Fairtrade Rolls Out New Risk Map
The tool is used to identify and analyse potential risks associated with human rights and the environment in the commodities and countries where Fairtrade operates. By highlighting these root causes, the tool can help promote a more thorough risk assessment and encourage collaboration with farmers and workers to create sustainable supply chains.
Fairtrade's new risk map will help stop the widespread human rights violations and damage to the environment that happen in global supply chains. It does this by identifying and showing the biggest risks in the areas where Fairtrade works.
The map takes into account factors such as commodity, geography, and organisational impacts on people and the environment and helps understand how these risks are interconnected with root causes such as poverty, inequality, and exploitation.
The Fairtrade risk map currently covers coffee, cocoa, bananas, wine grapes, and honey, but it will be expanded to include more products in the near future.
The map is the result of a collaborative effort, utilising dialogue and participatory processes. The input was gathered from farmer cooperatives, workers, plantation management, Fairtrade staff from six continents, and external experts.
“Fairtrade has been a pioneer in advancing human rights in business for more than 30 years. Due diligence must not be just about internal processes and requirements for business partners, it needs to be about dialogue, collaboration, and changing one’s own practices to improve people’s lives and protect the environment," said Fairtrade’s Business and Human Rights Director Tytti Nahi.
“The risk map can facilitate a transparent dialogue between supply chain actors and help companies build effective responses to address the greatest risks, avoiding further harm to farming communities and the planet," said Marike de Peña, President of the Fairtrade Producer Network for Latin America and the Caribbean CLAC.
The Fairtrade risk map is designed to support all actors in global value chains in their risk assessments, from farmer and worker organisations to retailers and brands. The map particularly helps European companies, which have increasing legal obligations to carry out such risk assessments and prevent, mitigate, and remediate the greatest risks in their supply chains.
The tool provides detailed information to support solution-oriented dialogue and collaboration between all actors in a supply chain and offers businesses valuable insight into where to direct their sustainability efforts and support. It also helps them understand and identify the human rights and environmental risks in the sectors where they operate and allows them to take effective steps to address those risks.
Source: Fairtrade
