150+ delegates from the supplier and brands community of AIM-Progress participated in our online AIM Progress Capability Building Event for Brazil organised across two half-days on 21st and 28th September. The event was co-sponsored by AIM-Progress members Heineken, Reckitt, SC Johnson and The Hershey Company and facilitated by ELEVATE.
An impressive line-up speakers included Túllio Casimiro, Head of Procurement Latam and Brazil of The Hershey Company; Tomas Wilkinson, Responsible Sourcing Manager Latam of Reckitt; Rones Tassi, Manager of Trade Union Relations and Regional Head of HR of Cargill; Carlos Talini, Procurement Specialist for Bioeconomy Sourcing at Natura, as well as representatives from ELEVATE, Social Accountability International, Getulio Vargas Business School, and more.
Key-take aways:
- Supplier events, such as the one organised by AIM-Progress, help promote the importance of working with and empowering suppliers in order to make progress on ESG performance.
- With 4.28 points, Brazil ranks as a high-risk country in ELEVATE´s EiQ-database (a global supply chain risk map). Managing Health & Safety, Environmental and Labour risks is therefore key, and root-cause analysis is critical for reducing these risks.
- A deep-dive on prevalent (and often chronic) risk areas for Brazil, focused on solutions to address compliance with regulations and standards on fire protection, working hour issues, corruption and sub-contracting.
- A particular challenge in Brazil is sourcing products responsibly from tropical biomass, where companies who who are serious about responsible sourcing need to implement certification systems, traceability approaches and fair-trade practices to allow the inclusion of small families and collectors of seeds and other ingredients in supply chains like cosmetics.
Our supplier event was the third in Brazil and the first since before the pandemic in 2019.
AIM-Progress organises supplier events globally to provide a forum for suppliers to learn, network and share best practices, while engaging with customers from the branded consumer goods sector. The intent was for supplier representatives to gain a better understanding of prevalent human rights and environmental issues in Brazil and concrete actions that can be taken to drive change and build more sustainable supply chains within their own and extended value chains.
Brazil will remain a focus area for future AIM-Progress supplier events.