I think this idea of community based human rights assessment is important. We are increasing our work here in India on women's rights through local capacity building. I will take a look at your framework - thanks.
Alison
Penny Fowler said:
Oxfam has worked with others to produce a community-based human rights impact assessment tool (see link) that offers an alternative, bottom-up approach to Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) tools that have been developed by industry bodies and companies. The latter tend to work top-down, are managed by the companies, focused largely on corporate risk, and are weak on transparency, accountability and stakeholder engagement.
A community-based human rights impact assessment approach thus offers an alternative path, allowing affected communities to drive a process of information gathering and participation, framed by their own understanding of human rights. Communities can engage in solving human rights threats by working with NGOs, companies, and governments on a more equal footing. By starting with perspectives of affected people, the HRIA focuses on their concerns and their aspirations for human rights realization.
It is true that communities usually are able to define their needs and there has to be partners that work with them to realise the required change. Our actions should not be about 'doing it for them' but rather supportive and collaborative.
The collaboration of businesses and development partners is critical in understanding "what good looks like" - the outcomes and impacts we really want to achieve. Businesses need the on-the-ground community based perspectives that development partners can often provide, and development partners need the innovation and sustainable business models that companies can help shape - where products and services, and the way they are produced, provide the impacts everyone wants to see.
When we know "what good looks like", then we can ensure that drivers of performance and reporting KPIs are aligned to achieving this aim - not just meeting benchmarking standards, or other regulatory requirements.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
Great discussion. Let's move on to our third question:
Question 3: How can businesses and development partners collaborate more effectively to take ESG performance to the next level of scale and impact, including the reporting of impact?
There is nothing negative about transparency or competition within indices. These can drive competition. But I rarely meet a business who does not see the need for more effective regulation in this area - these too can incentivise.
Lee H. Babcock said:
John....I note that your incentives 1 and 2 seem negative in nature. Specific to agriculture mobile money.... the potential to increase market share, transaction fee revenue, reduce costs and streamline the value chain are more aligned with the interests of the private sector. Mobile network operators (MNOs) need to roll out into rural areas in pursuit of break-even and ROI. Large commodity buyers want to reduce their costs of paying farmers in cash and do so with mobile money creates a direct line of communication with the farmer while also creating a financial identify for the farmer...and providing safety, security, storage and other benefits for the farmer. We're in the 21st century and it is remarkable that we still pay farmers in cash when all we need is the imagination and commitment to pay them into their mobile wallets.
John Morrison said:
Ok next question. There are a range of incentives we need, so regulatory, some market driven. Here are a few that come to mind:
(1) Mandated transparency and due diligence. We have seen this now for the top 6,000 EU companies, Chinese state-owned enterprises, relating to specific contexts such as Myanmar or on trafficking/forced labour or conflict minerals. Approaches to "know and show" need to be standardised - the work of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework is important here.
(2) Objective benchmarks for measuring not just the intent of companies but their actual performance. This is why we started work on the "Corporate Human Rights Benchmark" with a range of partners to rank the top 500 publicly listed companies in the world, and also develop sector-specific rankings to help drive competitive behaviour.
(3) The two above points only work if they help drive investor and consumer behaviour, and also that of governments in terms of public procurement (often 20% of GDP), export credit, trade missions and so on. We are beginning to see some of these "economic consequences" explored in some public procurement initiatives, as well as NCP decision making under the OECD Guidelines.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
Great insights so far! Let's move on to our second question:
2. What are we learning about the key enablers for business seeking to improve their ESG performance, including the role of good governance and regulatory environments?
Thanks Alison, this is Huw Prior and I work alongside Subindu Garkhel at the Fairtrade Foundation. As you may already be aware, Fairtrade offers transparency and traceability throughout the cotton supply chain and we have evolved our cotton model to a new Sourcing Programme involving an end to end track and trace tool called Fairtrace. We think that this new model is complimentary to our existing product labelling cotton scheme by empowering credible sourcing claims by brands and retailers. The credibility of these claims is enhanced by the fact that each stage of the supply chain from the farmer right through to the brand or retailer is linked through this tool. Hopefully this can help to meet the greater transparency needs of the cotton industry you mention in your comment.
