At last month’s EUROPEAN OUTDOOR SUMMIT, George Williams, Just Transitions Advisor at ETHICAL TRADING INITIATIVE (ETI), was one of a panel considering, ‘Human-Centered Climate Action: Ensuring a Just Transition for Supply Chains and Workers’. Previously, he worked in international development, in various roles that encompassed climate resilience, human rights, social inclusion, trade and economic development.
ETI exists to address human rights impacts in global supply chains. Human rights and environmental issues, including climate change, have been regarded as separate issues. Yet, growing evidence demonstrates that environmental degradation and climate change have impacts on human rights, including those of workers. Just transition brings these two sets of priorities together. Following up post-Summit, Outdoor i explored the issues further.
Mariette van Amstel, Head of Membership, FAIR WEAR FOUNDATION; George Williams, Just Transitions Advisor, Ethical Trading Initiative.
What are the origins of the ‘Just transitions’ imperative?
JUST TRANSITIONS has its origins in the trade union movement. As industries undergo big transformations, it is imperative that workers don’t lose out – on decent work and secure employment, and livelihoods that ultimately support whole families and communities. The just transitions framing has gained a lot of traction in recent years, especially since its inclusion in the preamble to the 2015 Paris climate change agreement.
The world is now (largely) united around the imperative to transition our economies in line with targets set by the Paris agreement. And so industry is looking at ways to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) and ensure its resilience in the face of the climate instability that we’re already seeing and that will worsen even if we manage to meet the targets of the Paris agreement (adaptation). As we make these urgently needed changes to the way our economies and societies are organised, we need to ensure that workers have a stake in this transition process.
Workers are part of the solution – they understand how their work is being affected by the climate crisis, and they know already what some of the changes are that need to be made. As the great and the good of the climate movement meet in Baku next month for COP29, trade unions, employers’ organisations and institutions like the INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO) will be in attendance ensuring that these voices are part of the negotiations.
What does ETI offer?
ETI is an alliance of companies, NGOs and trade unions working to advance the human rights in global supply chains. We’re not a climate-focused, or even an environmentally-focused organisation. Our expertise is in human rights, and specifically in the human rights of vulnerable workers in global supply chains. But what is becoming more apparent almost day-by-day, is that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and one that affects workers.
Earlier this year, we saw much of south and southeast Asia scorched by a severe HEAT WAVES. Temperatures rose to around 50 degrees Celsius in parts of north India, including around Delhi NCR. Cambodia experienced its highest temperatures in over 170 years. And 40+ degree temperatures led to schools shutting across Bangladesh and the Philippines. These are parts of the world that we depend on for the manufacture of clothes, footwear, tools, electronics and more – and these temperatures are extremely dangerous for workers, literally life-threatening for many.
The ILO published several important reports on the impacts of extreme heat on the world of work just this year. They found that around 70% of workers face climate-related health risks, and 2.4 billion people are likely to be exposed to excessive heat whilst at work. And sadly, this situation is likely to get worse.
So what does ETI offer? – We offer support to our member companies, and to industry more widely, to help unpack these intersections between climate crisis and human rights risks. And we offer a space in which companies can seek guidance and learn from the good practice of their peers and experts from NGOs and trade unions. Practices that help prevent and mitigate these risks for workers working in the supply chains that produce their products.
Do you find companies react positively when you reach out to them?
In short, yes. But there’s no denying that this is quite a new area for many of us. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are unequivocal: “The responsibility to respect human rights is a global standard of expected conduct for all business enterprises wherever they operate.” And leading businesses understand both the moral and the business-case here – and increasingly we see legislation being passed by governments that translates these requirements into law.
But the climate crisis is a dynamic situation. I think both the scientific evidence and our own experiences show us that it is rapidly worsening. None of us have all the answers, and I try and be honest with our member companies about that. But working collaboratively is the only way we will make progress on these issues. As mentioned, ETI provides this safe and tripartite space in which companies can work together with their peers and with experts from NGOs and trade unions who have been aware of and trying to address these issues, sometimes for many decades already. There is a wealth of expertise and experience there that we are able to tap into.
How can SMEs hope to address the big issues you address?
No doubt SMEs face challenges linked perhaps to their size and relatively limited leverage within supply chains and markets. But what I sense is that SMEs can also be very nimble – at times they can respond and adapt practices quickly and efficiently. Also, my impression is that for SMEs who are real specialists in their particular product-offerings and/or markets, often they have very strong and at times quite personal relationships with their supply chains partners. I think these things are huge assets that shouldn’t be underestimated.
