Category: News

13 August 2020 – Kliwon is a natural rubber smallholder from Jambi Province, Indonesia, whose work with natural rubber started in the 80s. This evening, however, he’s doing something quite different from his usual rubber farming activities. Dressed in a light brown shirt of traditional Indonesian batik, Kliwon’s wiry frame and distinct head of white hair is visible on the computer and mobile phone screens of over 20 other natural rubber smallholders from around the world. He is one of the participants in GPSNR’s first international call for smallholder members to prepare them for the upcoming General Assembly.

At 68, Kliwon is one of the more experienced smallholder members in GPSNR. Today, he is being joined by other smallholders. Some, like H Nasoro Nie, a fresh-faced young lady from Vietnamese province of Dak Lak, are as young as 24, almost one third Kliwon’s age. Despite the difference in years, these smallholders all have something in common. They recognize the increasing importance of a sustainable global natural rubber value chain, and are actively participating in efforts to transform the industry.

It is the first time that the smallholders are meeting each other on an international level. Prior to this, they have been engaged in national level calls, making their presentations to their fellow natural rubber farmers from the same country. More than 20 natural rubber smallholders are present on the call – a handful are unable to join as they live in remote locations where access to the internet is not always a given. Unfortunately, the four smallholders from Myanmar are unable to connect due to heavy flooding in the areas where they live.

As with any meet-and-greet, communication is of paramount importance, and this includes being able to understand and be understood regardless of the language you speak. Here, five foreign languages come into play: Bahasa Indonesia, French, Myanmar, Thai and Vietnamese. Using Zoom’s in-built interpretation feature, the smallholders are able to access special audio channels within the meeting, where they can hear everything that is said, interpreted into their local language. Thanks to sustained funding from Partnerships for Forests (P4F), a UK aid funded program, GPSNR was able to engage interpreters to perform this simultaneous interpretation remotely. The funds were also channeled to the appointment of Transitions, a sustainable development consultancy agency, who is facilitating the international sessions with smallholders.

The call begins with opening remarks by GPSNR Director Stefano Savi, followed by a quick runthrough of the agenda and an overview of the global natural rubber market. 

Then, the smallholders start to introduce themselves. We hear from those from Indonesia, then Thailand, Vietnam, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Brazil. They share about the size of their natural rubber plantations, their activities around rubber farming. Many of them are actively involved in the natural rubber scene in their country, from Baroan Roland, who is the Chairman of the Association of Natural Rubber Producers of Côte d’Ivoire (APROCANCI) to Thailand’s Soontorn Rakrong, who has been involved in initiating dialogue with the Thai government for policy development around fair tenure and land use rights. As one smallholder speaks in their native language, the interpreter interprets, in real-time, their words into English for the rest of the participants. The other interpreters, picking up the English interpretation, convey it to the other smallholders in their respective native languages.

All too soon, two hours fly by. There is just enough time for a short Question and Answer segment. At the end of the night, it’s clear that the smallholders are excited to have more opportunities to get to know each other and further discuss the issues around natural rubber that they all similarly share regardless of geography. —

The 2nd GPSNR Smallholder International Call will take place on 27 August 2020.

With less than a month to go to GPSNR’s General Assembly (GA) 2020, the Secretariat has published an Information Booklet for all GPSNR members, containing key details around the event, including proposed resolutions and a list of candidates running for the Executive Committee Elections. 

This year’s GA will be convened virtually on 23 September 2020. GPSNR Ordinary Members will go to the polls two weeks before the event, to cast their votes on proposed resolutions which include, amongst others, the formation of a new membership category for natural rubber smallholders, and a policy framework for natural rubber production and sourcing for GPSNR member companies. Each membership category will also elect representatives to fill upcoming vacancies in the Executive Committee.

Members may access the GA Info Booklet via the mailer that was sent out on Friday, 21 August 2020. Any members encountering issues with the mailer and links may reach out to the Secretariat (info@gpsnr.org) for assistance.

The Policy Components were approved as part of a resolution for the endorsement of a GPSNR policy framework for natural rubber production and sourcing for ordinary member companies.

A booklet containing the Policy Components can be found here.

Following the announcement that the GPSNR General Assembly (GA) will take place in September, the Smallholders Representation Group has quickly adapted its plans around onboarding smallholder members prior to the GA. With restrictions around COVID-19 necessitating a virtual format for the GA, likewise the sessions involving smallholders would follow suit.

The onboarding will be conducted via a series of national and international calls starting from late July until the end of September. There will be a total of 3 calls amongst smallholders at the national level, and another 3 calls at the international level. 

The first national calls have already been conducted for all seven countries: Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. During this first call, the smallholders were introduced to the video conference platform with a quick tutorial on its functions. Next, they were given an update on developments and projects within GPSNR before learning more about the upcoming GA, including the onboarding schedule, the process for Executive Committee elections and an overview of the resolutions. 

The Country Champions are providing immense support through coordination of the calls, conducting the calls in the local language and in some cases reaching out to the smallholders individually to help them overcome the barriers of using new technology.