Alison Ward said:
Giving a perspective on the garment sector good progress has been made at a factory level, with reduced water use, less and better chemical management and more attention on workers rights. More to do!
But the cotton sector has many challenges - a fragmented supply chain, with many brands relying on Tier One suppliers to undertake sourcing on their behalf, due to the complex nature of transactions.
Greater transparency from farm to garment is needed in order to connect brands and manufacturers to the beginning of the supply chain. We are beginning to see a step change here, with brands increasingly establishing sourcing teams in India and China and with some developing vertically integrated supply chains.
Being involved in a number of different value chain initiatives in the agriculture sector I am seeing that many of the solutions required are often systemic and multifaceted in nature and take us beyond the traditional single project based approach to solution solving towards a more platform based, or collective action, way of thinking that involve a series of cross sector actors or cross initiative actions coming together in a more aligned way. This poses challenges for traditional supply chain auditing as it will require us to be looking at how do you measure impact of a series of disconnected actions that come together at differing points along any given value chain. However before it is possible to measure collective impact there is a need to become a lot better at also coordinating and aligning actions being undertaken across different sectors in order to bring about the necessary scale of action to achieve genuinely transformational change at an entire value chain level. This also requires the building up of local capacity to effectively catalyse, broker and facilitate such multifaceted action and a policy environment to support this as we are seeing through the SAGCOT Centre in Tanzania amongst others.
My question is how much work is being done to look at measuring these more platform orientated or collective action approaches when it comes to impact assesment on the ground?
Progress on gender equality has been largely on a case-by-case or project basis – see examples in Equal Harvest report.
Fairtrade aims to increase the proportion of revenue that goes to the poor farmers by paying higher prices – redistributive approach, but also aims to expand the overall amount of value created through improving production techniques, quality of product and sustainability of production. More and more we have made progress in moving into more sustained Producer Facing initiatives and now making effots to move away from complience into impact Standards
Efforts by business to increase social investments have been big, but would need coordination and structuring. Finding the common ground and leveraging on skills and resources.. Such investments should aim as much as possible on reducing in equalities. We need to consider investments that reduce discrimination in access to work by women, ability for women to access
Behind the Brands Campaign – has forced companies to reconceive the intersection between social justice/society and corporate performance/profit. Companies have sought to develop new skills and knowledge relating to how they can enhance appreciation of societal needs, understanding the basis for company productivity, and ability to collaborate across profit/non-profit boundaries.
Challenges remaining for companies are to find ways to translate principles into practice, getting buy inn from investors and shareholders . There is still need to increase internal awareness-raising and capacity building. Businesses have rarely approached societal issues from a value perspective but have treated them as peripheral matters, obscuring the connections between economic and social concerns. Companies may need to change the approach of eding social complience issues to government and csos.
There is still need to invest in proper and deeper analysis of the the issues in our value chains especially conducting separate gender analysis so that challenges and constraints that specifically reklate to women who carry the most burdarn are not diminished.
Another challenge can also be found in how businesss is still working with private sector. The model has to change to enable and support and not work against improvement of social accountability.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
Let's start with the first question:
Question 1: Where has the most progress been made in harnessing value chains for social and environmental impact, and where do the challenges remain for companies looking to translate principles in to practice?
More reflections for business can be found in the Fairtrade Report that came out in March of 2015 'EQUAL HARVEST' which you can access on the Fairtare Foundation Website.
Alison, this is a really exciting example. It is a complete misnomer that 'suppliers' need to have ESG requested or required by purchasing companies - often they are leading the way, as they too have their own value chains!
Alison Ward said:
Hi Stuart - I was delighted to see last year that one of the forward thinking spinners here in India has started their own CSR offer - complete with a brochure and mission statement. We want to encourage international brands to work with these thought leaders. Small steps!
