Seeing Through to a Solution: Traceability and Transparency Tools and Technology Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the entire natural rubber supply chain. It has triggered car and tire manufacturing companies to operate with a reduced workforce, or temporarily halt production plants altogether. Strict lockdown measures have caused a drastic fall in the sales of consumer tires across Europe. Global demand for natural rubber has dropped, the effects of which will be felt by the 6 million natural rubber smallholders in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Many smallholders live in poverty, depending on daily wages to feed their families. Their situations will only be exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. Already, the Association of Producers and Processing Plants of the State of São Paulo (APABOR) has estimated that for Brazil alone, the subsistence of around 100,000 natural rubber farmers and their direct relatives is at risk.

While COVID-19 exposes the vulnerabilities of smallholders, it also reveals the potential they have to be agents of change and drivers of transformation. The pandemic has reminded us of the connections between human health, resilient landscapes, economic stability and livelihoods; the post COVID-19 world is more likely to devote greater attention to tackling environmental, social and economic impacts of its many supply chains. Smallholders, who produce 85% of the world’s natural rubber supply, are thus key to advancing GPSNR’s vision of a fair, equitable and environmentally sound rubber value chain.

One of GPSNR’s major outcomes for this year has been welcoming our new smallholder members. As of today, a total of 27 smallholder members (with additions from Myanmar) have joined GPSNR. The inclusion of smallholders into the fabric of the Platform provides them the opportunity to drive the agenda for sustainable natural rubber and, in the long-term, realize the social, economic and environmental benefits that sustainability brings. 

We encourage GPSNR members to communicate this outcome through the communication channels of their respective organizations. To this end, we launched a quarterly Members’ Communication Toolkit which outlines the suggested key message and provides ready-to-use content for communicating the message. GPSNR Members may access the Members’ Communication Toolkit for Q2 2020 in the GPSNR Forum.  

More is being done to fully include these smallholders in the Working Groups and Executive Committee. The Smallholders Representation Working Group continues with its efforts in designing a programme for onboarding smallholders prior to the General Assembly. In the meantime, some of our new smallholder members are already actively involved in Working Group discussions. Additionally, having recognized the urgency to address the impacts of COVID-19 on smallholders, the Equity sub-Working Group is developing a position paper on the issue.

What a month it has been! Here is a deep dive into working groups’ updates and progress:

Strategy and Objectives Working Group

With the finalisation of the Environmental risk assessment of natural rubber production and processing study, this working group has reviewed over 300 pages of environmental risks in the production and processing roles in the natural rubber supply chain. Additionally, the group also identified 16 countries as GPSNR priority production countries. Most importantly, the report covers outcomes and recommendations to mitigate these risks. While you can find the full report here, the co-chairs of the working group will soon be hosting a webinar to take members through the key recommendations and findings. Stay tuned!

The group has also worked on the first draft of the GPSNR Theory of Change, a complex yet interesting piece of work which fits in various pieces of the GPSNR puzzle. You can find it here. A Theory of Change workshop is also being planned on 5th August from 7-10pm SGT. Should you be interested in joining, please write to the secretariat. 

Smallholder Representation Working Group 

Due to the COVID-19 situation in Cambodia and India, the smallholder representation working group has had to postpone onboarding workshops for smallholders in the two countries that were planned for June 2021. 

These workshops would be the first onboarding after the recent smallholder satisfaction survey, and will take into account its key findings. You can read more about the survey and its results in the May 2021 newsletter here. 

The working group has also identified Sri Lanka and Liberia as two new countries for GPSNR outreach and will initiate strategies around the same, and have began outreach to new smallholders in existing countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Ghana and Ivory Coast)

The second Smallholders International Call of 2021 was also held on 24 June, where smallholder representatives shared and discussed key Working Group updates, as well as the newly-launched GPSNR Grievance Mechanism.

Policy Toolbox Working Group 

After 12 focus group calls and corresponding surveys for the Implementation Guidance and Reporting Requirements, this working group is now finalising these two crucial pieces of work. At the same time, the group is also working on refining and finalising the development of the Compliance Panel operations guidance with an experienced consultant. 

Capacity Building Working Group 

The group is preparing to rollout a call for funding for immediate capacity building needs in Thailand, Indonesia and the Ivory Coast next month. The Ivory Coast and Indonesia national capacity building country subgroups are also preparing to initiate capacity building activities on the ground and these activities could commence from July onwards.

At the same time, the working group is editing and finalising a document on Good Agricultural Practices for all GPSNR capacity building activities. 

Traceability and Transparency Working Group

In collaboration with the Policy Toolbox working group, the Traceability and Transparency working group is developing data collection and reporting standards. The working group also provided draft text on the traceability elements of the Implementation Guidance and will review the feedback received through the focus group surveys.

Shared Responsibility Working Group

After finalising a first round discussion of the problem statements for the natural rubber supply chain, the group has aligned these problem statements with root cause analysis for lack of equity in the supply chain. It has also conducted discussions with different member categories to propose viable solutions. 

The group is now working on proposing potential solutions based on these discussions and will soon present updates to the GPSNR executive committee.