Act to inspire & inspire to act 2020 – Axfoundation Progress Report

Over the past two years, Axfoundation has created alliances and collaborations with some 225 partners, contributing to positive development in society by exploring new solutions. By using business as an accelerator to drive long-term change, we have tackled sustainability challenges related to the things we buy, the food we eat, the resources we use, and the people we meet. In our Progress Report 2020, we share an extract of successful results – but also examples of times when things didn’t go quite as planned. Because to innovate sustainable solutions and achieve transformative change, we need to have courage to fail.

We believe that entrepreneurship is a powerful force for change to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and to create a thriving society within the planetary boundaries. At Axfoundation, we initiate and run projects together with the private sector to tackle global sustainability challenges based on practical issues within our programs: Future Food, Circular Economy, Sustainable Production and Consumption, and up until 2020 also Inclusive Society.

The progress report – Act to inspire and inspire to act 2020 – presents highlights and results that Axfoundation has contributed to from the beginning of 2018 through early 2020.

“Axfoundation is a catalyst that challenges. We want to inspire, share knowledge, spark debate and drive processes both locally and globally. The road ahead is often winding. It takes courage, curiosity and power to bring about real change. Our co-workers’ drive, competence and expertise is our true asset. In some projects we take on the role of project managers, in others we are bridge builders. Sometimes we are the initiators. Regardless, we always have one mission: act to inspire and inspire to act.” – Maria Smith, Secretary General, Axfoundation

Highlights from the program Future Food:

• Swedish legume mince, made from sweet lupine, broad bean and grey pea, went from idea to ready product.
• Torsåker gård, Axfoundation’s test farm and development center for sustainable food production of the future, hosted genetic material from three different perennial wheat plant breeding programs.
• Circular fish feed has been developed and successfully used to produce more sustainable salmon.

Within Circular Economy, Axfoundation contributed to:

• Successful testing of depolymerization on industrial waste streams of polyester with a more than 90% output as a result.
• Successful proof of concept in the pilot project “From waste to fashion” turning discarded polyester from the transport industry into PET pellets to be used in fashion.
• Mapping of resource flows at Axel Johnson companies. The mapping highlighted the group’s substantial use of materials as predominantly linear. Plastics being identified as key materials and Axfoundation initiated a project to set a common goal for plastics.

A selection of results from the program Sustainable Production and Consumption:

• Axfoundation hosted Swedish Soy Dialogue with 52 member organizations.
• Contributed to nudging trials lowering the climate impact of consumers’ food purchases at Mat.se by 7%.
• 2,250 farmers trained in sustainable rice cultivation in Pakistan..
• Axfoundation supported rights training of 10,300 factory workers and managers in China and Thailand.
• Axfoundation contributed to the Ethical Trading Initiative Sweden formed in 2019 to improve working conditions in global supply chains.

Highlights from the program Inclusive Societies:

• 58 000 new and established Swedes connected via ÖppnaDörren since 2015. Over 10 000 met in 2019 alone.
• 42 % have gotten to meet an employer through meetings facilitated by partner organizations to ÖppnaDörren.
• 38% of those who met an employer landed a job and 19% got an internship.