Stuart Coupe said:
In terms of linking the informal to the formal sector of enterprise we need to move away from the idea of "eliminating the exploitative middleman" etc and engage the hard grind of participatory market systems development, looking at a variety of value chains in turn and convening all the players along these chain to identify specific ways where interests can be aligned, In this way the micro producers to can see if there are any actions they can to take and propose where capacity building can be applied to improve their access and expand into national and international markets. Obviously convening such consensus building dialogues comes with a cost and does not always yield benefits- but this is a good deployment of cooperation assistance.
Thanks Alison. Please send any feedback you may have so I can share with colleagues in Oxfam America who are leading on this. Penny
I think this idea of community based human rights assessment is important. We are increasing our work here in India on women's rights through local capacity building. I will take a look at your framework - thanks.
Alison
Penny Fowler said:
Oxfam has worked with others to produce a community-based human rights impact assessment tool (see link) that offers an alternative, bottom-up approach to Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) tools that have been developed by industry bodies and companies. The latter tend to work top-down, are managed by the companies, focused largely on corporate risk, and are weak on transparency, accountability and stakeholder engagement.
A community-based human rights impact assessment approach thus offers an alternative path, allowing affected communities to drive a process of information gathering and participation, framed by their own understanding of human rights. Communities can engage in solving human rights threats by working with NGOs, companies, and governments on a more equal footing. By starting with perspectives of affected people, the HRIA focuses on their concerns and their aspirations for human rights realization.
It is true that communities usually are able to define their needs and there has to be partners that work with them to realise the required change. Our actions should not be about 'doing it for them' but rather supportive and collaborative.
Yes thanks Sean, the solution to a market blockage my not necessarily be found at the grassroots level. BEAM Exchange are working on such impact questions.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
That's a great question, Sean.
Sean de Cleene said:
Being involved in a number of different value chain initiatives in the agriculture sector I am seeing that many of the solutions required are often systemic and multifaceted in nature and take us beyond the traditional single project based approach to solution solving towards a more platform based, or collective action, way of thinking that involve a series of cross sector actors or cross initiative actions coming together in a more aligned way. This poses challenges for traditional supply chain auditing as it will require us to be looking at how do you measure impact of a series of disconnected actions that come together at differing points along any given value chain. However before it is possible to measure collective impact there is a need to become a lot better at also coordinating and aligning actions being undertaken across different sectors in order to bring about the necessary scale of action to achieve genuinely transformational change at an entire value chain level. This also requires the building up of local capacity to effectively catalyse, broker and facilitate such multifaceted action and a policy environment to support this as we are seeing through the SAGCOT Centre in Tanzania amongst others.
My question is how much work is being done to look at measuring these more platform orientated or collective action approaches when it comes to impact assesment on the ground?
That brings us to the end of the live segment of this discussion. As always, we'll leave the discussion open, so please do feel free to continue posting your comments.
A big thank you to our panel, and to all of you who joined in today.
If you'd like to read more about the topics covered today, be sure to read the blogs in our Harnessing Value Chains Series this week:
This discussion is part of the Prosperity Theme of our Business and SDGs programme, supported by the UK's Department for International Development. Visit the SDGs Zone here: http://sdgs.businessfightspoverty.org
Please could you elaborate on how the tracing system works? Is it a system based on weight of ethical cotton bought calculated out to decide the weight of ethical garments that can be produced or does it require only the ethical cotton to be used in the final product?
Thanks
Ben Andrews
P.s I recently worked in the cotton classing department for Plexus Cotton
Huw Prior said:
Thanks Alison, this is Huw Prior and I work alongside Subindu Garkhel at the Fairtrade Foundation. As you may already be aware, Fairtrade offers transparency and traceability throughout the cotton supply chain and we have evolved our cotton model to a new Sourcing Programme involving an end to end track and trace tool called Fairtrace. We think that this new model is complimentary to our existing product labelling cotton scheme by empowering credible sourcing claims by brands and retailers. The credibility of these claims is enhanced by the fact that each stage of the supply chain from the farmer right through to the brand or retailer is linked through this tool. Hopefully this can help to meet the greater transparency needs of the cotton industry you mention in your comment.
