Founder FIC

Erik de Baedts started his career in 1995 as a (senior) consultant at Ernst & Young Consulting and he was active for many years as a manager of partnerships at cross-sector industry level. He gained experience in aligning competitors and stakeholders by finding common interests based on content. This enabled initiatives to be successfully realised and expanded.

A number of his assignments were related to positive social goals such as emission reduction and the promotion of occupational health and safety management for workers throughout the Netherlands. Examples of successful trajectories include:

• The reduction of emission from refrigeration and air conditioning installations in all sectors of Dutch industry through a cross-sector partnership and quality management. Partly thanks to his input, this model became the template for the European approach;
• Improving working conditions in the Netherlands in partnership
• with the national government and national umbrella organisations such as trade unions, employers, occupational health and safety service providers;
• Addressing health issues through improving asbestos management by setting up a national certification scheme.

After working on sustainable and affordable energy and heat supply at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and for the Institute of Social Studies, an international development university, he returned to being an independent consultant, supporting an international project to improve safety risks at work.

For many years he was active in the waste sector in the Netherlands, working for the Royal NVRD on behalf of municipalities and their public waste and cleaning companies. In 2008 he was appointed as the director of the NVRD, in which capacity he championed a public perspective focused on sustainable development. He was subsequently elected president of the European umbrella organisation MWE (Municipal Waste Europe) and appointed director of the ISWA (International Solid Waste Association), representing the waste sector internationally, including at UN climate summits.

As director of the NVRD, working in close cooperation with the Association of Dutch Municipalities, he negotiated with representatives of the business community about organising and financing the recycling of recyclable materials, in particular the material chains of packaging (paper, wood, glass, plastic, beverage cartons and tin), electronics and ICT, batteries, etc through producers responsibility. He chaired consultations with producer organisations and civil society organisations for the environment on how to communicate with citizens. As chairman of the consultation with stakeholders from municipalities and the business community, he also promoted the advice submitted to the Secretary of State for the Environment to collect more household waste separately in order to increase recycling to a level of 65%, an ambitious target but a realistic perspective based on insight in the material flows.

In 2015 Erik de Baedts was appointed as director of the Peace Palace in The Hague, dedicating himself to questions of peace, international law and international cooperation. At the Peace Palace, he developed a peace agenda with the Carnegie institutions worldwide. This resulted in the Carnegie PeaceBuilding Conversations in the Peace Palace and in New York Times Center. He also developed partnerships with the SDG network and various non-governmental organisations.

In 2023 he founded FIC – Faith in Cooperation. FIC is committed to international cooperation, sustainable development, decent work and peaceful relations.