Strategy and Objectives Working Group Update – November 2019

Strategy & Objectives Working Group continues to work on the desired state document and Theory of Change. Strategy 1, 2, and 3 Working Groups kicked off the first calls with the background information on how their works are contributing to the design of GPSNR Assurance Model, which will be recommended by consultant Liza Murphy.

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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.

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Members

Embracing our Shared Responsibility: GPSNR’s newest Working Group (Members Version)

Before the second General Assembly on 23 September 2020, the GPSNR Executive Committee had approved the creation of a Shared Responsibility Working Group that would be tasked to define the principles of shared responsibility for GPSNR.

The term ‘shared responsibility’ is relatively new to the sustainability scene, and as such, there is currently no commonly accepted definition for it. In general, shared responsibility is a value-driven concept which recognizes that supply chains are structurally imbalanced in terms of value and benefit, risk, burden of compliance, climate change impacts, power of negotiation, and access to information and resources. A shared responsibility approach strives for value, benefits, risks and improvement investments to be equitably distributed across all actors within the supply chain.​

In order to establish the foundational work that would enable the creation of the Shared Responsibility Working Group, the Executive Committee formed a Task Force comprising several of its members. Over a series of weekly calls, the Task Force has developed a Terms of Reference (ToR) and a set of Guiding Principles to inform the work of the new Shared Responsibility Working Group.

It is envisioned that the Shared Responsibility Working Group will draw from the Guiding Principles for Shared Responsibility (currently being developed by the Executive Committee’s Shared Responsibility Task Force), as well as the GPSNR Equity Definition and the studies launched by the Equity Working Group, to develop an implementation framework for the platform with respect to shared responsibility.

GPSNR is now looking for members interested in joining the Shared Responsibility Working Group, to register with the Secretariat. If you are interested to join the SR WG, please email Aidan (aidan@gpsnr.org) to indicate your interest. The deadline for expressing interest is Wednesday 24th February, after which the WG will nominate co-chairs and kickoff as soon as possible.

The Shared Responsibility Working Group Terms of Reference can be found here.

Shared-Responsibility-WG-TORDownload

GPSNR Staff February 16, 2021
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Secretariat Update – July 2019

This full-time educational program enrolls a talented pool of diverse students from across the globe and includes academic courses such as Geopolitics, Economics, Asian Cultures and International Business in Asia. For the course ‘Company Project’, which is aimed at giving the participants broad practical knowledge, students interact and work closely with corporate companies and organizations. For the 2019 course, students had the option of choosing from a list of 5 unique partner companies/organisations, which ranged from the likes of International Finance Corporation (IFC) and South East Asia based mobility service provider Grab, and which were involved in different types of sectors including NGOs, FinTech, Healthcare, Mobility. 30 Students who were interested in working with non-profit organizations in Asia were selected to work with GPSNR as their host organization.

As a partner organization for the program, GPSNR was given the responsibility of assigning a research project to the selected group of highly motivated students, who will work on the given topic for a duration of two and a half months. After discussions with the strategy and objective Working Group, ‘Equity in the Natural Rubber supply chain’ in Asia, with main focus on China, Thailand and Indonesia, was concluded to be the chosen main topic of research for the participants. The research will focus on better understanding the cost benefit analysis at different levels of the supply chain, including social and environmental externalities. Students will work on this research project, the findings of which will be submitted to the platform by 12 September 2019.  

Increasing engagement with research organizations and academic institutions such as ESSEC Business School in Singapore, to ensure a science based approach to sustainability in the rubber industry, will remain a key objective for the Platform.

GPSNR Staff July 10, 2019
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