GPSNR Working Groups Update: April 2021 (Members Version)

Singapore, 21 March 2019: Today, natural rubber stakeholders convened for the inaugural General Assembly of the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) – an independent platform that will lead improvements in the socio-economic and environmental performance of the natural rubber value chain.

Development of the GPSNR was initiated by the CEOs of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) Tire Industry Project (TIP) in November 2017.

Members of the platform include tire manufacturers, rubber suppliers and processors, vehicle makers and NGOs. Representatives from each of these stakeholder groups have contributed to the development of the Singapore-based platform and the wide-reaching set of priorities that will define GPSNR strategy and objectives.

Following a ceremonial launch in October 2018 interest in the GPSNR has seen membership grow to 39 Founding Members including recruitment of the platform’s first civil society members. The GPSNR remains open to membership applications from all natural rubber stakeholders.

The General Assembly saw the approval of organizational Statutes and Code of Conduct, and the formation of an Executive Committee that has the mandate of overseeing the strategic and operational activities of the GPSNR. As required by the Statutes, the Executive Committee comprises representatives from each of the four GPSNR membership categories – 1. Rubber producers, processors and traders; 2. Car makers, Other downstream users of natural rubber, and financial institutions; 3. Tire makers and other natural rubber makers/buyers ; and, 4. Civil society organizations.

Reacting to the formation of the Executive Committee, GPSNR Director Stefano Savi, said “The appointment of the Executive Committee is a critical piece to a landmark achievement. It has taken considerable effort from all stakeholders to bring us to this point. We know that the real hard work lies ahead, but today from Singapore we send a clear message – the GPSNR is open for business.”

The platform is working to finalize its operational strategy, guided by the stakeholder-agreed GPSNR priorities of harmonizing standards to improve respect for human rights, preventing land-grabbing and deforestation, protecting biodiversity and water resources, improving yields, and increasing supply chain transparency and traceability.

Following proceedings from Geneva, Peter Bakker, WBCSD’s President and CEO said “We are enormously proud to see the GPSNR take this important step. The commitment of TIP members to achieve sustainable natural rubber has been a crucial driving force in taking the GPSNR from concept to reality. Today, our members are joined by a growing and increasingly well-balanced GPSNR membership of rubber value chain and civil society members – the actors are in place, and the foundations for transformative action along the natural rubber value chain have been laid. Now the real work can begin.”

For membership enquiries and more information on the GPSNR, please contact info@gpsnr.org

GPSNR Founding Members at the time of the platform’s inaugural General Assembly, March 2019, per GPSNR membership category, alphabetical order:

Producers, processors and traders:

Halcyon Agri Corporation, ITOCHU Corporation, Kirana Megatara, MARDEC, PRASIDHA, SIPEF, SIPH, Socfin Group, Southland Global, Thai Eastern

Car Makers, Other Downstream Users, and Financial Institutions:

BMW Group, Ford Motor Company, General Motors

Tire Makers and Other Natural Rubber Makers/Buyers:

Bridgestone Corporation, Continental AG, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Hankook Tire Co., Ltd., Kumho Tire Company Inc., Michelin, Nokian Tyres, Pirelli & C. S.p.A., Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd., Toyo Tire Corporation, The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd.

Civil Society organizations:

BirdLife International, Conservation International, HCV Resource Network, FSC, Mighty Earth, PEFC, Rainforest Alliance, RESOURCETRUST NETWORK, SNV, World Resources Institute, WWF

Affiliate Member Organizations:

Tanintharyi Region Rubber Planters and Producers Association (TRRPPA), ProForest, Control Union

For membership enquiries and more information on the GPSNR, please contact info@gpsnr.org

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.