In pursuit of living wages and incomes
To pay a living wage and income. That is an amazing ambition indeed. Yet, it is not an easy one. ALIGN is a living wage and income tool that guides companies through the process.
To see the forest for the trees
ALIGN is a product of the Living Wage Lab. This breeding ground aims to provide its participants with pragmatic solutions to problems that are in the way of realising living wages and incomes. We asked social enterprise True Price to investigate what exactly the greatest need of participants of the Lab was. Their answer: a tool that helps us see the forest for the trees again.
Joining forces with Hivos, Rainforest Alliance and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (implemented by GIZ), we then developed a tool that helps with just this. ALIGN is a living wage and income tool that helps agri-food companies prioritise and reduce the complexity around this issue. Directing them towards a solution in four steps. What research has been done on living wages? Which research institutes can I turn to? Can I do this alone, or do I need partners? Who could those partners be? ALIGN answers these questions by collecting and simplifying the work done by leading organisations and experts.
Build understanding
Get familiar with the subject. Discover the basics of living wages and income standards, the urgency and the benefits of working towards realising them in your supply chain.
Assess the risks
Map your supply chains. Identify and assess the adverse impact and estimate the living wage and income gaps within your chains and operations.
Take action
The next step: learn how to implement living wages and incomes in your food supply chains. Choose the implementation approach that best suits your specific situation.
Monitor and communicate
Last but not least: track the implementation and results of your activities, and measure KPI’s. Learn which tools can help you best. And, not unimportant: discover how best to communicate the subject to your audience.
Partners
Or check out the FAQ’s
What is ALIGN and what does it do?
We think of ALIGN as an interactive database in which we collect all relevant research, tools and partners that help companies realise living wages and incomes. With the work in our Living Wage Lab, a collaboration with Hivos, we kept getting signals that the subject is a complex one, and that companies often don’t know where to start once they have set themselves that wonderful ambition. ALIGN breaks the road to living wages and incomes down to a step-by-step plan and offers guidelines for every step.
Who can use ALIGN?
We can be brief about that one: everyone who works for a company in the agri-food sector.
Who are the partners behind ALIGN?
ALIGN is a product stemming from the Living Wage Lab, a collaboration between Fairfood and Hivos. We asked True Price to conduct an assessment of the greatest needs that companies have on their way to realising living wages and incomes. Subsequently, Hivos and Fairfood developed the tool together with Rainforest Alliance. Schuttelaar & Partners played an important role in the development of ALIGN. The implementation was done by GIZ, with financial support from the German Ministry of Cooperation and Development.
What will it cost me?
Nothing at all!