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Anti Greenwash Charter
https://antigreenwashcharter.com/
Established in 2022, The Anti-Greenwash Charter is an independent, not-for-profit initiative helping organisations implement responsible sustainability communications and be recognised for their efforts.

Walk Free
https://www.walkfree.org/
Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index is the world’s most comprehensive data set of modern slavery. We use this data to mobilise powerful forces for change against these abuses of human rights. We work with governments, businesses, religious and community leaders to drive systems change. We partner directly with frontline organisations to liberate people trapped in slavery around the world. We independently and unashamedly agitate for change.

Thailand to introduce mandatory supply chain due diligence law
https://www.walkfree.org/news/2025/thailand-to-introduce-mandatory-supply-chain-due-diligence-law/
Thailand is taking a major step towards strengthening corporate accountability by drafting a new law that will require businesses to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence in their supply chains. This proposed mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence law (mHREDD) will build on Thailand’s existing commitments and align with international frameworks. The law will apply to businesses operating in Thailand, requiring them to identify, prevent, and address human rights and environmental risks in their operations and supply chains.

Article; After the Diamond Rush
https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/after-the-diamond-rush/
For over 150 years, mining has constituted a core feature of the South African economy. The seemingly inexhaustible bounty of the earth made the country the wealthiest in the continent and financed one of the most all-encompassing systems of racial segregation in the world. Blessed with the largest gold deposits on the planet, successive governments in the colonial and apartheid periods cultivated a tight relationship between industry and the state. Mining wealth was used on a large scale to economically uplift white residents and to finance industrialization through state-owned corporations.

Book; How to Downsize a Transport Network?
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/10/thematic-book-series-how-to-downsize-a-transport-network/


Fast and cheap transportation props up industrial societies, both for the moving of people and cargo. However, our transport networks are very wasteful of energy and utterly dependent on fossil fuels. In this series of articles, Low-tech Magazine critically examines the call for electrified vehicles, which depend on unsustainable batteries and infrastructures.

Article; Supply Chains Are Us
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/supply-chains-are-us/
Supply chains are large industrial systems. They are composed of heterogeneous elements, such as ships, aircraft, trains, and trucks, but also systems of labor, information, and finance that build them and connect them together. Usually the goods flow in one direction and money flows in the opposite direction. Their physical substrates are themselves industrial products, relying on ships, trucks, cranes, fossil fuels, and electric power, tied together by skilled human operators, supervisors, managers, and other industrial roles.

Article; US Begs Europe to Share Their Eggs But Will Likely Be Denied
https://www.ibtimes.com/us-begs-europe-share-their-eggs-will-likely-denied-amid-rising-prices-3766341
In an attempt to increase egg supply, U.S. officials recently reached out to Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland to explore potential egg exports, according to Sweden Herald. However, European producers have expressed skepticism about meeting the demand, citing both regulatory and logistical barriers. The EU bans the washing of eggs, a requirement for eggs sold in the U.S., adding a major hurdle to transatlantic shipments. Additionally, Europe is facing its own egg shortages, making it unlikely that producers will divert supply to the U.S.

Key changes to the CSRD, CS3D and Taxonomy
https://www.ey.com/en_be/technical/tax/tax-alerts/2025/eus-omnibus-proposal-key-changes-to-the-csrd-cs3d-and-taxonomy
The European Commission's omnibus proposal significantly modifies the CSRD and CS3D, including the harmonization and simplification of due diligence requirements

Major tech companies accused of child labour in Congolese cobalt mines
https://www.gicj.org/topics/thematic-issues/business-human-rights/3710-major-tech-companies-accused-of-child-labour-in-congolese-cobalt-mines
On 15 December 2019, International Rights Advocates, a human rights organisation based in Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit against Google, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, and Dell on behalf of fourteen DRC parents and children. The corporations were accused by anti-slavery economist Siddharth Kara of complicity in the deaths and severe injuries of minors employed in the cobalt mines. In addition to seeking additional compensation for unjust enrichment, careless supervision, and purposeful infliction of emotional distress, the families also sought damages for forced labor. Due to the fact that cobalt is necessary for the rechargeable lithium ion batteries that power the millions of products sold each year by Apple, Dell, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla, the lawsuit claimed that these businesses encouraged the mining company to exploit children for labor, forcing them to work in hazardous conditions that resulted in fatalities and serious injuries. In addition, the families from Congo claimed that their children were working illegally in mines operated by Glencore, a mining firm based in the United Kingdom. They went on to describe how their kids labor dangerous jobs like searching for cobalt rocks in underground tunnels using crude leads for as low as $2 a day.

OECD Due Dilligence
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/due-diligence-for-responsible-business-conduct.html
Businesses and investors are of crucial importance for economic, environmental, and social progress. It is important that they avoid adverse impacts on people and the environment. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct call on companies to carry out risk-based due diligence. This due diligence process helps companies assess and address real and potential negative impacts in their operations, supply chains and business relationships. The OECD has developed guidance and tools to explain these expectations for due diligence and to support companies in putting them into practice.

Vessel Protect; Company Website
https://www.vesselprotect.com/
Vessel Protect is a specialist War risks MGA that focuses on three core products: Marine War Risk, Kidnap & Ransom, and Increased Value Disbursement insurance.

Article; Leapfrog Logistics
https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/leapfrog-logistics/
The growing economic significance of infrastructures and logistics, on the one hand, and digital platforms on the other, are increasingly interdependent trends. Since the logistics revolution of the 1970s, highways, ports, road networks, utility systems and advanced logistical mapping and forecasting have become central to securing the huge volumes of commodities flowing through the global economy—especially as production processes have fragmented and trade in parts and components has expanded. Global shipping volumes doubled from 5,984 million tons in 2000 to 11,071 million tons in 2019. Moreover, digital platform firms increasingly control physical logistics infrastructure, by taking ownership of cloud computing and data centers, internet cabling, telecoms networks, transport systems and satellites.

Report; Reimagining the Seafood Import Monitoring Program
https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/REPORT_Reimagining-SIMP-Session-2-StimsonFishWise.pdf
Many workshop participants supported the idea that digitizing supply chain records is crucial for effective and efficient risk analytics. Although SIMP was developed as a risk-based program, it still needs an underlying automated risk analytics platform to synthesize the enormous quantities of data provided by the seafood industry and link to external datasets or databases. Automated and digitized systems play a crucial role in enhancing risk analyses for seafood products by leveraging advanced technologies such as AI/ML to gather, analyze, and interpret large volumes of data efficiently. By processing data from multiple sources, including historical data, supply chain data, and third-party data, automated systems lend themselves to regular monitoring of risks that adapt to the evolving nature of seafood supply chains. These automated processes can also help identify patterns, anomalies, or outliers that might have otherwise gone unidentified by manual systems. By analyzing both historical data and current conditions, automated systems even have the potential to predict the likelihood of future risks, allowing for proactive risk management and targeted allocation of resources and enforcement efforts.

Seafood Traceability Practitioner’s Workshop Summary Report
https://www.stimson.org/2022/seafood-traceability-practitioners-report/
The Workshop participants raised numerous key ideas to remove barriers and improve seafood traceability, including:

The need for adopting standardized, secure electronic data through the seafood supply chain to facilitate reporting requirements and improve enforcement against IUU fish imports.

