You are: Retailer or Brand (End-Buyer)

Status: Taking your HRDD to the next level

While you are often multiple steps removed from the initial point of harvest, your commitments and actions significantly impact the whole supply chain. Because you are also consumer-facing, you face the most significant reputational risk when human rights violations occur anywhere within your supply chain. You have a leadership and norm-setting role that enables and encourages responsible practices, from sourcing through to the marketplace.

Taking your human rights due diligence (HRDD) program to the next level requires dedication and in-depth knowledge. As you develop your program to improve working conditions and meet the expectations of consumers, the Engage, Take Action, and Iterate steps of the Roadmap can offer information on maximizing your impact by working collaboratively, taking action to prevent and remedy human rights issues in your supply chain, and reviewing and updating your program. These steps of the Roadmap steps also include direct advice and guidance to enhance your program:

• Use a precompetitive structure to learn with other companies and build internal capacity. Collaborate to address systemic regional risks, since coordination reduces the HRDD burden on actors further up the supply chain, especially when companies align standards or create a system of equivalency, where market requirements for any one buyer can be met using a variety of equivalent methods of assurance. 
• Develop specific supplier questionnaires and/or self-assessments to compare their legal compliance, policies, and related activities with international conventions. Provide training and support to suppliers on how to identify and respond to human rights risks and issues. 
• Align your purchasing practices with your commitment to responsible recruitment through your sourcing relationships. Provide incentives, such as a price premium or increased purchasing commitments, to suppliers who implement your HRDD requirements.
• Address human rights violations collaboratively with your supply chain partners through open communication. Give suppliers support and resources to implement improvements. 
• Create and implement a process to routinely assess your company’s due diligence. Reference internal KPIs, time-bound goals, and timelines to evaluate your HRDD successes and shortcomings.  

The Tips and Examples sections provide examples and case studies that show how these steps can be implemented.

The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) was established in 2002 in Geneva. The ICI is a multi-stakeholder initiative that includes both private industry (brands and cocoa processors) and civil society (trade unions and NGOs). ICI’s board of directors includes industry representatives from Kraft, Nestlé, Mars, and Archer-Daniels-Midland, alongside representatives from antislavery and labor organizations such as Free the Slaves and the International Trade Union Confederation. The ICI works through awareness raising, policy advocacy, and capacity building. It has held 7,000 community mobilization meetings, reached out to over 250,000 community members, and trained more than 1,600 involved citizens on forced labor and human trafficking. Further, it worked with local governments and communities to implement community action plans designed to sustainably reduce the vulnerability of children to the worst forms of child labor.