From Strategy to Implementation: Next Steps for Capacity Building

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One of the key strategies identified by GPSNR to achieve our vision of a fair, equitable and environmentally sound natural rubber value chain is to ensure that there is capacity amongst smallholders and industrial plantations to adopt best practices in natural rubber production.  

In 2020, the Capacity Building Working Group, through various stakeholder interviews and Working Group discussions, proposed a set of country-specific capacity building activities for four countries as a start: Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. In developing these strategies, the Working Group sought to first identify threats to the sustainable production of natural rubber within the different local contexts, as well as the underlying causes for these threats. From this initial research, the working group developed proposed capacity building actions, along with main objectives and rationales for each chosen action. The approach adopted by the Working Group in designing these actions is to allow for immediate engagement and implementation on the ground. 

Following the Executive Committee’s endorsement of the Working Group’s capacity building proposals, the Working Group will be conducting a sharing session for all GPSNR members, during which more details about each national capacity building strategy will be presented.

Recruiting Members to Capacity Building National Sub-Groups

Now that the capacity building strategies are in place, the Working Group is inviting interested GPSNR members to join the soon-to-be-created National Sub-Groups that will be mandated to oversee, guide and implement the national capacity building strategies and to promote GPSNR policies and initiatives.  

The development of the National Sub-Groups recognizes existing local capacity building initiatives in the rubber sector and their independence of GPSNR and aims to cooperate with local efforts and stakeholders to achieve mutually agreed outcomes.

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A First Look at GPSNR’s second Executive Committee

GPSNR’s Executive Committee comprises Ordinary Member representatives of each membership category, according to the newly approved allocation proposed in the resolution for a standalone category for natural rubber smallholder producers. Each membership category is allocated a total of three seats in the Executive Committee, with representatives chosen by elections within the category.

The Executive Committee serves as a center for overarching ideas of the Platform, and Executive Committee members bear the responsibility of raising awareness of emerging issues to their respective categories, initiating consultation sessions, and encouraging active participation in GPSNR’s Working Groups and activities.

The members of the second GPSNR Executive Committee, according to category, are as follows:

Producers, Processors & Traders

SIPH – represented by Marc Genot (Managing Director, Societe Africaine des  Plantations  d’Heveas SA)

Socfin – represented by Philippe De Groote (Head of Agronomy – Rubber)

Southland Global – represented by Tim Leong (Associate Director)

Tire Makers and Other Natural Rubber Product Makers

Bridgestone Corporation – represented by Andy Thompson (Global Director, Sustainability Strategy, Policy & Integration) 

Continental AG – represented by Claus Petschick (Head of Sustainability)

Michelin – represented by Segsarn Trai-Ukos (Managing Director, Société des Matières Premières Tropicales Pte Ltd)

Car Makers, Other Downstream Users, and Financial Institutions

BMW Group – represented by Vanessa Buchberger (Purchasing and Supplier Network, Sustainability, Innovation Management, Cooperations)

Civil Society

HCV Resource Network – represented by Arie Soetjiadi (SEA Representative)

Mighty Earth – represented by Margaret Kran-Annexstein (Campaign Director)

WWF – represented by Amy Smith (Deputy Director, Forest Sector Transformation)

Smallholder Producers

Baroan Roland – Côte d’Ivoire

Dang Quoc Thong – Vietnam 

Soontorn Rakrong – Thailand

The Executive Committee holds a monthly conference call to discuss proposals put forth by the Working Groups, and other issues pertinent to the Platform.

GPSNR Staff September 30, 2020
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:

  1. Link to Recording
  2. Link to Slide Deck

GPSNR Staff March 30, 2021
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