Three AIM-PROGRESS member companies Britvic, Heineken and Reckitt Benckiser join forces to promote responsible sourcing in Brazil
AIM-Progress is a forum of FMCG manufacturers and common suppliers, assembled to enable and promote responsible sourcing practices and sustainable supply chains. AIM-Progress organises regular supplier events to proactively promote responsible sourcing standards in the supply chain.
On the 1st of November, member companies Britvic, Heineken and RB co-hosted a supplier event in Sao Paulo for over 120 suppliers, to provide an overview of their responsible sourcing programmes and focused on two relevant challenges within Brazil - deforestation and corruption:
Deforestation: The Forest Trust (TFT), an international not for profit organisation working to build responsible supply chains, covered the socio-economic and environmental issues linked to deforestation for many of our key raw materials and proposed steps suppliers can take to source these more responsibly. Amongst the issues highlighted, illegal logging was put forward, with an estimated 70% of illegal logging taking place in the Brazilian Amazon, leading to human rights abuses with indigenous and local populations.
Anti-corruption: Professor Luiz Eduardo de Almeida from the Escola Paulista de Direito, presented an overview of Brazilian corruption legislation and real life scenarios suppliers may face to provide them with a better understanding of how to conduct their operations with integrity. Luiz Eduardo’s key message was that “Brazil has a unique and complex regulation regarding business integrity and anti-corruption. For a company, to be prepared to navigate in this scenario, it is necessary to have an effective compliance program, built in and integrated environment”.
Smaller interactive workshops were held in the afternoon covering good labour and H&S practices within manufacturing facilities by DNV-GL, along with sessions from two server providers used to verify compliance to social and environmental standards, EcoVadis and Sedex.
Highlights of the event included : “No doubt I considered the event of great importance, because it calls us to analyze the internal processes, always seeking for improvements and adaptations to market expectations, with transparency and awareness, emphasizing safety and a posture of respect." - Hélio Rezende, Creatto Design.
