The case illustrates the founding and growth of SloWeAre, the first eco-certification company in France that embraces the methodology eco-fashion brands employ on their journey towards producing socially responsible and environmentally sound textile products. By 2020, the four-year diagnostic service had attracted more than 75 French eco-fashion brands to the SloWeAre platform.

The Kolo Nafaso programme was started in 2009 in Burkina Faso by AAK, a 140-year-old Swedish supplier of vegetable fats and oils. AAK created a direct link with the producers – women in West Africa who traditionally harvested shea nuts – and cut out the middlemen. The aim was to improve productivity and pay a fair price.

Corporations are increasingly held responsible for the products they source and the sustainability of their supply chains. It was to meet this need that EcoVadis, a sustainability rating agency, was founded in 2007 by Pierre-François Thaler (INSEAD MBA, 1999) and Frédéric Trinel to bridge the information gap between corporate buyers and their suppliers.

Without action on sustainability, the supply of cocoa beans – and hence chocolate - cannot be maintained. Barry Callebaut (BC), the world’s largest B2B cocoa and chocolate company, has gone from taking little interest in “sustainable cocoa production” to embracing it fully.

After years building a solid customer base by cross-selling its financial service offerings, Wells Fargo was engulfed by a scandal over unauthorized accounts opened in customers’ names. Regulators discovered that hundreds of thousands of fake accounts had been opened by bank employees scrambling to meet sales quotas.