Increased interoperability of seafood data tracking systems across platforms as more market states adopt new traceability schemes, data requirements, and increase data collection.

Seafood traceability programs can be more effective with harmonized key data elements (KDEs) across different market state platforms, as well as common understanding of the KDE requirements for catch documentation and traceability.

The importance of electronic data systems to ensure the integrity and accurate verification of catch and traceability data.

Traceability systems should adopt electronic catch documentation and move away from paper-based systems, which can be easily falsified.

Innovative technologies to manage and analyze big data should be used in seafood traceability including blockchain, which can verify and store data in an online platform, should be sought to help organize and best make use of the large amounts of data collected.

Article; Supply Chain Sublime
https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/in-need-of-repair/articles/supply-chain-sublime
While visiting Walmart’s corporate headquarters, Friedman also saw a modern supply-chain depot in action. Perched high up in a million-square-foot distribution center, he witnessed merchandise from thousands of suppliers flowing from the backs of trailers into a vast network of conveyor belts. “As the Wal-Mart [sic] river flows along,” he writes, “an electric eye reads the bar codes on each box on its way to the other side of the building. There, the river parts again into a hundred streams. Electric arms from each stream reach out and guide the boxes—ordered by particular Wal-Mart stores—off the main river and down its stream, where another conveyor belt sweeps them into a waiting Wal-Mart truck.” Notably absent from this account, of course, are humans.

Latin America: The World’s Copper Stronghold
https://features.csis.org/copper-in-latin-america/


?By 2030, the International Energy Agency predicts that the total copper production from existing mines and mines under construction will only meet 80 percent of the world’s copper needs.

Article; Factory flowers - beauty and survival in India’s garment factories
https://tansyhoskins.org/factory-flowers-beauty-and-survival-in-indias-garment-factories/
In thousands of garment factories in Tamil Nadu, women garment workers endure 8–10-hour shifts, racing to complete grueling targets as high as 1,000 pieces of clothing in a single day. The work takes a severe physical toll: Back pain, repetitive strain injuries, and skin conditions from chemical exposure. Adding to their hardships are abusive supervisors and a lack of basic amenities, like food refrigerators, which often leaves lunches spoiled before mealtime. In the midst of these daily struggles, one enduring tradition catches the eye: Flowers adorn the hair of most women toiling on the factory floor. Jasmine strands delicately preserved from temple offerings, roses salvaged from fading bouquets, or blooms lovingly grown in small home gardens. These are not mere adornments, they are symbols of resilience, comfort, and dignity, offering moments of beauty and relief from the harshness of factory work.

Report; Good Purchasing Practices in Cocoa
https://voicenetwork.cc/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Purchasing-Practices-in-Cocoa.pdf


Many of the holistic interventions necessary in cocoa are long-term processes that will lead to change over time. However, (extreme) poverty is a daily reality for the vast majority of cocoa farmers. They cannot afford to wait until long-term processes – such as diversified income, higher productivity, or a better rural infrastructure – have come to pass. Many good purchasing practices do not require collective sector-wide action, nor do they require a long development process; they can be implemented on a relatively short term, by individual corporate actors

Report; Cocoa Barometer 2022
https://voicenetwork.cc/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Cocoa-Barometer-2022.pdf
The 2022 Cocoa Barometer provides an overview of the current sustainability developments in the cocoa sector and highlights critical issues that are not receiving sufficient attention at present, discussing a broad range of social, economic, and environmental issues. It is an endeavour to stimulate and enable stakeholders to communicate and discuss these critical issues. Cross-cutting throughout this document is the observation that we are sorely lacking both quality data and global collaboration to solve the challenges the sector faces.

VOICE network
https://voicenetwork.cc/
We are a global network of NGOs and Trade Unions working on sustainability in cocoa, tackling issues such as poverty, deforestation and child labour. We bring together most of the civil society organisations in the cocoa sector. Our key work is around advocacy and research, speaking truth to power for the global chocolate industry.

Article; EUDR delay poses challenges for cocoa companies
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/uncertainty-amid-eudr-delay-poses-challenges-for-cocoa-companies-farmers/
It might not come as much of a surprise that Tony’s Chocolonely has expressed its support for the EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR). The Dutch chocolate maker is known as much for its emphasis on sustainable business practices as for the cartoonish labels that have enveloped its products since 2005. Tony’s even came out strongly against a delay in the EUDR rules designed to ensure that cocoa and six other commodities entering the European Union don’t come at the cost of forests elsewhere. What may be more surprising is that mainstream companies have also been pushing for the EUDR, which, whenever it becomes enforceable, will require an unprecedented level of monitoring and due diligence on supply chains for products entering the EU.

Book; How the World Ran Out of Everything
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/09/book-review-into-the-maelstrom-wellisz
Until its dramatic collapse, most people barely knew that something called the global supply chain existed, much less understood how much their daily lives depended on it. Then, suddenly, toilet paper and frozen chicken disappeared from supermarket shelves, and COVID-19 patients were left dying in hospitals for lack of medical equipment. How could it have happened? Enter Peter S. Goodman, veteran economics reporter for the New York Times, who chronicled the unfolding disaster at close quarters, from the factories of Shenzhen, China, to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the truck stops and rail yards of Middle America. His reporting forms the heart of this new book, How the World Ran Out of Everything.

Article; Waiting at Anchor
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/waiting-at-anchor-khalili
Most abandoned ships fly flags of convenience. Since the loosening of the regulations around the offshore registration of shipping companies and ships themselves in the 1960s and 1970s, firms are frequently incorporated in offshore secrecy jurisdictions that hide their ownership structures. Even if a shipping company is listed in the country where the owners reside, that company can own or charter ships flagged to—or registered in—a country which has no relationship to the country of the ship’s owners or the nationality of its seafarers. The regulations of such open registries grant shipowners much leeway in their adherence to labor or environmental regulations.

Article; Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance
https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/129/3/1269/7745219
Over the past fifteen years, long-haul truckers have emerged as significant subjects of scholarly inquiry, including those described in Shane Hamilton’s award-winning Trucking Country: The Road to America’s Wal-Mart Economy (2008), which charted, among other things, the ways in which “bandit” drivers, the “last American cowboys” of the highway, undermined their own autonomy by supporting deregulation during the Carter and Reagan administrations and ultimately paved the way for the rise of the low-wage, contingent-labor economy. Recent trucking memoirs have also surfaced as review-worthy windows into the collapse of blue-collar dignity in the United States, including waning independence and the erosion of teamsters’ unions, declining wages and increased debt, and deteriorating public perceptions despite the critical role long-haul truckers play in providing the goods the rest of us want and need. In Data Driven, Karen Levy picks up the threads of the deteriorating conditions under which American “asphalt cowboys” continue to labor as underpaid, overworked, and surveilled subjects of electronic logging devices.

Article;De eerste stappen op weg naar 'fairtrade sieraden' zijn niet makkelijk
https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2546760-de-eerste-stappen-op-weg-naar-fairtrade-sieraden-zijn-niet-makkelijk
Een sieraad met een edelsteen waarvan je precies weet uit welke mijn hij komt. Dat klinkt simpel, maar dat is het in de praktijk niet. Het Nederlandse sieradenmerk 'A Beautiful Story' kreeg een subsidie waarmee ze de eerste stappen richting traceerbare edelstenen kunnen zetten. Sinds 2021 probeert het bedrijf de oorsprong te achterhalen van de miljoen stenen die ze op jaarbasis gebruiken.