Alison Ward said:
Giving a perspective on the garment sector good progress has been made at a factory level, with reduced water use, less and better chemical management and more attention on workers rights. More to do!
But the cotton sector has many challenges - a fragmented supply chain, with many brands relying on Tier One suppliers to undertake sourcing on their behalf, due to the complex nature of transactions.
Greater transparency from farm to garment is needed in order to connect brands and manufacturers to the beginning of the supply chain. We are beginning to see a step change here, with brands increasingly establishing sourcing teams in India and China and with some developing vertically integrated supply chains.
John.....I completely agree in the importance of transparency. The more sunshine the better. When there is shadow or darkness the mold grows. I was thinking in terms of the interests of the private sector decision maker whose salary package is dependent on the amount of bottom line profit earned by his cost center.
John Morrison said:
There is nothing negative about transparency or competition within indices. These can drive competition. But I rarely meet a business who does not see the need for more effective regulation in this area - these too can incentivise.
Lee H. Babcock said:
John....I note that your incentives 1 and 2 seem negative in nature. Specific to agriculture mobile money.... the potential to increase market share, transaction fee revenue, reduce costs and streamline the value chain are more aligned with the interests of the private sector. Mobile network operators (MNOs) need to roll out into rural areas in pursuit of break-even and ROI. Large commodity buyers want to reduce their costs of paying farmers in cash and do so with mobile money creates a direct line of communication with the farmer while also creating a financial identify for the farmer...and providing safety, security, storage and other benefits for the farmer. We're in the 21st century and it is remarkable that we still pay farmers in cash when all we need is the imagination and commitment to pay them into their mobile wallets.
John Morrison said:
Ok next question. There are a range of incentives we need, so regulatory, some market driven. Here are a few that come to mind:
(1) Mandated transparency and due diligence. We have seen this now for the top 6,000 EU companies, Chinese state-owned enterprises, relating to specific contexts such as Myanmar or on trafficking/forced labour or conflict minerals. Approaches to "know and show" need to be standardised - the work of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework is important here.
(2) Objective benchmarks for measuring not just the intent of companies but their actual performance. This is why we started work on the "Corporate Human Rights Benchmark" with a range of partners to rank the top 500 publicly listed companies in the world, and also develop sector-specific rankings to help drive competitive behaviour.
(3) The two above points only work if they help drive investor and consumer behaviour, and also that of governments in terms of public procurement (often 20% of GDP), export credit, trade missions and so on. We are beginning to see some of these "economic consequences" explored in some public procurement initiatives, as well as NCP decision making under the OECD Guidelines.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
Great insights so far! Let's move on to our second question:
2. What are we learning about the key enablers for business seeking to improve their ESG performance, including the role of good governance and regulatory environments?
That brings us to the end of the live segment of this discussion. As always, we'll leave the discussion open, so please do feel free to continue posting your comments.
A big thank you to our panel, and to all of you who joined in today.
If you'd like to read more about the topics covered today, be sure to read the blogs in our Harnessing Value Chains Series this week:
This discussion is part of the Prosperity Theme of our Business and SDGS programme, supported by the UK's Department for International Development. Visit the SDGs Zone here: http://sdgs.businessfightspoverty.org
Thanks Zahid for a good discussion - have some thoughts to go back into our team!
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
That brings us to the end of the live segment of this discussion. As always, we'll leave the discussion open, so please do feel free to continue posting your comments.
A big thank you to our panel, and to all of you who joined in today.
If you'd like to read more about the topics covered today, be sure to read the blogs in our Harnessing Value Chains Series this week:
This discussion is part of the Prosperity Theme of our Business and SDGs programme, supported by the UK's Department for International Development. Visit the SDGs Zone here: http://sdgs.businessfightspoverty.org
Thanks for these fine points Sean about the systemic and multifaceted nature of problem solving and streamlining agricultural value chains. ICTs and mobile phone technologies help enable these types of holistic, multi-disciplinary approaches to ag. To my knowledge there have been a few initiatives to measure the impact of these ICT/mobile ag technologies and it seems there is a lot of room for more robust impact measurement in this area.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
That's a great question, Sean.
