On December 5th a large partnership including the main players in the Belgian Chocolate industry, government branches, ngo’s and academic institutions have signed the Beyond Chocolate charter. From the conception of the intiative our research group has provided scientific advice to contribute to making this possible. Even now at this early stage, the initiative has stimulated partnerships among researchers and alignment with stakeholders. We hope that within the initiative there will be a key role for universities to innovate and validate new ideas and technologies that can make cacao production more sustainable without jeopardising the fragile ecosystems of cacao producing regions.
The “Beyond Chocolate” partnership is the first key outcome of the Belgian SDG Charter for International Development, which has been signed by more than 100 companies, civil society organisations and public sector
representatives. The Charter signatories have expressed a commitment to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in full in their main business activity and participate actively in multi-stakeholder partnerships. In the spirit of the SDG Charter, companies in the Belgian chocolate and retail sectors intend to collaborate with civil
society organisations and the authorities to take joint action. In this context, Belgium’s development policy supports cooperation with companies in these sectors through financial and other measures to further improve the sustainability of the cocoa industry. Belgian universities and other Belgian knowledge institutions, as well as governmental and nongovernmental development organisations, and trade unions are supporting this ambitious goal and are encouraged to contribute according to their respective mandates and fields of action. Collaborative action and the sharing of responsibility across the public and private sectors will improve the impact and monitoring of the partnership’s joint effort, fostering synergies that go beyond the sum of individual contributions.
Cacao Pollination (CACPOL) 