Don’t just make products – make history.
Innovative brands recognize that the way to lead their industries while maintaining their competitive advantage is to disrupting the status quo through a regenerative sourcing strategy that is rooted in transparency of origin and impact
Brands that lead the way into the future will need more than quality products and a differentiated product line. They will need to transform their business models to ones that meaningfully contribute to the health and vitality of living systems and that customers can feel good about.
Reach out to explore how your brand can integrate a regenerative approach.
Integrate regenerative approaches and practices into every facet of your business:
Identify the regenerative potential of your company and industry
Redefine your goals to prioritize regenerative outcomes
Develop the capacity and capability of your team to understand regeneration and to integrate regenerative strategies into your sourcing strategy
Generate positive impact that promotes social and ecological regeneration
Go beyond efficiencies in supply and demand; develop beneficial reciprocity between all the stakeholders within your supply system.
Diversify and create resilience for your supply networks
Consumers put their loyalty in brands that align with their values and prioritize climate action and social responsibility.
Regeneration increases the wellbeing of people, the planet, and your ROI
Our approach ensures that cropping systems and management practices result in regenerative outcomes
Regenerative Outcome Verification (ROV™) is built for robust transparency of the impacts of your brand’s investment into a regenerative future
We work with innovative brands that are seeking to disrupt the status quo by regenerating their sourcing strategy and adding value to suppliers and consumers.
capabilities
We bring a regenerative approach to your business through regenerative sourcing strategy, education and the development of verification methodologies for impact tracking and reporting
Together we will
Identify your company’s regenerative potential and establish clear goals and strategy to actualize it.
Ensure that your procurement strategy is optimized for regeneration through comprehensive assessment of your existing supply systems and identification of key interventions where regenerative impact can be realized.
Increase your company’s ability to catalyze positive change by building a regenerative supply network of existing and new suppliers.
Help your brand stay relevant to evolving consumer interests and demands in a rapidly changing world by validating your regenerative sourcing impacts and communicating these to your stakeholders through evidence-based verification and storytelling.
Regenerative Rubber
Phatthalung, Thailand
VF Corp brands Timberland, Vans and The North Face have partnered with Terra Genesis and smallholder Wanakaset farmers in Thailand in order to develop the world’s first Regenerative Outcome Certifided (ROV™) regenerative rubber supply system and to meet VF’s Science Based Target of 100% regenerative sourcing by 2030.
Improvement in rubber farmer and community well-being
Increase in biodiversity, ecosystem health and landscape resilience
Meet VF’s sourcing requirements of 500MT rubber by 2023 & contribute to 100% regenerative sourcing target SBT by 2030
Our approach to supply development began with a detailed study of the local landscape context of Phatthalung and the traditional land-management system of the local community, and the development of relationships with key leaders of the local rubber producer network. We were guided by the wealth of proven traditional knowledge, and experience from the local community, who have long recognized the importance of the regeneration of ecosystem health and the development of resilient local economies. The subsequent project design was structured to provide beneficial outcomes for the farmers, the community, the landscape, and our brand partners at VF.
The “Wanakaset” farming system (meaning: agroforestry and self-reliance in Thai) integrates rubber trees with a great variety of other beneficial species, including fruit trees, perennial vegetables, medicinal herbs, timber, and more. No two Wanakaset agroforestry farms are alike; they are each a reflection of the specific needs and creativity of the farmer who created and manages the system. These are extremely biodiverse systems, both in terms of agrobiodiversity (up to 100 crop varieties in some cases) as well as a great diversity of native plants, animals and fungi. Farmer application of ecological management practices has been a key driver of regeneration of the local landscape, reestablishing a thriving forest ecology analogous to the pre-existing forest of the Tenasserim rainforest.
Wanakset farmers have been practicing regenerative farming for decades because they know that this is the best way to ensure the wellbeing of their families, their community and landscapes, now and in the future. However, they have never been able to receive a premium for their product which has prevented the expansion and adoption of their methods by other farmers. By establishing a long-term mutually-beneficial partnership with VF, more farmers are now able to receive a premium for their differentiated product, as well as access to the capital, resources, information and institutional support needed to incentivize other farmers in their network to transition from conventional to regenerative forms of production. Rubber is now being sent to VF’s manufacturer in China. In order to meet their supply requirements we will be integrating thousands of new farmers in Phatthalung and neighboring provinces, into the regenerative rubber group over the next few years.
In order to define and contextualize what regeneration means in this landscape context we have worked with the farmers to co-develop a Regenerative Outcome Certifided (ROV™) system for the project which enables us to track the regenerative impact of the project in real time. We use a combination of on-the-ground data collection and remote sensing that is provided by the farmers themselves, local researchers, and TGI. We can now verify the social and ecological outcomes being achieved and provide farmers with concrete data that reveal how regeneration is taking place. This supports the further evolution of regenerative approaches to production. Furthermore, the ROV system will allow VF to substantiate the claims that they make about products manufactured with rubber from this origin, and for their customers to choose a product that is aligned with their environmental and social values.
