We spoke with Fabián Calvo Romero, Global Environment Officer for the Rainforest Alliance, about the results of the PRINS 2019 consultancy project and its impact for RA. Were BA International Studies students able to address the complex and often diverging needs of all stakeholders in these agricultural supply chains (coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas) – taking into consideration  all the historical, cultural and political contexts as well as the environmental -  to come closer to eliminating deforestation in the supply chain?

Q: What attracted you to working with Leiden University BA students to solve your case?
First, let me say there was a good connection between the Rainforest Alliance and the students. There are many young professionals at RA, and I feel the students were happy they could connect – I myself graduated relatively recently. They inspired me in a way that made me want to go back and study!

Overall, these students are attractive to work with because they do have a multidisciplinary background and this is fundamental. They have different perspectives from which to analyses one case, so they can bring together different angles and show these angles touch each other.

Our problem was how to achieve inclusive, deforestation-free supply chains for big commodities like coffee and cocoa; if we only talk about deforestation you think it’s about ecology, but it’s also about policy, marketing, finance...many aspects. That’s why it was very relevant to work with these students.

 Q: What added value do International Studies and Humanities students bring to your case?
Sometimes it is necessary to have a fresh view on a problem. At the RA we had been talking about this for a long time, and if you have a group of students focused on and diving into a topic for three months, you get a fresh view and a different analysis.  And what they brought was very relevant. In the office this is a topic, but we also deal with a lot of other things so sometimes we lose track. Here you have 60 students focusing on a problem and bringing solutions.  Also I think PRINS is in itself quite a complementary programme to the Rainforest Alliance because we are multidisciplinary, we work on advocacy, environmental topics, markets, communication, human rights, Most of the final pitches contained aspects of these topics so everyone in the organisation can relate to the recommendations we have been given.

Q:  Why not go to a business school/management/public administration or development  programme to find student consultants?
I think that sustainability issues must be addressed in a holistic way. So if you go only to business schools there will be a business focus. This doesn’t mean business cannot be sustainable, of course, but we need a combination of different strategies to free up supply chains and make them more inclusive. And in PRINS there was focus on the overall picture and already a holistic approach – look at the diversity of the teams. They are multidisciplinary and diverse in terms of coming from many different countries and regions. They bring together knowledge from their own unique context, and that was very relevant.

Q:  How were you inspired by these teams?
Overall, it was extremely inspiring. I was very surprised by the quality of the pitches, the reports, the presentation skills and the methodology used.  You could see there was a general methodology, and that every group had defined their own way of working.  We had groups that analysed nine study cases, and we had groups that analysed just two cases but in depth. I was very impressed by the hard work, and its quality. Every team worked really hard, particularly in the presentations: the winning team had a printed logo with a QR code that is actually linked to a web page.

Q: What will your organisation do with the ideas/solutions that were presented?
I think most of these ideas are in alignment with our current strategy and that is very important. It means that our way of thinking is in accordance with the way of thinking of research institutes, so for us it means we are on the way forward. How will the Rainforest Alliance take up these recommendations? We will invite people from the different student teams to come to the RA office in Amsterdam to make a presentation. Internally we will invite people from our different teams – economics, marketing, advocacy, environment – and basically use PRINS teams’ work as an input to develop further strategies. We’ve created a page where we’ve uploaded the reports to share them with our colleagues; and I personally think a lot can be accomplished by talking to people internally, coffee corner conversations where you say, ‘Hey by the way, look what these PRINS students did, they have this QR code…’  I think it will be good when the students come, to help move this forward.

Q: Based on what you saw during the pitching, do you have any career advice to help and inspire our students?
Actually, I do have some advice, and it comes from a place where I can easily visualize myself in the position of the students. When we are students, we are extremely passionate, and it’s important to keep that passion as much as you can – it will open new doors.  But you also need to understand the client, the circumstances and the context.  You need to know how to talk to different stakeholders with different interests, and bring your passion and commitment in a certain way. You need to know how to communicate in a way that is political, and you need to change your dialogue sometimes.  For example we had students show extreme passion, but some recommendations were counterproductive for our organisation. Of course RA works a lot with the private sector, and with communities, research institutes, etc. You have to understand this.

Q: How would you summarise your PRINS experience?
Overall: extremely positive!  At the end I even got flowers. We submitted a problem and a framework for students to work with, to define a clear outcome. Then for a couple of months you don’t hear anything.  Then you read the reports and sit on the jury, and analyse great pitch presentations! It is not very demanding for the commissioning organisation, it’s not time consuming, and if you develop your case framework well, the students will work well.  The overall experience is very inspiring, and it’s great to see all these passionate Leiden University students.