Deep Trace

🚀Exciting HRDD News: The EU parliament just voted in favor of a regulation banning companies from destroying unsold clothes and electronics. With African and Asian markets often used as waste sites for discarding and destroying unsold clothes, this regulation marks an important step in protecting the livelihoods, wellbeing, and environment of vulnerable communities near waste sites. The Ecodesign bill also introduces additional requirements and minimum standards for durability, reparability, energy efficiency as well as recycling for products sold in the EU. https://lnkd.in/eNu44jr7

🚀HRDD News: the landmark Forced Labour Regulation was approved by most member states at #COREPER, for which the #EuropeanParliament's final adoption vote will come in April🚀 Though important elements (including remediation) were removed, this regulation represents an important feat by targeting products made with forced labor worldwide from entering the EU market. It specifically outlines: 📌Strengthened Due Diligence: Companies operating in the EU will be required to conduct thorough due diligence on their supply chains to identify and mitigate risks of forced labor. 📌 Disposal, Donation, and Recycling Guidance: Companies are encouraged to prioritize donation or recycling whenever possible, rather than disposal, to minimize waste and prevent potential exploitation of labor in waste management processes. Strict guidelines are set to ensure that any donated or recycled goods are handled ethically and do not inadvertently contribute to forced labor downstream. 📌Enforcement Mechanisms and Sanctions: Strict penalties will be imposed on businesses found in violation of the regulation. These sanctions may include hefty fines and potential bans from operating within the EU market. In cases of state-imposed forced labor, the EU will impose a case-by-case approach including a high-risk list to incentivize compliance and trade restrictions. Belgian Presidency of the Council of European Union #forcedlabour #humanrights #supplychaintransparency #eu

The soaring cost of chocolate caused by extreme weather events and poor crops in West Africa provides an important reminder that companies must move from compliance-led ESG reporting to business-oriented ESG risk mitigation. By investing in improved ESG early warning systems and locally-led adaptation measures, companies improve their long-term business resilience and maintain consumer trust by decreasing their use of substitutes or minimized cocoa content. #esg #riskmitigation #chocolate #supplychainsustainability #cocoa https://lnkd.in/gJngJkcW

🌍Coperni Paris' Air Bag Sets New Standard for Circularity 🌍 Coperni's Sébastien Meyer & Arnaud Vaillant unveiled their new Air Swipe bag made of aerogel, the earth's lightest substance comprising 99% of air at their Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show. This innovation represents an exciting step in combating the waste from the fashion industry, with Asian and African markets disproportionately affected by pollution and resource depletion caused by waste sites. Aerogel is a multi-purpose substance used for insulation, oil spill cleanup as a pollutant absorbent, energy storage, as well as space exploration by NASA. As companies struggle to mitigate the environmental and economic impacts of waste production, this novel use of aerogel shows promise in improving circular practices by integrating multi-use materials utilized in diverse sectors. Vogue #circularity #sustainability #fashionweek #recyclinginnovation https://lnkd.in/eHjNuc9e

🔬 Illicit actors, countries, and gold suppliers are capitalizing on the ongoing conflict in Sudan. Jewelry companies sourcing from the region face a challenging sourcing landscape, from the Wagner Group facilitating large-scale purchases of RSF-controlled gold, to Egypt purchasing gold from zones controlled by Sudan's army, to the UAE receiving gold that sanctioned firms illicitly smuggle out of Sudan. It is critically important that jewelry companies conduct emergency human rights due diligence assessments to vet their suppliers and ensure their supply chains are not inadvertently linked to financing arms groups and the ongoing human rights crisis. Foreign Affairs Magazine #sudan #humanrights #traceability #illicittrade https://lnkd.in/enEH-_xs

📹HRDD watch of the week: POWER, excellent 4-part series by Earthrise Studio 's Jack Harries and Joi Lee exploring the nexus of the energy crisis, geopolitics, and human rights. The team does a great job spotlighting concerns within the green transition, deep diving into important human rights concerns within the cobalt and lithium supply chains the Democratic Republic of Congo. https://lnkd.in/etK4xKM2 #humanrights #greentransition

📣The Traceability Alliance for Sustainable Cosmetics (TRASCE) consortium was announced last week, an initiative led by CHANEL to improve traceability within the sector to minimize links to illicit actors, forced labor, child labor, and deforestation. Other consortium partners include L'Oréal, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., L’OCCITANE Group, Nuxe Group, Shiseido, and Groupe Clarins. This consortium presents an exciting opportunity for actors in the beauty industry to pool their resources to improve intelligence collection and monitoring to preemptively mitigate sourcing risks, from child labor in the mica supply chain in Madagascar, to shea butter linked to illicit actors in northern Côte d'Ivoire. To be successful, TRASCE will need to ensure it moves beyond using digital traceability tools as these are insufficient in providing an accurate analysis of the situation on the ground, particularly in fragile markets with limited digital ecosystems (where it matters most). By adopting a hybrid method combining digital forensics with field operations led by local experts, TRASCE consortium members will be able to fill traceability gaps and get a robust understanding of human rights, governance, and environmental trends on the ground, helping protect their brand by prioritizing the wellbeing of their workers and suppliers. https://lnkd.in/gcqkQy5e #traceability #humanrights #sustainability #cosmetics #cleanbeauty

🌏Unveiling Kalinko’s Human Rights Due Diligence Methodology! We are excited to share our collaboration with Kalinko, a British luxury company offering homeware homemade in Burma. Given Kalinko’s commitment to ethical trade, we worked with Sophie Dundas and the team to develop their human rights due diligence methodology to keep their supply chains flexible and responsive to the dynamic governance, socioeconomic, and security landscape in Burma and in line with international due diligence directives from the UN to the OECD. This manifesto introduces Kalinko’s sustainability principles, the specialized methodology that we will use to conduct annual human rights due diligence assessments, as well as their environmental sustainability measures. Human rights due diligence can often be used as a buzzword and we are excited to see a company like Kalinko take concrete steps to prioritize the wellbeing and livelihoods of its craftspeople and their families. Learn more about their story and the craft of their expert makers in Burma. See more at: https://lnkd.in/eUV6xdKD #humanrightsduediligence #sustainability #ethicaltrade

Amid escalating tensions in the Red Sea, many companies are shifting their supply chain routes at speeds rarely seen in recent global conflicts. Two of the largest actors in the shipping sector - Danish company Maersk and German company Hapag-Lloyd - have already rerouted their shipping lines to South Africa in efforts to prioritize human rights due diligence and mitigate security risks amid concerns of further Houthi attacks and retaliatory strikes. With over 40% of Asian-European goods transiting through the Red Sea, it will be critical for private companies and government actors alike to prioritize de-escalation on the short-term to durably protect human rights due diligence and collaborative regional trade on the longer term. read the OPB article here https://lnkd.in/eN7G_Ja2 #supplychainrisk #redsea #houthi #globalrisk

Last night, an agreement was reached on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The #CSDDD now mandates large companies to conduct regular human rights and environmental due diligence assessments to preemptively identify risks and shift sourcing and procurement methodologies accordingly. The directive applies not only to EU companies but to all companies with operations in the EU and opens the door for communities adversely impacted by a company's supply chain sourcing to issue civil liability claims. This represents an important step in moving away from sustainability reporting to taking concrete steps to derisk supply chains and prioritize the S and the G often disregarded within sustainability strategies. #duediligence #sustainabilityreporting #humanrights #csrd #euparliament