FLOCERT is the independent Fairtrade certification body offering Fairtrade certification services to clients in more than 120 countries. As a social enterprise, FLOCERT is committed to supporting the Fairtrade mission to make a positive impact on our society and the environment.
FLOCERT is becoming the “data hub” of the Fairtrade system and is innovating the way of certification and assurance.
“the success of a business isn't just reflected in certificates and labels. It hinges on everyday practices that we’re here to verify with our verification services. Business integrity is a precious asset, and we help protect it.” (FLOCERT website)
In January 2020, Unity Effect and FLOCERT started collaborating strategically for specific projects within FLOCERT. Both parties developed an agreement that allows FLOCERT to access the full range of expertise that we offer, ranging from digital facilitation to working with networks and systemic impact evaluation.
Since then, the contribution of Unity Effect has been to:
In general, we supported FLOCERT both in building up internal capacities and in their business development.
“Working with Unity Effect (Jannik) was a pleasure. Professional, due diligent, and trustworthy” (FLOCERT R&D Manager)
It is part of our company philosophy to seek strategic and mutually empowering partnerships that go beyond individual projects. FLOCERT is one example, and we are happy to have built such partnerships with a number of other clients as well.
In the given case it enables FLOCERT to have access to a wide range of expertise without needing to invest heavily in them and, hence, to be more flexible and ambitious in terms of internal planning. It also enables us to better understand internal processes, which was crucial to quickly provide support for the MS Teams roll-out and facilitate internal workshops and sessions that required an in-depth understanding of relevant content and context.
“It is fantastic working with an organization that knows us so well and can jump on board smoothly. Unity Effect has added real value from minute 1 to all projects.” (Ruth Fernandez Audera, Senior Programme Manager at FLOCERT)
Here, we work based on our general principle of mutual empowerment. We love to work strategically and help to build up the relevant capacities within our partner organisations. And the more we empower others, their teams and people, the more opportunities arise for everybody.
This implies that this kind of strategic collaboration enables both sides to prioritise long-term strategy over short-term needs, focussing the work on what is relevant and truly matters.
Here, our services are designed in such a way that they build on and complement each other. Developing a network strategy might involve internal capacity building, which we can address through our guided online programs (Journeys). Another example is our expertise and support in digital facilitation that we can offer to create engaging online events, and that we can complement with a network visualisation of participants to deepen the effect.
We love thinking in synergies. We value empowering partnerships and collaborations. And we would be happy to explore with you how we can both benefit from it.
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