Verantwoorde edelstenen
https://www.abeautifulstory.eu/pages/responsibly-sourced-gemstones
Omdat iedereen in onze keten een leefbaar loon verdient en goede arbeidsomstandigheden, willen we van elk onderdeel in onze producten weten waar het vandaan komt. Edelstenen horen echt bij ons verhaal, en in bijna elk sieraad van ons zit er één. Maar als we de edelstenen traceren, komen we terecht in een ondoordringbaar netwerk van tussenhandelaren. Hoe hard we het ook proberen, traceren lukt nog niet. Dat wringt, want onze droom is een keten zonder misstanden. Daarom beginnen we bij de bron: de mijnen. ?

Handbook on due diligence for enabling living incomes and living wages
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/handbook-on-due-diligence-for-enabling-living-incomes-and-living-wages-in-agriculture-garment-and-footwear-supply-chains_6ff52567-en.html


This handbook guides companies on how to use the OECD due diligence framework for achieving living incomes and living wages in global supply chains. It responds to demands by businesses for practical tools to help translate commitments to living incomes and living wages into action as part of their human rights due diligence. The handbook focusses on the agriculture, garment and footwear sectors where inadequate incomes and wages have been identified as prevalent risks. It builds on existing OECD standards on supply chain due diligence and responsible business conduct, notably the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and the guidances for the agriculture and garment and footwear sectors, and seeks to align with the International Labour Organization (ILO) concept of a living wage.

Book; Dawn Watch
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/01/17/long-read-review-the-dawn-watch-joseph-conrad-in-a-global-world-by-maya-jasanoff/
In her smoothly written and ingeniously constructed new book, The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff offers the life and work of the novelist Joseph Conrad as a tool with which to untangle the railroads, steamship routes and telegraph cables that made the world smaller in the nineteenth century. Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857 to Polish nationalists in exile in imperial Russia, Conrad spent the first 40 years of his life as a young immigrant in London and as a sailor in the French and British merchant marines. In the late 1890s he settled permanently in England and began his career as a novelist. Conrad’s personal history and geography, from Russia to the Congo, Jasanoff argues, shows a ‘global world’ in the making: his fiction offers a meditation on coping with that new world. Since most of Conrad’s papers are from his writing life, Jasanoff finds Conrad’s maritime life by triangulating between archival records, broader historical contexts and four of his most famous novels, The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness and Nostromo, published between 1899 and 1907.

Book; Cobalt Red
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/cobalt-red-how-blood-congo-powers-our-lives


The technology giants that produce these sleek electronic consumer goods argue that they observe the necessary regulations with respect to local labor practices and environmental protection. In fact, the book astutely shows how lax enforcement by a weak and corrupt Congolese state has allowed shocking abuses in the working conditions and treatment of miners, as well as the degradation of the environment in the region with appalling health consequences for locals. Kara also reveals a system of intermediary agents that connects individual miners to a diffuse array of buyers, depots, concessionaires, processors, and refining industries that all take in a share of the value of the mined cobalt. At the other end of this sequence of actors are the battery producers under contract with the global technology corporations, which can plausibly plead ignorance about the many abuses occurring at the far end of the chain.

EU Geographical indications registers
https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/farming/geographical-indications-and-quality-schemes_en
Quality labels protect and promote the origins, traditions and unique characteristics of many distinctive EU products.

Open letter: Support for the geolocation requirement in the draft EU regulation on deforestation fr
https://ongidef.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Lettre-aux-membres-du-conseil-et-du-parlement-europeen_Finale.pdf
We are a group of 30 Ivorian civil society organisations and 35 Ivorian farmers’ organisations representing more than 34,700 cocoa smallholders. With this letter, we would like to share with you our position on the draft European regulation on imported deforestation and in particular our full support for the geolocation requirement that it proposes and which would bring us many benefits.

We are committed to the development of a sustainable and fair agricultural supply chain. Since January 2021 and the launch of the policy dialogue between Côte d'Ivoire and the European Union on sustainable cocoa, we have been closely following the discussions and participating when invited. ...

Because, beyond identifying the origin of the cocoa, traceability is not only about tackling deforestation. It is also about social equity and an opportunity to put in place mechanisms that allow producers, the first actors in the supply chain, to make a decent living from their work. Traceability is a unique opportunity for producers to access a digitalized system that will reduce the complexity of the supply chain and ensure an improvement of their living conditions.

...

It is precisely the complexity of this supply chain that prompts us to reiterate the inclusion of a clear traceability requirement in the European regulation. We want to seize this opportunity to clean up the cocoa sector in our country. The actors in the timber sector seem to be succeeding thanks to the FLEGT VPA process and we want to draw inspiration from this experience.

For our members, small farmers, the implementation of a geolocation requirement will have many other benefits:

1. Geolocation is a necessary pre-requisite for the implementation of electronic payments to producers: a key issue for us and one that we have expressed to the Ivorian authorities.Our Ministry of Agriculture, through the Coffee and Cocoa Council, is currently working to put such payments in place via the national traceability system. The introduction of electronic payments will make payments secure and ensure a credible and sustainable source of supply. This will effectively combat the fraud that our members often fall victim to. The establishment of electronic payments may even one day allow farmers to receive payments for environmental services.

2. The geo-location of plots and producers makes it possible to clean up the farmer cooperative system insofar as each producer, thanks to a unique identifier, can only belong to one cooperative. And those who do not respect t

Article; Gemopper over nieuwe EU-regels tegen ontbossing
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/09/21/gemopper-over-nieuwe-eu-regels-tegen-ontbossing-a4866640
Contains insights into the actual roll-out of this new legislation

Traceability Meme

Marine Cadastre
https://hub.marinecadastre.gov/pages/vesseltraffic
Vessel traffic data, or Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, are collected by the U.S. Coast Guard through an onboard navigation safety device that transmits and monitors the location and characteristics of vessels in U.S. and international waters in real time. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center have worked together to repurpose some of the most important records and make these records available to the public. These records are sourced from the U.S. Coast Guard’s national network of AIS receivers called the Nationwide Automatic Identification System. Information such as location, time, vessel type, speed, length, beam, and draft have been extracted from the raw data and prepared for analyses in desktop geographic information system (GIS) software. Note that Marine Cadastre does not have access to live AIS data feeds or more recent data than what is provided on this webpage.

Visualizing Ship Movements with AIS Data
https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/visualizing-ship-movements-with-ais-data/


Using NOAA’s “Marine Cadastre” tool, you can download 16 years’ worth of detailed daily ship movements (filtered to the minute), in addition to “transit count” maps generated from a year’s worth of data to show each ship's accumulated paths.

I downloaded all of 2023's transit count maps and loaded them up in QGIS to visualize this year of marine traffic.

The resulting maps are abstract, electric and revealing. . When you remove the landmasses from the map and leave only the ship traces, the lines resemble long-exposure photos of sparklers, high-energy particle collisions, or strands of illuminated fiber optic wire. However, when you reveal ports, harbors, islands, and ferry lines, the ship traces take on meaning and order.