The Working Group will be engaging an experienced facilitator who will be able to foster relationships as well as trigger and encourage discussion amongst the smallholders  in an international and multilingual setting. A Request for Proposal was posted on the GPSNR website and social media channels, and the Secretariat is supporting the Working Group in finalizing the selection of proposals.  

The next national call will see smallholders sharing about themselves and their work in natural rubber production, an activity designed to assist them each in articulating their thoughts and vision as potential election candidates for the Executive Committee.

The Member Consultation period for the proposed GPSNR Policy Components and Baseline Reporting Requirements closed on 3 July 2020. All comments received as part of the consultation exercise were discussed by the Policy Toolbox Working Group over several rounds of calls. There has also been healthy dialogue between various membership categories and the Working Group on the alignment of the Policy Components. 

Meanwhile, pilot testing for the Baseline Reporting Requirements is in progress, with 10 GPSNR member volunteers participating in the exercise. The Secretariat will be interviewing each of the volunteers in the coming weeks to gather feedback on their experience in submitting the Baseline Reporting Requirements data. More updates will be shared in due course.

At this stage, finalized versions of the Policy Components and related documents have been submitted by the Policy Toolbox Working Group to the Executive Committee for review and further discussion at the Executive Committee level. The Policy Components will then be brought to the GPSNR General Assembly for voting.

The formulation of Policy Components is a critical piece in fulfilling GPSNR’s vision of a fair, equitable and environmentally sound natural rubber value chain. 

All GPSNR members, at the time of joining the Platform, committed to this very vision, as well as 12 principles of sustainable natural rubber as defined by GPSNR. The Policy Components were developed to provide more specificity to the 12 Sustainable Natural Rubber Principles. Within the proposed Policy Components are key commitment details to no deforestation/ conversion/ degradation, upholding human rights, supply chain transparency and monitoring and reporting. 

If approved, the Policy Components will act as a clear and guiding framework for GPSNR company members to establish or update supply chain commitments through their natural rubber purchasing policies. 

Adopting a policy allows a company to signal that the issues covered by the policy are important to the company, and that resources and capacities will be dedicated to addressing the issues in order to comply with the policy. Policies, while illuminating the goals that a company is working towards, also enables these commitments to be channelled upstream to suppliers and downstream to buyers, with the potential to transform the entire supply chain.

Following the Policy Toolbox Working Group’s observation that common questions and concerns were raised by GPSNR members during the Members Consultation period, the Working Group has developed a supplementary FAQ document to provide detailed responses to address these concerns, in a bid to provide greater clarity on the Policy Components. These will be circulated to the GPSNR membership in August, along with all other proposed resolutions.

Following several rounds of further consultation amongst its members, the Capacity Building Working Group has finalized proposals for capacity building strategies for the four previously identified focus countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. Within each of these proposals, the Working Group has defined key strategic approaches to best allow for immediate engagement and implementation. 

Each proposal sets out the issues that have been identified as threatening the sustainable production of natural rubber, underlying causes for these issues, as well as a main objective. Within each proposal, the Working Group has suggested various strategic approaches, providing a rationale for chosen actions, and proposing impacts and resources required. While the Working Group recognizes that the issues do not represent the full list of challenges that stand in the way of national rubber production becoming sustainable, it highlights that the focus is on strategic approaches that allow for immediate engagement and implementation.

These proposals have been submitted to the Executive Committee for review and approval, while the Working Group concurrently addresses final concerns around the proposed strategy around a CO2 compensation scheme.   

Looking ahead, detailed implementation plans and timelines will have to be developed upon approval of the proposed strategies. These are issues that the Working Group will be exploring in the weeks to come.

Natural rubber faces a similar set of environmental, social and economic issues as other agricultural commodities such as palm oil, but the spotlight on sustainability has only been recently turned towards this key raw material, 70% of which goes into tire production. The launch of GPSNR marked a significant step towards developing sustainable standards for natural rubber, with member organizations making a commitment to 12 Sustainable Natural Rubber Principles. 

The Policy Toolbox Working Group was established to develop a guiding framework for GPSNR members to implement policies and practices that align with the 12 Principles. Two key documents, the Policy Components and Baseline Reporting Requirements, have emerged after a year of discussion and drafting. 

The Policy Components outline specific commitments that GPSNR company members should include in their sustainable natural rubber policies, while the  Baseline Reporting Requirements indicate qualitative and quantitative sustainability data to be reported to the Secretariat for the first year of reporting.

A members webinar was held on 16 June, where the Co-Chairs of the Policy Toolbox Working Group explained the purpose, process and next steps surrounding the two documents. 

Several members have volunteered to participate in an ongoing pilot testing of the Baseline Reporting Requirements. The goal of the pilot is to refine and finalize the Baseline Reporting Requirements based on company feedback.

The proposed Policy Components and Baseline Reporting Requirements are now open for member consultation until 3 July 2020.

