300 senior leaders, changemakers, and experts globally. Their collective insights from 2021 were instrumental in creating a dynamic map that outlines the intricacies of the global economic system. This map features more than 130 organisations committed to addressing climate change and reducing inequality. It serves as a valuable tool for strategic discussions, highlighting challenges and interconnections within the global economy, and is an asset for the wider community.
Economic System Map
Our Strategy