The Geopolitics of Supply Chains
https://lazard.com/research-insights/the-geopolitics-of-supply-chains/
After more than two decades of relying on China for offshore production, the nature of globalization is evolving, driven in large part by geopolitics. Supply chains are shifting in ways that are creating new complexities for companies, which must act to enhance their resilience, shield themselves from geopolitical risks, and seize opportunities in a changing world.

Ethical Supply Chain Program
https://www.ethicalsupplychain.org/
A non-profit organization, with over with 20 years’ experience in responsible business and supply chain sustainability.

The Tenure Facility
https://thetenurefacility.org/
ndigenous Peoples and local communities live and manage more than half of the world’s land but they have legal ownership of only 10% of their ancestral territories. These rich biodiverse areas are vital to the people who steward them and the planet we all share. Reducing land conflict, advancing human rights, promoting development and contributing to sustainable climate solutions can all start with strengthening community tenure rights. The Tenure Facility works alongside Indigenous Peoples and local communities to advance their community land rights while sharing the knowledge, innovations and tools that emerge.

Article; Olive Oil Wars
https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/cp_data_news/the-olive-oil-wars/
He is an oil broker, an intermediary who puts traders in contact with mills. Italy has always needed oil to export, and Spain, which normally produces about half of the world’s olive oil, has a surplus. This imbalance has caused a dependency whereby Italy buys, bottles under its own brands and sells back, at a higher price, large quantities of Spanish oil. And it is not exactly small fry (if you pardon the pun). Italy has been the destination of nearly half of Spanish exports, the vast majority of which it resells, at least since the 1990s.

Duurzaamheidsfondsen ASN stappen uit kledingbedrijven
https://nos.nl/artikel/2533894-duurzaamheidsfondsen-asn-stappen-uit-kledingbedrijven
De kledingindustrie hoort bij de meest vervuilende industrieën ter wereld. De uitstoot van broeikasgassen is hoog, net als de milieuvervuiling van land en water. Ook is polyesterkleding verantwoordelijk voor een groot deel van het microplasticprobleem. Die microplastics komen met name bij de eerste wasbeurten vrij, wat verder in de hand wordt gewerkt met 'fast fashion'.

FPIC, UN, Study of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g18/245/94/pdf/g1824594.pdf?token=efzVimLKnkAfsaBA0S&fe=true
The Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples carried out the present study on a human rights-based approach to free, prior and informed consent in accordance with its mandate under Human Rights Council resolution 33/25. The study concludes with Expert Mechanism advice No. 11 on indigenous peoples and free, prior and informed consent.

FPIC, FAO Manual
https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/8a4bc655-3cf6-44b5-b6bb-ad2aeede5863/content


This Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) Manual is designed as a tool for project practitioners (herein referred as project managers) for a broad range of projects and programmes (hereinafter to be referred to as projects) of any development organization, by providing information about the right to FPIC and how it can be implemented in six steps.

FPIC, FAO Definition
https://www.fao.org/indigenous-peoples/our-pillars/fpic/en/
Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is a specific right granted to Indigenous Peoples recognised in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which aligns with their universal right to self-determination. FPIC allows Indigenous Peoples to provide or withhold/ withdraw consent, at any point, regarding projects impacting their territories. FPIC allows Indigenous Peoples to engage in negotiations to shape the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of projects. FAO's Policy on Indigenous Peoples aligns with the UN and the international legal framework, prioritising the inclusion and promotion of Indigenous Peoples' issues in its work. The FAO Policy upholds core principles such as self-determined development, respect for Indigenous Peoples' knowledge, cultures and traditional practices and FPIC. The Indigenous Peoples Unit (PSUI) has the corporate responsibility for implementing the FAO Policy and the FAO manual on FPIC providing technical support to other units and projects.

Wikipedia; FPIC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free,_prior_and_informed_consent
Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is aimed to establish bottom-up participation and consultation of an indigenous population prior to the beginning of development on ancestral land or using resources in an indigenous population's territory.

Article; The Global Supply Chain Pressure Index and the “Smooth Lines” Fallacy
https://liquidtime.substack.com/p/the-global-supply-chain-pressure?utm_source=substack&publication_id=537128&post_id=146544135
Variations of the sentence “the pandemic and the blockage of the Suez canal by the Ever Given brought the world’s supply chains to light” are, generally, annoying, although there is admittedly some truth to them. Shipping was not particularly on the news agenda several years ago. Running a search for news articles in 2019 that contain the phrase “Global Shipping” pulls up 1830 results. Running the same search for subsequent years sees that figure more than double 4800 in 2021, and rise to 5260 for 2023. In the last few years, Bloomberg have hired dedicated logistics reporters, and other news outlets are starting to consider supply chains as its own beat rather than just a dull branch of business news.

Report; A Metric of Global Maritime Supply Chain Disruptions
https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099746107032431443/pdf/IDU19447dab513757140b1193cd19643f0ab7c10.pdf
In recent years, containerized trade, the backbone of global value chains, has experienced unprecedented disruptions. For instance, the COVID-19 pandemic created unforeseen consequences in a far-ranging array of sectors on a global scale, triggering an unprecedented supply chain crisis from late 2020 to mid-2022. Surging trade demand surpassed shipping capacity, itself affected by massive operational disruptions in key ports. In 2023, there were two events of global relevance. First, a severe drought affected the operation of the locks in the Panama Canal, resulting in a reduction in throughput and restricting the size of vessels able to transit the canal. Later in the year, militant groups carried out attacks in the Red Sea, forcing shipping lines to reroute ships servicing the Asia-Europe and Asia-US East Coast trade routes through the Cape of Good Hope.

LiveEO; Company Website
https://www.live-eo.com/
LiveEO uses satellite data and AI to monitor infrastructure such as railways, power lines, and pipelines.

Article; Zara fuels climate crisis with thousands of tons of airborne fashion
https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/fashion/zara-fuels-climate-crisis-with-thousands-of-tons-of-airborne-fashion


The location is Zaragoza Airport, the second largest cargo airport in Spain. A cargo jumbo operated by the airline Atlas Air, departing from Delhi Airport, is about to land. It carries on board around 100 tonnes of textiles for Zara and other brands belonging to the Spanish fashion giant Inditex. They are prepared in Spain for onward shipment to the 5,815 stores located worldwide. A few days later, large batches of them are loaded onto one of the 15 or so cargo planes which take off week-in week-out for Inditex – the main customer at Zaragoza airport – flying to destinations in North and Central America, the Middle East, Asia and also Europe.

Article; How China’s demand for donkey hide is devastating African communities
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/AFRICA-CHINA/DONKEYS/xmpjrdgbxpr/


China’s demand for a traditional medicine known as e-jiao is fueling the slaughter of millions of donkeys every year, say animal welfare groups and veterinary experts.

E-jiao, which is made using collagen extracted from donkey hides, is the vital ingredient in food and beauty products believed by many Chinese consumers to enrich the blood, improve the immune system, and prevent diseases.

Reuters spoke to more than a dozen experts, including veterinarians and academics, to examine how demand for e-jiao is rippling across communities in Africa, which rely heavily on the donkey, and how the trade in hide continues to boom despite efforts by some African nations to restrict it.

