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! 

More To Explore

Statement by the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber on Proposed new EU Deforestation Regulation

The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) affirms the commitment of its membership toward deforestation-free natural rubber supply chains and acknowledges the importance of engaging with regulators to support its ambitions. In considering how to address the risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with products placed on the EU market, we urge EU regulators to continue to engage with the rubber and tyre sector to ensure that the due diligence requirements ultimately deliver social and environmental benefits, including eliminating deforestation from rubber supply chains and improving smallholder livelihoods. Adopting a risk-based approach at jurisdictional or landscape level with mitigation and impact driven capacity building actions would promote inclusive and scalable progress in the smallholder context, whilst effectively addressing the goal of preventing products derived from deforestation caused by natural rubber from being placed on EU markets.

In this respect, GPSNR believes that any regulation addressing deforestation in the natural rubber supply chain, including the present proposal, must align with the following factors to be transformative:

• Sustainable natural rubber must promote equity for smallholders. Smallholders represent 85% of natural rubber production globally. The design of any regulation relating to natural rubber must consider and mitigate any potential negative impacts on smallholder farmers while aiming to improve the livelihoods of farmers who adopt sustainable practices.

• Considering the complexity of the natural rubber supply chain, a risk-based approach that has jurisdictional traceability as its foundation offers a practical and effective approach to addressing deforestation. While advances in traceability are being made in the natural rubber sector, it is currently infeasible to conduct farm-to-factory tracing in all cases. A risk-based approach would include requiring some farm-to-factory tracing where risk is non-negligible, but not in every natural rubber supply chain.

• Capacity building to promote sustainable practices, for smallholders and plantations alike, is an essential tool to curb deforestation in the natural rubber supply chain, so any regulation should prioritize funding to enhance capacity building.

GPSNR Secretariat September 7, 2022
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Strategy and Objectives Working Group Update – November 2019

Desired state V1-0 and Theory of Change documents were circulated among Strategy & Objectives Working Group in November. Comments from the members were consolidated and will be responded to in the next version.  Theory of Change will be finalized and submitted to the Executive Committee in order to be approved at the General Assembly in March 2020.

Strategy 1 ‘Policy Toolbox’ Working Group primarily agreed on the scope of work. The desired state V1-0 serves as a baseline document which will be cross referenced with Accountability Framework initiative in order to come up with policy framework that will be applicable to GPSNR members.  The drafters volunteers will present the first draft of a policy framework to the working group members in December 2019.

Strategy 2 ‘Capacity Building’ Working Group members worked on defining priority geographical areas based on current production volume and emerging trend of natural rubber production.  The existing stakeholders and capacity building activities in those countries are being identified in order to design the plan for GPSNR on capacity building.

Strategy 3 ‘Traceability and Transparency’ Working Group members were requested to list down traceability tools that are currently in use and/or traceability tools that could be potentially used for natural rubber supply chain.  In December they will analyze the attributes of each tool to see the compatibility and applicability for transparency and risk assessment.

All the 3 working groups including Strategy & Objectives and Smallholders Representation Working Group members are given access to GPSNR discussion forum which aims to increase transparency and synergy among the working groups. You will be able to see the discussions and the documents of all the working groups but will be able to contribute only to the groups you signed up for.  Please contact nigel@gpsnr.org for your log-in credentials.

GPSNR Staff November 21, 2019

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