Sean de Cleene said:
Being involved in a number of different value chain initiatives in the agriculture sector I am seeing that many of the solutions required are often systemic and multifaceted in nature and take us beyond the traditional single project based approach to solution solving towards a more platform based, or collective action, way of thinking that involve a series of cross sector actors or cross initiative actions coming together in a more aligned way. This poses challenges for traditional supply chain auditing as it will require us to be looking at how do you measure impact of a series of disconnected actions that come together at differing points along any given value chain. However before it is possible to measure collective impact there is a need to become a lot better at also coordinating and aligning actions being undertaken across different sectors in order to bring about the necessary scale of action to achieve genuinely transformational change at an entire value chain level. This also requires the building up of local capacity to effectively catalyse, broker and facilitate such multifaceted action and a policy environment to support this as we are seeing through the SAGCOT Centre in Tanzania amongst others.
My question is how much work is being done to look at measuring these more platform orientated or collective action approaches when it comes to impact assesment on the ground?
Thank you for hosting us Zahid. I look forward to following the ongoing Business and SDGs programme.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
That brings us to the end of the live segment of this discussion. As always, we'll leave the discussion open, so please do feel free to continue posting your comments.
A big thank you to our panel, and to all of you who joined in today.
If you'd like to read more about the topics covered today, be sure to read the blogs in our Harnessing Value Chains Series this week:
This discussion is part of the Prosperity Theme of our Business and SDGs programme, supported by the UK's Department for International Development. Visit the SDGs Zone here: http://sdgs.businessfightspoverty.org
Thanks Stuart - I hadn't heard of BEAM so that was a good link. I have also been working with inter alia the Sustainable Food Lab, the Practitioner Hub for Inclusive Business and The Partnership Initiative on some of this thinking so there may be scope for alignment. Cheers.
Stuart Coupe said:
Yes thanks Sean, the solution to a market blockage my not necessarily be found at the grassroots level. BEAM Exchange are working on such impact questions.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
That's a great question, Sean.
Sean de Cleene said:
Being involved in a number of different value chain initiatives in the agriculture sector I am seeing that many of the solutions required are often systemic and multifaceted in nature and take us beyond the traditional single project based approach to solution solving towards a more platform based, or collective action, way of thinking that involve a series of cross sector actors or cross initiative actions coming together in a more aligned way. This poses challenges for traditional supply chain auditing as it will require us to be looking at how do you measure impact of a series of disconnected actions that come together at differing points along any given value chain. However before it is possible to measure collective impact there is a need to become a lot better at also coordinating and aligning actions being undertaken across different sectors in order to bring about the necessary scale of action to achieve genuinely transformational change at an entire value chain level. This also requires the building up of local capacity to effectively catalyse, broker and facilitate such multifaceted action and a policy environment to support this as we are seeing through the SAGCOT Centre in Tanzania amongst others.
My question is how much work is being done to look at measuring these more platform orientated or collective action approaches when it comes to impact assesment on the ground?
The system has been developed to track volumes of cotton through supply chains from producer group to end brand or retailer constantly converting the weight of product (at each production stage) back to cotton lint.
The new model I referred to is not based on end product certification or composition but in fact based on company wide cotton sourcing agreements between Fairtrade and end brands or retailers. The Fairtrace system I referred to is the 2nd party verification route for validating that the sourcing claims made by the end brands or retailers have been tracked through the system before they are communicated publicly.
Best wishes
Huw
Benjamin Andrews said:
Hi Huw,
Please could you elaborate on how the tracing system works? Is it a system based on weight of ethical cotton bought calculated out to decide the weight of ethical garments that can be produced or does it require only the ethical cotton to be used in the final product?