The 2nd General Assembly (GA) of the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) will be convened on 23 September 2020. Given the exceptional circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 crisis, the decision has been made to hold the GA virtually.

In making this decision, the GPSNR Executive Committee (EC) considered the importance of the issues that require a vote from GPSNR members, the impacts and consequences of a further postponement of the GA, as well as the current global situation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The EC felt that a GA held online would meet both criteria of ensuring the safety and comfort of GPSNR members while moving forward the effort of the Working Groups in achieving the Platform’s strategic outcomes.

The GA will take place online, with the voting process also conducted electronically. In lieu of face-to-face member engagements, a series of webinars will be organized to prepare members for the GA.

All members are reminded to submit to the Secretariat their proposed resolutions and/ or nominations for election to the Executive Committee no later than 1 August 2020.

Assurance is defined as demonstrable evidence that specified requirements relating to a product, process, system, person or body are fulfilled. In other words, thinking about Assurance is to ponder the question: how do we protect the credibility of our claim?

The Executive Committee (EC) has been working on an Assurance model concept since late 2019. Following the request for proposal put up in August 2019, an external consultant was engaged to conduct a review of the options for various Assurance Models that would support the desired outcomes of the Platform. In early 2020, the report from the consultant, which discussed existing approaches to Assurance and included recommendations for GPSNR’s approach to Assurance, was submitted to the EC. 

The EC considered the input from the report and expanded upon its findings by conducting a thorough benchmarking of existing Assurance model approaches. Following this exercise, the EC identified and defined several key characteristics that merit inclusion in GPSNR’s Assurance model concept.

In the process of developing these key characteristics, the EC also took into account the purpose, value and benefits of an Assurance model. 

A robust Assurance model would provide a credible and effective system to manage risks by supporting the achievement of sustainability impacts, focusing on accurate assessments of compliance, ensuring the effectiveness of its assurance strategies through good information management systems, and finding additional ways to create value for stakeholders.

A webinar will be held on Friday, 26 June 2020 to introduce GPSNR members to a proposed Assurance model concept.

A tabled summary of the process and timelines around the development of the Assurance model concept up until now is included below:

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

The study on Human Rights and Labour Rights’ Risk Mapping in the Global Natural Rubber Value Chains conducted by independent consultants James Griffiths & Associates Sàrl has been submitted to the Working Group. The full study will be published on the GPSNR website shortly, and the document will be open to stakeholders for comments.

Meanwhile, the Strategy and Objectives Working Group has started to engage with the rest of the Working Groups on aligning with the Theory of Change, and developing platform KPIs. 

The Equity sub-Group has collected comments from the Strategy and Objectives Working Group on the proposed definition of equity. The sub-Group is also exploring engaging consultant James Griffiths to conduct research into equity risks along the natural rubber supply chain, with the plan to have the findings of this study feed into the definition. The sub-Group is currently in the process of establishing an operational plan to define the various workstreams, processes, timelines, and  responsibilities for the Living Income study. The first phase of the study will involve collecting existing benchmark data and doing desk research on national poverty lines, minimum wages, and other relevant information. For greater alignment with the Capacity Building Working Group’s scope, the Equity sub-Group has decided to focus on the same four countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. 

‘Policy Toolbox’ Working Group

The proposed Policy Components and Baseline Reporting Requirements are open for member consultation until 3 July 2020. Find out more here. 

‘Capacity Building’ Working Group

The regional sub-Groups described the various findings and recommendations in a presentation to the larger Working Group at the end of May. Eight initiatives were proposed to be shared across the four focus countries, each corresponding to a critical issue identified through stakeholder interviews. These eight initiatives are: access to pure certified (re)planting material, promote the CO2 compensation scheme, promote value rubber wood, improve access to finance, disease fighting, dissemination of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), income diversification, and improve reach and quality of extension services. Depending on the initiatives recommended for each country, three priority actions have been suggested, forming the basis for a 3-year programme.

The sub-Group for Thailand organized a call with some of Thai smallholder members to seek their opinion on the proposed initiatives. The discussion proved to be a fruitful one, with the smallholders providing advice and suggesting alternative initiatives for the sub-Group to consider. The subgroup for Côte d’Ivoire, which has a smallholder member who is a representative from a local producer association in participation, has also contextualized the proposed initiatives to the local conditions of smallholders and industrial plantations.

The other sub-Groups are also planning to get smallholder members’ input on the capacity building initiatives for their respective countries of focus.

‘Traceability and Transparency’ Working Group

The Working Group has started discussions on risk assessment, and will be linking up with the Policy Toolbox Working Group as well as consultant James Griffiths on the results of the social risks study.

The terms of reference for the two pilot proposals have been finalized after several rounds of additional revision. The documents will be submitted soon to the Executive Committee. 

Smallholders Representation Working Group

The Working Group continues to plan and prepare for the smallholders programme prior to the General Assembly. In particular, terms of reference are being drafted for a professional facilitator to manage the smallholder workshop sessions for the pre-GA programme.