Article; ‘Duurzaam’ merk Patagonia vervoert kleding vaker per vliegtuig
https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/patagonia-haalt-kleren-per-vliegtuig-naar-nederland?share=5tX2J7%2BsVcir3z4%2BgKqyRZZlAWftgNe3O1RWllzrjpJqLBvIlCkiChrGn2gH08Y%3D
Van bedrijven als Shein en Temu verwacht je niet anders, maar zelfs een duurzaam kledingmerk als Patagonia laat relatief opvallend vaak producten vervoeren per vliegtuig. Vorig jaar zelfs ruim 1300 keer, blijkt uit onderzoek van Follow the Money, terwijl het merk zegt ‘alleen in uitzonderlijke situaties’ te kiezen voor transport door de lucht.

Article; The role of law in global value chains: a research manifesto
https://academic.oup.com/lril/article/4/1/57/2413108?login=false
Across a growing number of sectors and industries, value production is not just transnational in scope; it is organised and coordinated via global networks that link activities across as well as within firms and nations. These networks are increasingly referred to as ‘Global Value Chains’, or GVCs. The asserted causes of this phenomenon are multiple, and scholars debate which deserves designation as primary. 1 We begin from the premise that GVCs are not only the product of shifting economic conditions. They also arise as firms engage dynamically with multiple, overlapping and often conflicting local, national, regional and transnational legal regimes, soft-law normative orders and private ordering mechanisms (hereinafter collectively described as ‘law’).

This article seeks to establish the importance for both scholars and policymakers of investigating some of the complex ways in which the law shapes and is shaped by GVCs. The research agenda articulated here emerged from a series of ongoing conversations among a group of legal scholars, sociologists and political economists that first met in June 2014 under the auspices of the IGLP at Harvard University. For the most part, legal scholarship has only summarily or incidentally analysed GVCs, and similarly, GVCs scholars outside law have not made law a focal point of their theoretical or empirical analyses. We believe that placing law at the centre of the analysis of what have historically been treated as primarily ‘economic structures’ will not only enrich our understanding of the shape, nature and dynamic character of GVCs, but will also help to illuminate the complex inter-relationship between law and global political economy more broadly.

Article; How Finance Structures Global Value Chains
https://lpeproject.org/blog/how-finance-structures-global-value-chains/
The Law-in-Global-Value-Chains perspective adopted in the Research Manifesto and introduced the initial blog of this series is based on the recognition that law is endogenous to the production, circulation, accumulation and destruction of value. Whether we are talking about labor, nature, capital or any of the other ‘cheap things’ that are central to the construction of the global system of production, the Manifesto suggests that law has a lot to do with the way in which that ‘thing’ becomes cheap and value is extracted from it.

Article; What Supply Chains Can Teach Us about Neoliberalism
https://lpeproject.org/blog/what-supply-chains-can-teach-us-about-neoliberalism/
Prior to the pandemic, US consumers largely took global supply chains for granted. With roughly 80% of international trade conducted through transnational supply chains, consumers could place an order with an online retailer and expect their purchase to be delivered in a day or two, whether it was originally assembled in China, Bangladesh, or elsewhere.

Article; Een handtas van Dior, ‘made in’ een sweatshop in Milaan
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2024/06/23/een-handtas-van-dior-made-in-een-sweatshop-in-milaan-a4857420
High end Italian fashion from Milanese sweatshops

Goldfish.io; Company Website
https://goldfish.io/
Due diligence is painful and expectations are rising. New seafood product sourcing risks seem to make the headlines every day. Goldfish software provides the assurance you need to screen every transaction in real time.

Report: TRADE REFORMS AND FOOD SECURITY, Conceptualizing the Linkages
https://www.fao.org/4/Y4671E/y4671e00.htm
The purpose of this publication is to inform the research that underpins policy analysis, and the negotiations and/or prescriptions that follow, such that these enhance, rather than worsen, the food security status of poor countries. It is intended to be complementary to the existing literature that explores the linkages between trade liberalization, economic openness and poverty, but which does not explicitly explore the implications for food security.

The publication contributes to understanding these relationships by:

critically reviewing what is known from the existing literature and other resources so as to facilitate better targeted country-level research and analysis of trade and food security developments;

presenting a conceptual framework for understanding how trade liberalization and related economic reforms can impact upon national and household-level food security;

providing an operational framework for assessing the outcome of past policies, and predicting the consequences of future initiatives, on national and household food security;

proposing an agenda for research.

Extended producer responsibility (OECD)
https://www.oecd.org/environment/extended-producer-responsibility.htm
OECD defines Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. An EPR policy is characterised by:

1. the shifting of responsibility (physically and/or economically; fully or partially) upstream toward the producer and away from municipalities; and

2. the provision of incentives to producers to take into account environmental considerations when designing their products.

While other policy instruments tend to target a single point in the chain, EPR seeks to integrate signals related to the environmental characteristics of products and production processes throughout the product chain.

Extended producer responsibility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility
In response to the growing problem of excessive waste, several countries adopted waste management policies in which manufacturers are responsible for taking back their products from end users at the end of the products' useful life, or partially financing a collection and recycling infrastructure. These policies were adopted due to the lack of collection infrastructure for certain products that contain hazardous materials, or due to the high costs to local governments of providing such collection services. The primary goals of these take-back laws therefore are to partner with the private sector to ensure that all waste is managed in a way that protects public health and the environment. The goals of take-back laws are to

encourage companies to design products for reuse, recyclability, and materials reduction

correct market signals to the consumer by incorporating waste management costs into product price

promote innovation in recycling technology.

New free, science-based tool offers insights into sustainability priorities
https://news.asu.edu/20240613-environment-and-sustainability-new-free-sciencebased-tool-offers-insights-sustainability
“We are excited to offer this powerful tool to companies striving to improve the sustainability of their supply chains,” said Christy Slay, CEO of TSC and a senior Global Futures scientist. “CommodityMap allows businesses not only to identify and prioritize sustainability issues, but also to provide guidance on actions that improve commodity supply chains.”

Key features of CommodityMap include:

Insights without complex data collection: The platform leverages a proprietary model linking trade statistics to production regions, eliminating the need for time-consuming data collection.

Science-based recommendations: Users receive actionable recommendations grounded in scientific research, enabling them to effectively drive transparency and address their most pressing sustainability challenges.

Education and engagement opportunities: CommodityMap provides easy-to-interpret metrics and recommendations that facilitate communication and collaboration with stakeholders across the supply chain.

Action and comparative analyses: Companies can prioritize issues, compare analyses and take demonstrable actions to address environmental and social concerns.

CommodityMap
https://portal.commoditymap.org/


Use geospatial analytics to predict environmental and social priorities in agricultural supply chains with CommodityMap! Create your own account.

The Sustainability Consortium (TSC)
https://sustainabilityconsortium.org/
The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) is a global organization transforming the consumer goods industry to deliver more sustainable consumer products. We work to enable a world where people can lead fulfilled lives in a way that decouples their impacts on people and the planet.

Norman Woodland; Inventor of the barcode
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Joseph_Woodland
He drew dots and dashes in the sand similar to the shapes used in Morse code. After pulling them downward with his fingers, producing thin lines resulting from the dots and thick lines from the dashes, he came up with the concept of a two-dimensional, linear Morse code.

