Nico Roozen was appointed Officer in the ‘Orde van Oranje-Nassau’ in 2007, for his life long efforts and accomplishments towards achieving fairly traded goods and sustainable supply chains worldwide. Nico started his career at Solidaridad in 1984 as a campaigner and in 1990, was appointed director. Under his direction, Solidaridad has grown into an internationally renowned organization, with specific expertise in the development of models which bridge the gap between the work of civil society organizations on the one hand and industry, trade and retail companies on the other.

In 1988, Nico launched the Max Havelaar label for fair trade coffee, the world’s first fair trade label that formed the basis for local fair trade labelling initiatives in Europe, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, USA and Canada. In 1996, he established AgroFair BV, an importer of fresh fair trade fruit, which is jointly owned by the fruit producers, selling brands such as Oké and Eko Oké. In 2000, he started developing a model for fair trade textiles, including fair trade jeans brand Kuyichi and a fair trade textiles company called Fair&Co. Other notable initiatives at Solidaridad have included the creation of UTZ Certified (now merged with RainForest Alliance.) More recently, Solidaridad has co-developed the global roundtables for soy, cotton, sugarcane, palm oil and livestock.

Under Nico’s leadership, Solidaridad today is a global non-profit organization facilitating the development of socially responsible, environmentally sound, and economically viable commodity supply chains. Solidaridad operates through 9 regional offices on 5 continents.

With an emphasis on empowering smallholder farmers, artisanal miners, and workers in developing countries, Solidaridad is a leader in bringing together supply chain actors (including producers, traders, processors, retailers, governments, and ngos) to implement innovative, context-specific, market-based solutions that improveproduction practices, enhance rural livelihoods, and protect the environment.