This text is sponsored by Accountability Framework initative.
With the dual threats of local weather change and ecological collapse looming, firms are below rising strain to deal with the impacts of their provide chains on folks and the planet. Greater than ever, at this time’s customers, downstream clients, staff, authorities regulators, buyers and different stakeholders anticipate provide chains to be sustainable.
The urgency is especially acute for firms within the meals and shopper items industries. That’s as a result of the agricultural and forestry commodities they use of their merchandise and packaging can have outsized impacts on nature, local weather and human rights.
Chocolate firms, for instance, are dealing with a barrage of lawsuits and shopper campaigns over allegations of human rights abuses in cocoa provide chains. And in lower than a 12 months’s time, firms placing merchandise on the EU market must show that commodity manufacturing was authorized and never related to deforestation or forest degradation.
But whereas 1000’s of firms have pledged to rework their commodity provide chains, implementation continues to fall brief.
A roadmap for accountable provide chains
To assist firms transition their companies and rework how agricultural and forestry commodities are produced and traded, a gaggle of main NGOs created the Accountability Framework. It presents firms a holistic and built-in strategy to managing deforestation and human rights dangers throughout their operations and provide bases.
The Accountability Framework is relevant worldwide for all agricultural and forestry commodities, and for firms at any place within the provide chain. As it’s primarily based on worldwide norms, good practices and broad consensus, following the Framework provides firms confidence that their actions will fulfil stakeholder expectations and drive significant progress.
![AFi Infographic.png](https://www.greenbiz.com/sites/default/files/2024-03/AFi%20Infographic.png)
The Accountability Framework guides firms by seven motion areas to enhance their sustainability insurance policies and practices. Wherever firms are on their accountable provide chain journeys, they are going to discover detailed steering to assist them establish sensible steps for enchancment.
As an example, the framework and its supporting instruments help firms in benchmarking their present insurance policies and in setting or strengthening provide chain objectives to guard forests, different pure ecosystems and human rights.
This steering is totally aligned with key goal setting frameworks and rules on local weather, nature and human rights. As an example, SBTi’s Forest, Land and Agriculture Steerage requires firms to set a no-deforestation goal that aligns with the framework. As a result of this alignment, following the framework will help be certain that an organization’s strategy to addressing deforestation additionally helps fulfils different objectives and necessities.
To translate provide chain objectives into sustainability outcomes, firms ought to set up administration techniques to drive efficient implementation of commitments. This requires embedding objectives into all manufacturing, procurement, and different enterprise choices, in addition to establishing inner processes, capability, and oversight.
The framework gives differentiated steering for commodity producers and patrons. For downstream firms, it particulars the practices and techniques wanted to successfully handle their provide chains. These embrace conducting traceability, provider engagement and administration of non-compliance. For upstream producers and first processors, the framework particulars expectations and good practices for land acquisition and website institution, website administration, long-term safety and remediation of social and environmental harms when wanted.
As a ultimate motion space to implement sustainability objectives, the framework outlines key methods for firms to collaborate with others on the panorama and sectoral ranges to deal with impacts and dangers that reach past their very own operations, provide bases and direct management.
The framework additionally helps constant and credible strategies to measure and reveal progress in the direction of reaching objectives. This consists of steering on monitoring and verification approaches in addition to reporting, disclosure and claims. The framework is extremely aligned with main reporting and disclosure techniques, comparable to CDP and GRI.
In sum, the Framework gives a holistic and aligned strategy that hyperlinks purpose setting, implementation, efficiency metrics and disclosure.
In the direction of new regular
Since its launch in 2019, the Accountability Framework has contributed to scaling-up ambition, motion and progress in the direction of making accountable provide chains the brand new regular. A whole lot of firms have straight utilized the Accountability Framework to ascertain and advance in the direction of their provide chain objectives. 1000’s extra use trade pointers, instruments and requirements which have aligned with the framework.
The Accountability Framework is a free public useful resource. Our coalition of environmental and human rights NGOs invitations firms to make use of it to assist set and obtain objectives that allow them to furnish the merchandise the world wants with out placing folks or nature in danger. Corporations can study extra about tips on how to use the Accountability Framework on our web site and are welcome to get in contact with us for individualized help.