The vast majority of Club Med's purchases of goods and materials for the villages is from local suppliers in their countries of operation (ranging from 83% in the North America to 100% in China, with an average of 89.7%)14. If a portion of these purchases consists of imports by the local supplier (which is very difficult to assess), this rate nonetheless reflects Club Med’s intention to work as much as possible with local partners, producers and distributors.

Supporting and developing local farming: a unique partnership with Agrisud

Finding that in some cases local supply was inadequate to meet its villages' demand for fresh produce, Club Med decided to help strengthen this network, thereby playing an active role in the economic development of the regions where it operates.  This decision led to a partnership with the NGO Agrisud signed in late 2008, to enable local producers to supply Club Med villages, and to guide them towards more sustainable land use, based on the principles of agro-ecology.

The benefits of this are multiple and contribute to several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):

• helping farmers to escape poverty (SDG 1 & 8) by training them (SDG 4) towards a market economy (SDG 10 & 11) and sustainable use of their lands (SDG 2, 9 , 12, & 15);
• contributing to the relocation of subsistence farming (SDG 2 & 8); - buffets offering customers fresh produce that is local, eco- friendly and meaningful (SDG 3);
• securing supplies of fresh produce (SDG 3) and increasing the share of local purchases in Club Med's procurement process (SDG 9);
• securing water supply for farms (SDG 6) with solar energy (SDG 7);
• affording women equal rights to economic resources (SDG 5) in the Senegal the project is specially focused on the women vegetable producer - about 13.3 tons of carbon sequestered by market gardening and arboriculture and reducing the CO2 impact of transporting such produces (SDG 13) ;
• more firmly rooting the villages in their host communities (SDG 16); - involving diversified actors everywhere: customers (SDG 17)

In 2017, the projects, including Agrisud-Club Med were :

• the early cropping of production (two months earlier than normal), improved diversity and higher quantities tripled VSB income at Cap Skirring (Senegal). Completion of the project to install solar powered pumps has provided easier access to water for 179 market gardeners, enabling them to cut their fuel consumption by 30%
• the startup of agro-ecology production and sales to Club Med from the newly-supported project at La Palmeraie in Marrakesh, Morocco
• the second year of agro-ecology production and the doubling of production supplied to the Village by the Bali project in Indonesia
• closer involvement of Club Med teams and a strengthening business relationship with confirmed weekly purchasing commitments at Rio das Pedras, Brazil.