EU Farm to Fork Strategy
https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/farm-fork-strategy_en


Food systems cannot be resilient to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic if they are not sustainable. We need to redesign our food systems which today account for nearly one-third of global GHG emissions, consume large amounts of natural resources, result in biodiversity loss and negative health impacts (due to both under- and over-nutrition) and do not allow fair economic returns and livelihoods for all actors, in particular for primary producers.

Putting our food systems on a sustainable path also brings new opportunities for operators in the food value chain. New technologies and scientific discoveries, combined with increasing public awareness and demand for sustainable food, will benefit all stakeholders.

The Farm to Fork Strategy aims to accelerate our transition to a sustainable food system that should:

have a neutral or positive environmental impact

help to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts

reverse the loss of biodiversity

ensure food security, nutrition and public health, making sure that everyone has access to sufficient, safe, nutritious, sustainable food

preserve affordability of food while generating fairer economic returns, fostering competitiveness of the EU supply sector and promoting fair trade

The Extracted Earth
https://granta.com/the-extracted-earth/
What has been hailed as the ‘green transition’ – the global project to end large-scale extraction of fossil fuels – requires a shift to a new set of extractive projects. Green technologies depend on minerals and metals locked in the earth: lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and, above all, iron for steel. The exploitation, corruption and environmental destruction involved in the mining of these materials are not on the wane. But what can be done to counter the interests behind them? What possibilities are there for a less ecologically compromised and economically stratified future?
Interview with Thea Riofrancos.

Article; 90% of the World’s Goods are Moved By Sea. Says Who?
https://liquidtime.substack.com/p/90-of-the-worlds-goods-are-moved
First off: what is this stat even actually saying? Is it saying that 90% of all traded goods are moved by sea – as the World Economic Forum puts it? Or just 90% of international trade – as OECD (WEF’s source) puts it? Because these are very different claims. Additionally, the statistic is referring to volume of goods rather than value, but that’s not immediately clear in the way its often presented. These, too, are very different claims: 10 tonnes of sand is a very different thing to, say, 10 tonnes of laptops.

All the Places;
https://www.alltheplaces.xyz/


A growing set of web scrapers designed to output consistent geodata about as many places of business in the world as possible.

Food Systems Dashboard
https://www.foodsystemsdashboard.org/


The Food Systems Dashboard gives a complete view of food systems by bringing together data from multiple sources. It's now possible to compare drivers, components, and outcomes of food systems across countries and regions, gain insights into challenges, and identify actions to improve nutrition, health, and environmental outcomes.

Article; Burn After Wearing
https://grist.org/international/burn-after-wearing-fashion-waste-chile/


Fast fashion dumped in Chilean desert caught fire

Ethical Tea Partnership
https://etp-global.org/
ETP was founded by a coalition of tea companies with a shared concern to understand supply chain risks. Today, ETP is a global membership organisation catalysing long-term, systemic change, to benefit everybody who works in tea – especially people in tea-producing regions. Our work addresses the key issues within economics, equality, and the environment. The issues in the tea sector are complex; they are caused by a multitude of factors and cannot be addressed by one stakeholder alone.

FSC-certified forest management benefits large mammals compared to non-FSC
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07257-8
More than a quarter of the world’s tropical forests are exploited for timber1. Logging impacts biodiversity in these ecosystems, primarily through the creation of forest roads that facilitate hunting for wildlife over extensive areas. Forest management certification schemes such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are expected to mitigate impacts on biodiversity, but so far very little is known about the effectiveness of FSC certification because of research design challenges, predominantly limited sample sizes. Here we provide this evidence by using 1.3?million camera-trap photos of 55 mammal species in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa.

Shrimp Welfare Project
https://www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/
Shrimp Welfare Project aims to improve the lives of billions of farmed shrimps worldwide

Report; Hidden Harvests
https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/hidden-harvest
This report is the culmination of three years of research and investigations into the Indian shrimp sector, examining evidence of forced labor, living and working conditions for shrimp supply chain workers, environmental impacts of the industry, and the failure of social auditing certification schemes that purport to to ensure that the shrimp sold with their imprimatur were ethically and sustainably produced.

The current system of farmed shrimp production is not sustainable – not for workers, the environment, or – ultimately – for retailers, wholesalers, or consumers. The Indian shrimp sector is rife with discrimination, dangerous working conditions, hazardous child labor, sexual harassment, debt bondage, threats and intimidation, toxic sewage, false and misleading certification schemes, and a general lack of oversight.

Rather than continue down a road littered with exploitation, discrimination, and forced labor, companies – and governments – have the opportunity and the duty to act now. There is no time to waste in treating workers with respect and addressing the substantial threats to the environment presented by the Indian shrimp sector.

Corporate Accountability Lab
https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/
That’s where CAL comes in. We are a team with diverse experiences in labor rights, human rights, and environmental rights, working towards a shared goal of making companies legally accountable when they harm people and the environment. CAL was founded in response to the crisis of widespread corporate abuse of human rights and the environment and disappearing legal tools to hold corporations accountable. In the midst of this ongoing crisis, public interest lawyers and the broader social justice community are too often overburdened with work using existing tools and lack the time, resources, and space to come up with creative strategies for broad impact. CAL aims to change that.

Global Data Hub on Human Trafficking
https://www.ctdatacollaborative.org/
The Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative is the first global data hub on human trafficking, publishing harmonized data from counter-trafficking organizations around the world. Launched in November 2017, the goal of CTDC is to break down information-sharing barriers and equip the counter-trafficking community with up to date, reliable data on human trafficking. CTDC data has so far been accessed by users in over 150 countries and territories.

Investors push Zara to publish full supply chain
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/investors-push-zara-owner-inditex-publish-full-supply-chain-2024-03-11


Inditex is an outlier among big clothing retailers in not publishing which factories it sources from. Regulators and investors want greater transparency and better disclosure from companies. Clothing retailers, in particular, are under pressure to prove that there is no forced labour in their supply chains, and that garment workers are paid decent wages.

Corporate sustainability reporting (CSRD)
https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en
On 5 January 2023, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) entered into force. It modernises and strengthens the rules concerning the social and environmental information that companies have to report. A broader set of large companies, as well as listed SMEs, will now be required to report on sustainability. Some non-EU companies will also have to report if they generate over EUR 150 million on the EU market.

The new rules will ensure that investors and other stakeholders have access to the information they need to assess the impact of companies on people and the environment and for investors to assess financial risks and opportunities arising from climate change and other sustainability issues. Finally, reporting costs will be reduced for companies over the medium to long term by harmonising the information to be provided.

The first companies will have to apply the new rules for the first time in the 2024 financial year, for reports published in 2025.

Duurzaamheidsrapportage CSRD
https://www.kvk.nl/duurzaamheid/verplichte-duurzaamheidsrapportage-dit-betekent-het/


Welke invloed heeft je bedrijf op de wereld? Deze vraag moeten veel grote organisaties beantwoorden in een verplichte duurzaamheidsrapportage. Dat bepaalt de Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), een nieuwe Europese richtlijn. In de rapportage presenteren bedrijven hoe duurzaam en maatschappelijk verantwoord ze ondernemen. Wat betekent de CSRD voor jou als ondernemer en hoe bereid je je voor op deze nieuwe regelgeving?

