Bangkok was the location of the October AIM-PROGRESS member meeting, in combination with a supplier training event with focus on Thai supply chain issues, such as migrant/forced labour or discrimination.

Highlights from the member meeting included ...

The October supplier event was quickly followed by another supplier day on 1st November, co-hosted by member companies Britvic, Heineken and Reckittbenckiser in Sao Paolo (Brazil). The event gathered over 120 suppliers and focused on two high profile challenges in Brazil - deforestation and corruption. 

AIM-PROGRESS is pleased to announce the release of its Responsible Sourcing Journey (RSJ) - a roadmap for companies in the FMCG supply chain to help them put in place robust responsible sourcing programmes.

AIM-PROGRESS members continue to demonstrate progress on responsible sourcing reveals the latest survey by the initiative, now it its 5th edition. 27% of participating cmpanies report their programmes are "mature" or "advanced" in 2015, an 11% increase over 2014. To support this progress, members are resourcing programmes with increasing budgets and more employees, and report more senior-level oversight than in previous years. Most members have commitments or targets, and track input metrics such as the number of supplier assessments completed. More mature members also track impact KPIs.

One of the main drivers for launching AIM-PROGRESS was to enable mutual recogntion of ethical audits with the objective of reducing audit costs and fatigue. A simple spreadsheet through which member companies share supplier sites they have audited over the last three years - duly anonymised by the Secretariat - provides a central resource for participants to check whether a supplier they wish to audit has already undergone an assessment by another company, and which they might be ready to recognise. 

AIM-PROGRESS members can now benefit from a new tool to enable a methodical approach to the management of 3rd party bribery and corruption risks.  This is different from other publicly available white papers in that it is focused on what to do, how to do it, and who should be responsible; it is therefore a practical method that can be followed. 

Having provided material and training to members on how to implement and report on the UN Guiding Principles on business & human rights, addressing worker grievances and eradicating forced labour has now moved to the forefront of the AIM-PROGRESS Human Rights work stream’s activity.

AIM-PROGRESS’ mission is to make a positive impact on people’s lives. But how can we measure whether this is actually the case? 

Mapping the haze of brands’ supply chains is a challenging undertaking. There is a growing number of service providers who are proposing to help companies address questions about where the ingredients of their products come from and how they are made; but what is the scope for joint action? 

AIM-PROGRESS is part of a broader platform of like-minded sector initiatives to share experience, learn from peers, explore alignment of standards and tools, discuss relevant policies and identify synergies to tackle common issues in value chains.