Key Actions
iii. Track through business relationships
Where commodity trading companies have established a large number of business relationships, it will be difficult to track and affect change with all of them. As discussed in Stage 2 iii. Review business relationships, the projected severity of impacts should be prioritised (for instance, monitor the purchase of materials from locations identified as ‘high-risk’ with regards to human rights and tracking the performance of contractors responsible for safely handling environmentally harmful materials).
Human rights performance monitoring and reporting requirements should be agreed upon with suppliers and contractors. Systems for auditing suppliers are common in many industries, although the effectiveness of the audit paradigm to track human rights risks is subject to limitations. For example, audits are viewed as falling short in terms of:
- not always identifying key issues due to their static and brief nature;
- failing in some cases to point out root causes of repeated adverse human rights impacts;
- being unsuccessful at producing a full picture of problems in specific settings as those interviewed as part of audits may not feel comfortable in sharing criticisms or concerns (e.g. see Shift).
Consequently, some companies and some sectors are working towards alternative approaches that seek to recast their relationship from control to partnerships, with the objective to address the root causes of adverse human rights impacts that usually involve building supplier capacity. Such partnership strategies usually involve developing long term relationships aimed at building supplier capacity to meet mutually agreed performance standards in specific areas.