Thanks
Ben Andrews
P.s I recently worked in the cotton classing department for Plexus Cotton
Huw Prior said:
Thanks Alison, this is Huw Prior and I work alongside Subindu Garkhel at the Fairtrade Foundation. As you may already be aware, Fairtrade offers transparency and traceability throughout the cotton supply chain and we have evolved our cotton model to a new Sourcing Programme involving an end to end track and trace tool called Fairtrace. We think that this new model is complimentary to our existing product labelling cotton scheme by empowering credible sourcing claims by brands and retailers. The credibility of these claims is enhanced by the fact that each stage of the supply chain from the farmer right through to the brand or retailer is linked through this tool. Hopefully this can help to meet the greater transparency needs of the cotton industry you mention in your comment.
Alison Ward said:
Giving a perspective on the garment sector good progress has been made at a factory level, with reduced water use, less and better chemical management and more attention on workers rights. More to do!
But the cotton sector has many challenges - a fragmented supply chain, with many brands relying on Tier One suppliers to undertake sourcing on their behalf, due to the complex nature of transactions.
Greater transparency from farm to garment is needed in order to connect brands and manufacturers to the beginning of the supply chain. We are beginning to see a step change here, with brands increasingly establishing sourcing teams in India and China and with some developing vertically integrated supply chains.
Business and development partners need to collaborate from the onset, and they clearly define each others roles as this is key to the success of any private sector based initiative, because the challenges is private sector normally calls upon the development sector to solve some problems they would have created, and there is a missed opportunity for co-creation. In order to harness the ability of the PS Value-chains will need to encompass indicators that are specific towards achievement of the SDGs, the VC also has the potential to bring together the multiple players in a community through the MSP facilitation aspects, however there is need for VCs to have a strong gender inclination because at large value chain development is weak when it comes gender equality issues so SDGs can influence a look at VC4Gender, or the promotion of Women friendly VC etc.
Thanks Francis - The guide is a really valuable tool for business. Thanks for sharing! Rachael
Francis West said:
Hi Rachel,
On the back of some work we did with the tour operator Kuoni on bringing Children and/or their representatives into an impact assessment process, we produced this guide that outlines the practical steps to take: ENGAGING STAKEHOLDERS ON CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
Rachael Clay said:
Francis,
This is a great example. Can you give us some insight in to the way you brought children , as stakeholders, in to the process? Thanks.
Francis West said:
Where companies have undertaken impact assessments, this has helped focus where value chains and expertise can be harnessed for positive impact. If a company integrates the voices of the most vulnerable into its human rights impact assessments, it will be better placed to determine where to focus its efforts to positively support the delivery of the SDGs. This is clear from the experience of the telecoms company Millicom. After conducting a child rights impact assessment across its supply chain with Unicef, Millicom supported the creation of a new SMS service in Tanzania that allows parents to register new births as well as those of children under five on any mobile phone, straight to a centrally-run database. Birth registration- the subject of another SDG target- rose from nine per cent to 40 per cent in the pilot region of Mbeya in six months.
This isn't an easy process however. There is a challenge in that determining the impacts of a business (and therefore the opportunities to best support desirable social outcomes) requires consultation with stakeholders that are potentially or actually affected by a company’s operations and supply chain, particularly vulnerable groups, rather than with those organisations that have best managed to grab the company’s attention. Impacts on individuals take place in specific geographic locations at specific times and while it might be easier to undertake stakeholder consultation with NGOs HQ’d in London, businesses really need to get as close as possible to the voices of those at the sharp end of impacts in the value chain.
For Unicef UK, that means bringing the voices of children into the due diligence process so that a company can understand how they affect their lives beyond the traditional focus on child labour (which remains a grave issue with 168 million child labourers worldwide). Children are important stakeholders for business - as consumers, family members of employees, young workers, and as future employees and business leaders- but are rarely treated as such. Almost every business activity can leave a footprint on children’s lives - whether through employment conditions of parents, product safety, marketing practices or environmental impact.
Zahid Torres-Rahman said:
Let's start with the first question:
Question 1: Where has the most progress been made in harnessing value chains for social and environmental impact, and where do the challenges remain for companies looking to translate principles in to practice?