GPSNR’s new Policy Framework drives members commitment to sustainable rubber production and sourcing

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Singapore, 23 September 2020: On Wednesday, members of the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) convened the annual General Assembly, which saw the approval of a members’ sustainability policy framework and the creation of a new membership category for smallholder producers of natural rubber.

The newly approved policy framework will help GPSNR member companies, who account for almost 50% of global natural rubber volume, to establish or update strong supply chain sustainability commitments through their natural rubber purchasing policies, on all aspects of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. Modeled around the Platform’s 12 Principles of Sustainable Natural Rubber, the new policy framework sets out eight overarching themes that include commitments to legal compliance, community livelihoods, healthy, functioning ecosystems (including no deforestation), and respecting all human rights.

“This is a tremendous milestone for the Platform and for the natural rubber industry. In just under two years, GPSNR members developed and approved concrete policy commitments for companies to integrate into their sustainable natural rubber policies. Today, and despite the challenges we all faced during this global pandemic, GPSNR members send a signal to the world about their commitment to achieving a fair, equitable and environmentally sound future” said GPSNR Director Stefano Savi.

Around 85% of the world’s natural rubber is produced by smallholders. In order to transform a sector that is primarily reliant on smallholder producers, GPSNR is embracing smallholder inclusivity and a concept of shared responsibility through the establishment of a Shared Responsibility Working Group, which will identify how the responsibilities and costs of implementation can be equitably distributed across all stakeholder categories, with the understanding that smallholders should not carry the burden of a higher cost to implement sustainability activities in complying with the policy or implementation guidance to be developed.

“Smallholders are a crucial link in the natural rubber value chain, and they have a key role to play in driving awareness on-the-ground and setting the global agenda for sustainable natural rubber” remarked Director Savi.

This year, GPSNR welcomed 28 smallholder members from seven rubber-producing countries. These smallholders now constitute a newly approved standalone category and play an equal role in decision-making within GPSNR alongside the other four categories: producers, processors, and traders; tire manufacturers and other natural rubber makers/buyers; car manufacturers, other downstream users and financial institutions; and civil society.

GPSNR’s virtual General Assembly drew more than 120 attendees, including members of the Platform, partners and invited guests. In addition to voting on resolutions, GPSNR members also elected representatives to the 2020-2021 Executive Committee, which comprises representatives from each of the membership categories. And for the first time, three newly elected smallholder producers with diverse geographical backgrounds will participate in Executive Committee discussions and decision-making.

September 25, 2020

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News

GPSNR Working Groups Update: March 2022

All GPSNR working groups have a large chunk of work ahead of them. Here are all their updates:

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

The group has made good progress by establishing the new risk task force that will evaluate the exact scope of GPSNR’s risk based approach. It has also got its new Terms of Reference approved by the Executive Committee, and is now working on contracting a consultant for the Economic Risk Study and conducting a gap analysis of GPSNR’s current activities based on the platform’s Theory of Change.

Smallholder Representation Working Group

Having published the RFP to develop the GPSNR Smallholders Policy Framework equivalent, the group is focussing on the first Smallholders International Call of the year in March 2022, workshops in Liberia and Malaysia, and on developing country-specific smallholder engagement activities with smallholders and Country Champions.

Policy Toolbox Working Group

This group is continuing discussions among its three new subgroups: Transparent reporting roadmap, Implementation Guidance and RR Guidance & Tools. In the coming months, they will finalize guidance for the reporting requirements and share it with companies

At the same time, they are working with the smallholder representation working group on the Smallholder Policy Framework equivalent.

Capacity Building Working Group

After publishing the GAPs as living documents in English and Bahasa and selecting SNV-Proforest and Koltiva as consultants to work on the GAPs coaching in Indonesia, the working group continues to develop capacity building plans for Indonesia, Thailand and Ivory Coast.

They are also seeking your inputs for GPSNR’s knowledge sharing platform, which you can provide here.

Traceability and Transparency Working Group

Having finalized the traceability and transparency primer, the WG will wind down its operations.

Shared Responsibility Working Group

The Shared Responsibility has completed a review of the Shared Responsibility Framework, incorporating feedback from the Executive Committee. The Working Group will present an updated proposal to the EC as the next step, with a view to prepare a resolution at the 2022 General Assembly.

GPSNR Secretariat March 29, 2022

Members

Continuing the Conversation with GPSNR Topic Talks – The Sumatran Rubber Pilot

The GPSNR Topic Talks webinar series is organised by the GPSNR Secretariat and presented by GPSNR members. The webinars cover several themes around sustainability and the global natural rubber supply chain.

The Topic Talks series continued on the 17th of March with Dr. Michael Steuwe from WWF US and Gerald Tan from HeveaConnect presenting on the Sumatran Rubber Pilot.

The Sumatran Rubber Pilot (SRP) is a voluntary, self-financed collaboration of rubber supply chain players and technical experts interested to facilitate the production and trade of transparent and sustainable natural rubber. The participating processing mills, tire makers, civil society organisations, technology providers and financial institutions have three major objectives:

Demonstrate how rubber’s downstream can work together to make its upstream more sustainable.
Identify, test, evaluate, and report on what it takes to achieve, and how to pay for transparent sustainable natural rubber supply chains.
Develop “Proof of Concept” approaches from and for GPSNR discussions on policy requirements and implementation, transparency and traceability, capacity building, and shared responsibility.

Within a few months of the project launch in July 2020, SRP’s four rubber processing factories, managed by the Halcyon Agri and ITOCHU groups, had traced up to 1 year of rubber supplies to the village and/or sub-district of origin based on self-declarations by their supplying dealers. These approximate origins of the rubber sources were filtered through WWF Indonesia’s new environmental risk assessment and management tool which identifies High Conservation Value Areas and High Carbon Stock Forest for the whole island of Sumatra. The results allow processors and their respective downstream supply chains to focus their sustainability work with farmers on priority areas.

The SRP partners are enhancing dealer self-declarations with digital apps such as CropIn and Hamurni to assess farms’ potential environmental, social, equity, labour and legal issues accurately and to address them.

As GPSNR adopts principles and criteria for what constitutes transparent and sustainable rubber, the risk assessment algorithms will be adapted to flag compliant rubber accordingly. This is increasingly important for rubber’s downstream as companies’ Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) impacts are becoming key evaluation criteria for investors and financiers who will demand the disclosure of the relevant information. In a parallel development, new supply chain laws will require major companies like the world’s car and tire makers to be responsible for the environmental and social impacts of their supply chains. The collection and analysis of detailed data on upstream supply chains will have to become an essential part of doing business and SRP partners are working to respond appropriately to these changes.

While continuing to focus on increasing the resolution of tracing rubber to its origin and collecting the respective data, SRP will now begin finding ways to best address the social, equity, labour, and legal issues that may have come up in supply chain assessments.

The SRP is a voluntary, open and flexible platform of like minded partners interested in testing a diversity of approaches to achieve supply chain transparency and sustainability, and welcomes interested rubber supply chain actors to reach out and discuss how they might join the collaboration. GPSNR members interested in participating in the SRP should reach out to the GPSNR Secretariat to get involved in the project.

The recording and slide deck from the webinar can be accessed with the links below:

GPSNR Staff March 30, 2021