GPSNR Working Groups Update: August 2022

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Strategy and Objectives Working Group

An important milestone of the month has been the recruitment of the Assurance Model taskforce, which will be working through the September 2022 hybrid meetings to finalise the design of the GPSNR Assurance Model. Additionally, the risk subgroup is looking for a consultant to review and revise the current Risk Analysis document. Should you know anyone fit for the job, the RFP is available here.

Smallholder Representation Working Group

In August 2022, the smallholder representation working group organised an onboarding workshop for 24 smallholders in Malaysia.. They are now preparing for the first round of focus group discussions on the smallholder policy equivalent, and will continue preparing for GPSNR-HCSA Smallholder Toolkit Field Trials as well as the Pilot Agroforestry Workshops in Indonesia and Cambodia.

Policy Toolbox Working Group

This working group has developed and finalise the template for upstream questionnaires to support the reporting of Manufacturers and End Users. They are working to finalise language for 7.1 and 7.2 of the Implementation Guidance, and to finalise the Compliance Panel Guidance. On the Reporting, the WG is preparing the ground for Year 1 Reporting Review and developing the Transparent Reporting Roadmap for Years 2 and 3. They will also liaise with the smallholder representation working group on the smallholder policy equivalent as it continues to develop.

Capacity Building Working Group

This working group has released an RFP for the development of the Knowledge Sharing Platform digital  application, while also completing a report by the Knowledge Sharing Platform Task Force on digital needs assessment for smallholders. . They are also busy in continuing to advance Capacity Building plans for Indonesia, Thailand, Ivory Coast, having advanced substantially on disease fighting and GAP coaching in Indonesia.

Shared Responsibility Working Group

The working group has completed call for volunteers for different pillars: Shared Investment; Value Transfer and Target Setting; Knowledge and Data Sharing. They will be creating subgroups for each pillar, and are calling for volunteers to co-chair each subgroup so do share your interest! 

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The Start of Change in the Natural Rubber Supply Chain

By James Chang Wen Jie, Michelin

In February 2022, the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber released its Theory of Change (ToC), a document which articulates how the platform aims to positively impact the supply chain and achieve its desired states.  As a representative of my company Michelin at the platform, I have been part of this intensive, fulfilling task for the last year.

While I had some previous experience with ToC frameworks for individual projects, this was the first time I was engaged in one at a multi stakeholder platform level. The major difference here, and one emblematic of the ‘GPSNR multi-stakeholder experience’, was that we needed to integrate as many perspectives and expertise as we could, from all of GPSNR’s working groups and member categories. After all, bringing this theory of change to life is a task that will eventually fall on every stakeholder represented in GPSNR. If we wanted a document that the platform could truly rally around, we needed a co-creation process built on inclusivity as well as accountability.

My fellow task team members Martin Hollands (BirdLife International) and James Laimos (Goodyear) can attest to the fact that the journey was hard work. Yet, over the two half-day platform workshops and numerous additional consultation sessions with working group chairs and interested members, the strength of the platform showed itself in the depth of insights provided during discussions, and in the rigor of the final document. I am confident we would not have arrived where we did without the unique mix of experiences and operating contexts that members had. As a representative of my organization, the exposure to a wide range of perspectives from all along the natural rubber value chain is also a valuable input to our own sustainability journey, alongside and in addition to GPSNR.

Image 1: A screenshot of me presenting how GPSNR’s Desired State will be aligned with our Theory of Change at a workshop in 2021

The most visible output of this work is this interactive web-document accessible on the GPSNR website. While it is an easy and simple introduction to our work, it is nonetheless a result of a rigorous and intensive process, which required the investment of many stakeholders (including many hours of hard deliberation by the task team!). This of course belies the question:

Does theory matter and was this time really worth it?

It’s a question the task team asked itself a number of times as well. However, my own journey in sustainability has taught me that while it is tempting to jump straight to action, issues on the ground are often more complex than they seem, and well-meaning actions can lead to unintended outcomes. We therefore not only need to know where we are going, but also need to map and understand the series of events or actions that will get us there. A theory of change exercise allows us to dig deep into the root causes of the current situation, leveraging on the experience and expertise we have across working groups and stakeholder categories to work on plans that tackle issues at their core.

Articulating the theory of change at this juncture in GPSNR’s journey also allows for a ‘stock take’ before the platform accelerates into implementation. The journey towards sustainability in the natural rubber supply chain is a complex one which requires a careful balance of environmental, social, and economic spheres. It also requires coordinating work on multiple action areas (i.e., the work of GPSNR’s many working groups) to make sure that our activities truly address identified root problems without any major gaps.

