Following the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we recognise the need to address the three dimensions of sustainability:

• Economic: our activities should generate economic benefits for all actors in the food chain.
• Social: our activities should provide positive socio-cultural outcomes including safe and healthy food, increased employment, and decent work for all, with a specific emphasis on gender and young people.
• Environmental: our activities must have a neutral or positive impact on the natural environment (including biodiversity, water, soil, and climate).

The unique position and strength of COLEAD as a private sector not-for-profit association, is that it assesses and tackles all the 3 pillars of sustainability via a charter, a self-assessment system (SAS), and capacity building (technical assistance and training) resources.

Each member and/or partner beneficiary of a programme managed and implemented by COLEAD is invited to express his/her commitment to running his/her operations sustainably by adhering to the principles of this sustainability charter. In practice, COLEAD supports the transition to more ‘sustainable agri-food systems’ by facilitating and promoting good practices that are recognised elements of agroecological systems tailored to the local context and being determined by metrics of performance which are continuously (re)evaluated over time and positioned within global trends and dynamics to enhance continuous improvement.