An Overview of Shrimp and its Sustainability in 2024
https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/shrimp-sustainability-2024/
Despite this steadily growing demand domestically and abroad, wild and farmed shrimp production has inherent, well-reported issues that make sustainability challenging. Consumers are more aware of these issues than ever, with considerable media attention given to the environmental and social challenges in recent years. Grocery retail buyers are responding by requiring minimum environmental certifications and labor standards for their suppliers. But how are these new criteria keeping up with demand? How sustainable is global shrimp production in 2024?

Marine Stewardship Council pauses new standards for seafood sustainability
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/marine-stewardship-council-pauses-seafood-standard-1.7105691
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), whose blue check mark is a global symbol of seafood sustainability, has been forced to pause and rework its latest fisheries standard less than a year after it was launched. The London-based non-profit organization is responding to complaints by fishing industry groups around the world, including major players in Atlantic Canada, that the new standard is vague and unworkable.

What is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)?
https://www.ibm.com/topics/csrd
The goal of the CSRD is to provide transparency that will help investors, analysts, consumers, and other stakeholders better evaluate EU companies’ sustainability performance as well as the related business impacts and risks. Introduced as part of the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Package, the CSRD notably expands the scope, sustainability disclosures and reporting requirements of its predecessor, the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD).

CSRD reporting is based on the concept of double materiality: Organizations have to disclose information on how their business activities affect the planet and its people, and how their sustainability goals, measures and risks impact the financial health of the business. For example, in addition to requiring an organization to report its energy usage and costs, CSRD requires them to report emissions metrics that detail how that energy use impacts the environment, targets for reducing that impact, and information on how achieving those targets will affect the organization’s finances.

Double materiality
https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/double-materiality-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/


The concept of double materiality brings environmental impacts into the focus of standard-setting in accounting. Different reasons for adopting this concept might lead to widely varying interpretations, yet the fitness of the financial system to facilitate a net-zero economy depends on how it is conceived.

Article; Measuring Global Value Chains
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-economics-080217-053600
Recent decades have seen the emergence of global value chains (GVCs), in which production stages for individual goods are broken apart and scattered across countries. Stimulated by these developments, there has been rapid progress in data and methods for measuring GVC linkages. The macro ap- proach to measuring GVCs connects national input–output tables across borders by using bilateral trade data to construct global input–output tables. These tables have been applied to measure trade in value added, the length of and location of producers in GVCs, and price linkages across countries. The micro approach uses firm-level data to document firms’ input sourcing decisions, how import and export participation are linked, and how multi- national firms organize their production networks. In this review, I evaluate progress in these two approaches, highlighting points of contact between them and areas that demand further work. I argue that further convergence between these approaches can strengthen both, yielding a more complete empirical portrait of GVCs.

Article; The governance of global value chains
https://rrojasdatabank.info/sturgeon2005.pdf
This article builds a theoretical framework to help explain governance pat- terns in global value chains. It draws on three streams of literature – trans- action costs economics, production networks, and technological capability and firm-level learning – to identify three variables that play a large role in determining how global value chains are governed and change. These are: (1) the complexity of transactions, (2) the ability to codify transactions, and (3) the capabilities in the supply-base. The theory generates five types of global value chain governance – hierarchy, captive, relational, modular, and market – which range from high to low levels of explicit coordination and power asymmetry. The article highlights the dynamic and overlapping nature of global value chain governance through four brief industry case studies: bicycles, apparel, horticulture and electronics.

Article; Entangled chains of global value and wealth
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2023.2220268?src=recsys
n recent decades multinational enterprises have developed ways to reorganize production and trade through Global Value Chains (GVCs), and to manage assets and liabilities through Global Wealth Chains (GWCs). This co-evolution has permitted the hyper-extraction of labor and natural resources through financial and legal technologies, entangling value creation and wealth accumulation. While scholars have separately acknowledged the role that GVCs and GWCs play in generating distributional outcomes, entanglements of production, trade, finance, and law are now so extensive that we need a sharper analytical lens to understand their interrelations. In pursuit of such a lens, we propose a research agenda focused on chain entanglements. We argue that GVCs and GWCs are not governed by firms as separate or even sequenced processes, but rather that value creation and wealth accumulation strategies are imbricated in ways that merit careful study. We develop a framework for analyzing entangled chains based on two dimensions: 1) the relative importance of intangible versus tangible assets; and 2) the orientation of firm strategy towards value creation or wealth accumulation activities.

Article: Global Value Mapping
https://www.globalvaluechains.org/wp-content/uploads/Frederick-GVC_Mapping.pdf
Global value chain (GVC) research has evolved from a theoretical framework to become an applied research approach over the last 20 years. As described in detail in other chapters of the Handbook and elsewhere, the GVC framework was developed based on case studies and qualitative firm-based research. As GVC analysis has increasingly gained the atten- tion of policymakers, there has become a need to link theoretical concepts to a definable research approach. This shift from theory to application has also led to the use of more standardized data sources to enable comparability and repeatability over time. Applied research implies that actionable recommendations can be made based on the outcomes of using the framework. The objective is no longer just to explain how and why certain countries participate in an industry, but also to determine how successful a country has been in the industry and to provide recommendations on how this can be sustained or increased into the future. In today’s data-driven world, to be useful for policymakers and government agencies, these comparisons and recommendations need to have at least esti- mated quantifiable metrics on key topics such as increases in exports, output, employment, wages or skill levels. This requires the use of industry-specific national and firm-level data.

Sustainable by design: A blueprint for sourcing green building materials
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/esg/the-energy-transition/sustainable-energy-infrastructure/blueprint-for-sourcing-green-building-materials.html
Roughly one-fifth of infrastructure and building emissions comes from steel and cement production alone. To address this challenge, we’ve developed a sustainable framework for procuring green materials—a critical step in the pursuit of net zero.

PDF; Our Common Future
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf
In the middle of the 20th century, we saw our planet from space for the first time. Historians may eventually find that this vision had a greater impact on thought than did the Copernican revolution of the 16th century, which upset the human self-image by revealing that the Earth is not the centre of the universe. From space, we see a small and fragile ball dominated not by human activity and edifice but by a pattern of clouds, oceans, greenery, and soils. Humanity's inability to fit its activities into that pattern is changing planetary systems, fundamentally. Many such changes are accompanied by life-threatening hazards. This new reality, from which there is no escape, must be recognized - and managed.

Our Common Future
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Common_Future
Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, was published in October 1987 by the United Nations through the Oxford University Press. This publication was in recognition of Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and Chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Its targets were multilateralism and interdependence of nations in the search for a sustainable development path. The report sought to recapture the spirit of the Stockholm Conference which had introduced environmental concerns to the formal political development sphere. Our Common Future placed environmental issues firmly on the political agenda; it aimed to discuss the environment and development as one single issue.

Impact of tracking and tracing on the tobacco industry
https://tobaccotactics.org/article/track-and-trace/
Tobacco companies, therefore, have a vested interest in gaining control of and undermining the effectiveness of tracking and tracing systems. If an effective global system was to be implemented, tobacco companies could face increased tax payments and fines. They could even be subject to further litigation related to tobacco smuggling, if they were found responsible for their products ending up on the illicit market.