In fact, these conversations did end up identifying some gaps, and spurred us to explore solutions. For example, a member brought up the point that real impact across the world’s 6 million smallholders would mean that GPSNR would need some way to multiply its impact beyond farmers benefited through direct involvement in GPSNR or its capacity building programmes. Further conversation and the sharing of case studies from experiences in other commodities identified that a key intervention to tackle will be to empower networks of farmers that can promulgate good practices in, and beyond their communities.

As the world emerges from the aftermath of the pandemic and unprecedented supply chain disruptions, being clear on what we need to do to truly make an impact is more important than ever. I hope that interacting with GPSNR’s Theory of Change will give you a good idea of where we’re headed, and how we hope to get there!

View GPSNR’s Theory Of Change here

GPSNR Staff February 22, 2022

Empowering Smallholder Farmers: The Path to Deforestation-Free Rubber Supply Chains to Meet the EUDR

On Wednesday, 19 April 2023, the European Union approved the upcoming Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR) to prevent companies from placing products linked to deforestation onto the EU market. As part of the wider vision of the EU Green Deal, it will demand companies who import rubber or rubber-based products (e.g., tires) to verify that their supply chain is deforestation-free. It’s a push towards an era of environmental accountability, yet it also sparks debates about the path forward for the rubber industry.

The EUDR requires companies to have traceability to the farm level, including geo-location data and proof of land legality. According to the regulation, every plot below 4 hectares requires at least a GPS point coordinate, while plots above 4 hectares must have a polygon.

Fulfilling these traceability requirements is no small feat. There is concern from the industry that smallholder farmers may be unintentionally excluded from global sustainable supply chains. Ensuring smallholder farmer inclusion requires a holistic sustainability approach.  There is no doubt that the rubber industry has begun moving towards sustainable rubber sourcing through combined industry efforts like the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR). However, the reality is that most imported rubber to the EU currently does not meet the regulatory requirements as the industry lacks traceability to the farm level. As 85% of the global natural rubber supply is supplied by approximately 6 million smallholder farmers, the implications of this regulation could be far-reaching and severe, particularly for these smallholder farmers.

However, there is a lot of hope.

Firstly, even though it might seem challenging, traceability to the farm level is doable – even for the rubber industry. This has been demonstrated in a GPSNR-funded farmer training and coaching project primarily focused on supporting smallholders to apply Good Agriculture Practices (GAP). Koltiva, the company I am working for and who was selected to be the implementing partner for this project, has mapped more than 4,000 farmers and their farms to help them to prepare for the EUDR in less than a year.

Secondly, we believe that traceability to the farm is scalable. In our work with clients in 51 countries, we were able to map almost 1 million smallholder farmers through our KoltiTrace platform. Platforms such as KoltiTrace allow companies to map and verify their supply chain, including transaction traceability from Seed to Tire and deforestation-free analysis.

Finally, EUDR could have a long-term positive impact on smallholder farmers. Currently, many rubber farmers do not have proper land titles. Due to the EUDR geolocation requirements, many smallholders will, for the first time, have access to a map of their own plantation, allowing them to legalize their land.

And it doesn’t stop there. Smallholders have largely been invisible in global supply chains. Traditional development programs have tried to engage them, but they have not reached the expected results. Many smallholders still have no access to knowledge, no access to capital,  and soon will also be excluded from the carbon economy.

I believe that it’s possible to bridge these gaps. Traceability to farm level and digitalizing the first mile of agricultural value chains can lay the foundation for holistic sustainability interventions. Enabled by technology and data, the sector can equip farmers with critical knowledge, improve their access to finance, actively support farmers to apply low-carbon practices and enable them to reap the benefits of the growing carbon economy.

While traceability cannot be achieved overnight, the rubber industry is in a unique position. At GPSNR, the major industry players are sitting at one table. Through combined efforts and data-sharing agreements of shared supplier data, the rubber industry can become a leading example of how to meet the EUDR.


About the Author:
Luca Fischer is Koltiva’s Program Manager, leading Koltiva’s boots-on-the-ground implementation projects in the rubber sector globally. He bridges the gap between the client, product, and field teams.

Luca has over five years of work experience in sustainable sourcing, smallholder livelihood, and climate-smart agriculture development. He graduated with an M.Sc. in Sustainable Resource Management from the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

About Koltiva (click here for more information)
Established in 2013, Koltiva is a leading agritech company for enterprises to make their global supply chains traceable, inclusive, and climate-smart. Backed by Koltiva’s human-centered technology with boots-on-the-ground professional service, Koltiva supports some of the largest multinational companies by digitizing and verifying global supply chains, focusing on enhancing traceability, inclusiveness, and sustainability. Koltiva combines triple-tech (AgriTech, FinTech, and ClimaTech) to improve producers’ outcomes and profitability while building more sustainable supply chains.

GPSNR Secretariat July 4, 2023

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