The United Nations Global Compact and BSR recently launched the first worldwide guide on traceability, which will help companies and consumers to ensure their material or product is produced responsibly. Supply chain traceability is increasingly becoming a key component in the business operations of palm oil, paper, minerals and diamonds, and select food commodities.
The United Nations Global Compact and BSR recently launched the first worldwide guide on traceability, which will help companies and consumers to ensure their material or product is produced responsibly. Supply chain traceability is increasingly becoming a key component in the business operations of palm oil, paper, minerals and diamonds, and select food commodities.
‘A Guide to Traceability: A Practical Approach to Advance Sustainability in Global Supply Chains’ aims to shed light on the importance of traceability in achieving sustainability while providing steps on how to conduct traceability programmes within companies’ corporate social responsibility efforts. It also presents lessons and real-life case studies on a wide range of products that are applicable across companies and industries around the world.
For example, the guide cited schemes that assessed whether minerals are not sourced from conditions of armed conflict, ensuring that it did not in any way finance such conflicts and that no human rights abuses resulted from purchasing these minerals.
Currently, only a small per cent of products can be traced based on sustainability, the organisation added. The 45-page guide, which culls over a year’s worth of research and interviews, noted that such traceability still has a long way to go become part of supply chain management and procurement practices.
Source: www.eco-business.com