Article: Chinese machtsovername in de Europese zeehavens
https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/chinese-privatisering-van-de-griekse-haven-piraeus?share=uCYJY%2BKtxN%2Fonk0Mj53TNkGTOx9LykQRdIDIGeBe3pLPBycBRswcdqKhhnY98cg%3D
Het Chinese staatsconcern Cosco Shipping heeft de macht kunnen grijpen in de Griekse haven Piraeus. Nieuwe regels tegen riskante strategische investeringen door buitenlandse bedrijven hebben niets uitgehaald. Door economisch opportunisme van de lidstaten faalt de Europese Unie als geheel.

Sourcing Hub Preffered by Nature
https://sourcinghub.preferredbynature.org/


dentify and mitigate risks in your supply chains from a well-researched global resource

Preferred by Nature
https://www.preferredbynature.org/
Preferred by Nature is a non-profit organisation that supports better land management and business practices that benefit people, nature and climate.

The International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC)
https://www.iscc-system.org/
The International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) is an independent multi-stakeholder initiative and leading certification system supporting sustainable, fully traceable, deforestation-free and climate-friendly supply chains. With our certification we contribute to environmentally, socially and economically sustainable production.

Paper; Satellite mapping reveals extensive industrial activity at sea
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06825-8


The world’s population increasingly relies on the ocean for food, energy production and global trade yet human activities at sea are not well quantified. We combine satellite imagery, vessel GPS data and deep-learning models to map industrial vessel activities and offshore energy infrastructure across the world’s coastal waters from 2017 to 2021. We find that 72–76% of the world’s industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked, with much of that fishing taking place around South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. We also find that 21–30% of transport and energy vessel activity is missing from public tracking systems. Globally, fishing decreased by 12?±?1% at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and had not recovered to pre-pandemic levels by 2021. By contrast, transport and energy vessel activities were relatively unaffected during the same period. Offshore wind is growing rapidly, with most wind turbines confined to small areas of the ocean but surpassing the number of oil structures in 2021. Our map of ocean industrialization reveals changes in some of the most extensive and economically important human activities at sea.

Paper; Monitoring Global Supply Chains
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/11591700/short%252ctoffel%252chugill_monitoring-global-supply-chains.pdf
Firms seeking to avoid reputational spillovers that can arise from dangerous, illegal, and unethical behavior at supply chain factories are increasingly relying on private social auditors to provide strategic information about suppliers’ conduct. But little is known about what influences auditors’ ability to identify and report problems. Our analysis of nearly 17,000 supplier audits reveals that auditors report fewer violations when individual auditors have audited the factory before, when audit teams are less experienced or less trained, when audit teams are all-male, and when audits are paid for by the audited supplier. This first comprehensive and systematic analysis of supply chain monitoring identifies previously overlooked transaction costs and suggests strategies to develop governance structures to mitigate reputational risks by reducing information asymmetries in supply chains.

Book; Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains: Problems, Progress, and Prospec
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv16kkx12
Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains examines the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility on improving labor standards in global supply chains. Sarosh Kuruvilla charts the development and effectiveness of corporate codes of conduct to ameliorate "sweatshop" conditions in global supply chains. This form of private voluntary regulation, spearheaded by Nike and Reebok, became necessary given the inability of third world countries to enforce their own laws and the absence of a global regulatory system for labor standards. Although private regulation programs have been adopted by other companies in many different industries, we know relatively little regarding the effectiveness of these programs because companies don't disclose information about their efforts and outcomes in regulating labor conditions in their supply chains. Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains presents data from companies, multi-stakeholder institutions, and auditing firms in a comprehensive, investigative dive into the world of private voluntary regulation of labor conditions. The picture he paints is wholistic and raw, but it considers several ways in which this private voluntary system can be improved to improve the lives of workers in global supply chains.

Paper; The Red Sea link. Geo-economic projections
https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/72105/QM-03-21-328-EN-N.pdf
The Red Sea region is becoming increasingly important in global geopolitics. Given its importance for global trade and security, growing geo-economic projections, military rivalries and the risk of confrontation between key regional players and international actors are growing and could have far-reaching and disruptive repercussions. This paper explores the critical economic and security issues that link littoral, regional and international powers to the Red Sea region. It shows how efforts by countries in the broader Gulf region and external powers to extend their influence to the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa can produce a potential new conflict zone. It concludes by offering some reflections on how to promote regional security and economic development in the region, with a view to minimising the risk of conflict and increasing opportunities for cooperation

Archaeologies of the Belt and Road Initiative
https://madeinchinajournal.com/2021/12/01/archaeologies-of-the-belt-and-road-initiative/
Since its announcement in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become the main lens through which both observers and stakeholders trace China’s global footprint. Whether cheered on as a new engine of economic development in a fraught and increasingly unequal world or frowned upon as a masterplan through which the Chinese authorities are attempting to establish global hegemony, the infrastructure component of the BRI has become such an important frame in discussions of Global China that less tangible aspects that are not in its purview tend to be lost or overlooked.

Global Ocean Carriers Halt Red Sea Transits – What to Expect
https://www.flexport.com/blog/global-ocean-carriers-halt-red-sea-transits-what-to-expect/


As of today, 389 carrier vessels accounting for 5.4 million TEUs of capacity are actively diverting, will divert, or have already diverted from the Suez Canal as a direct result of these attacks.

After Maersk’s decision on December 31 to re-pause transits through the high-risk areas, they are now diverting vessels that were idling south of the Gulf of Aden towards the southern tip of Africa.

COSCO is also now routing most vessels around the Cape of Good Hope but continues to assess on a vessel-by-vessel basis. See the below visual in which COSCO’s vessels are in yellow.

Some carriers are deploying vessels that typically service other trades like Asia to North America and LATAM to Asia to Europe trades to compensate for service disruptions. Today alone, we saw 4 vessels across HMM and Hapag-Lloyd accounting for 33k TEUs of capacity that will be deployed on the Asia to North Europe and Mediterranean trades. Vessel deployment will help, but not solve capacity constraints. Equipment shortages at origin ports are expected to rise in the coming weeks as the impacts of service disruptions make their way downstream.

The military coalition aimed at protecting the risk areas now consists of 12 nations. On Wednesday, the coalition warned Houthis of ‘consequences’ for continued attacks in the region. From the White House, “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”

Article; Dit vliegtuigje betrapt vervuilende schepen op heterdaad
https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/vieze-uitstoot-schepen?share=ZCKWX2u0XTcYLNc7BG/GFR1BALE7RsO5iUSZdXY2QcwhaI fBZH9MOcZYQSLhYA
De gevoelige meetapparatuur registreert direct hoeveel CO2, stikstofoxiden, roet en zwavel het containerschip uitstoot. Op een schermpje tonen kleurrijke lijnen die hoeveelheden in een diagram. ‘Hier zie je de uitstoot van zwavel.’ Van Roy wijst naar een donkergroene lijn die stevig fluctueert. Nog binnen de norm. Zwavel leidt in te grote hoeveelheden tot ernstige luchtverontreiniging – het is een belangrijke veroorzaker van zure regen en gezondheidsproblemen. Het vormt fijnstof dat diep doordringt in de longen en aandoeningen kan veroorzaken aan de luchtwegen. Het kan ook leiden tot hart- en vaatziekten.