As mentioned, I think a lot of action we need to take rests on collaboration. and I think the trust that SMEs have often built over the years with their suppliers and supply chain partners means they can quite quickly get to understand the key issues being faced by workers in the supply chains and work collaboratively to address these.
My colleague Steve, from the trade union movement, who I work very closely with, always emphasises ‘everything starts with a conversation’. I would encourage any business to pick-up the phone to its suppliers and ask them, how is it going? – How are climate events like heat, or flooding, or water scarcity affecting them as a business and what impacts is it having on their workforce. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the so-called ‘global south’ over the years, and I’ve always found that people are incredibly resilient and adaptable; it’s quite likely that suppliers are already finding ways to manage these situations and risks.
And so I think it’s important that businesses here in the UK and Europe start a dialogue with their suppliers in other parts of the world to understand how they as buyers can better support these efforts. I was on a webinar with some of our member companies this week talking about responsible purchasing practices.
One of our members was explaining that participating in this forum had helped them, in their words, ‘hold a mirror up to their own businesses practices’ and understand the unintended consequences of some of their own decisions and processes on their suppliers and ultimately on the workers making their products. I think this is the sort of thing SMEs can quite easily start doing. We can’t change everything all at once, but initiating a process of change and starting with low-hanging fruit can be a powerful starting point.
Is there an accessible route for small businesses to address the challenges?
I genuinely believe that collaboration, starting a dialogue with supply chain partners, and identifying some simple easy wins are all essential first steps. It’s quite easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge when it comes to this stuff. I think we all feel like that at times.
But at the same time there is enormous energy in the climate movement – and these aims and priorities are shared by our colleagues, our customers, investors, our supply chain partners, even amongst our competitors. We all have a stake in creating a better world for future generations – and there are already great initiatives out there that we can learn from, adapt, and replicate.
ETI’s members include some very well-known high street names; folks like Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer, Primark, and more. But it also includes plenty of much smaller businesses, many of which are real specialists in particular areas and are often not widely known.
This genuinely isn’t a plug for ETI membership, but I would encourage all businesses to have a look at the options, you may be surprised by how accessible they are. In addition, many of the resources we produce are freely available on our website – go dig around and look for things that are relevant to you.
How do you measure the impact of these initiatives?
This is a really good question and not an easy one to answer succinctly! In truth, this is quite a new area of work for ETI and as mentioned, we’re really not pretending to have all the answers – I don’t think anyone does at this point in time. What we hope to see is a combination of businesses taking tangible action on specific issues, things like extreme heat as mentioned above.
We want to see our members collaborating on specific initiatives with their supply chain partners to reduce these risks to workers. And at the same time, and at a slightly higher level, we want to see businesses bringing their human rights and their environment teams together – currently they often work quite separately. We want to see evidence of human rights and environment policies and strategies being aligned and coordinated.
And we want to see evidence of businesses working collaboratively with worker organisations, particularly trade unions, to address climate and environmental issues with workers’ expertise at the centre of this decision making. Our team in Bangladesh is already doing great stuff in this area through its Green Social Dialogue programme with workers and factory management.
What are your key takeaways from the European Outdoor Summit?
I think the Outdoor industry is in a good place to move quickly and impactfully on many of these issues. The industry’s consumer-base consists of people who are passionate about the natural world, and they want to see our natural environments protected and regenerated for future generations. And I sense this demographic is reflected amongst the founders, leaders, and staff at Outdoor industry brands. So again, there is a huge asset there already in terms of motivation, energy, commitment and expertise – the industry can leverage this very easily.
At the same time, my sense is that discussions around human rights, and more specifically the human rights of workers, are a bit more early stage or nascent in the industry. So I think there is work to do to bring these topics into the centre of the conversation. I guess that’s where folks like myself can perhaps play a role. But I don’t think it’s a big leap from understanding industry impacts on the environment to understanding industry impacts on people. So I’m not worried. We’re seeing the impacts of the climate crisis, and the broader nature crisis, in our own lives.
These issues are becoming, sadly, more tangible every day. We just need to broaden the perspective to consider the people in the supply chains and how these issues are impacting them. As mentioned, there are great partners out there waiting to collaborate with the Outdoor industry on these issues – the time to act is now.