It’s again been a busy year for AIM-PROGRESS, with three member meetings around the globe, as well as three supplier events in India, Brazil and China. We gained a new member company: Church & Dwight, a consumer goods company with brands in home and personal care.
We’ve continued to enable avoidance of duplicate audits (33%), sharing of Ecovadis assessments across the membership, and are now broadening the scope of our mutual recognition efforts to include other tools and best practices.
One of our main objectives focuses on building member capability to execute robust responsible sourcing programmes. Our annual benchmarking survey shows that member maturity is increasing, and our new on-line RSJ resource hub to help members on their Responsible Sourcing Journey is designed to do just that. Enhancing supplier capability is another of our objectives and our Supplier Business Toolkit has now been complemented with a practical training deck and guidance manual.
Navigating the Human Rights legislative landscape has become easier thanks to our collaboration with Ropes & Gray on a bi-annual update on human rights legislation and implications for companies around the world. And given increasing government activities to adopt human rights due diligence (HRDD) legislation, AIM-PROGRESS is now coordinating a response by brands on what type of HRDD would be practical and effective.
A joint effort with the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has delivered a mapping of responsible recruitment initiatives, which companies can refer to when tackling this topic.
AIM-PROGRESS is also about providing member companies with a discussion platform on problems they encounter in their day-to-day responsible sourcing jobs. Two topics which have added to our busy agenda are human rights in waste management and how to manage excessive working hours.
We are continuing our regular exchanges and collaboration with like-minded initiatives, such as the Consumer Goods Forum, SAI Platform, Social & Labour Convergence Project, etc.
