Due Diligence for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chain

Policy & Annex

1. Cross-cutting RBC standards

Impact assessment

We will continuously assess and address in decision-making the actual and potential impacts of our operations, processes, goods and services over their full life-cycle with a view to avoiding or, when unavoidable, mitigating any adverse impacts. Impact assessments should involve a representative number of all relevant stakeholder groups.

Disclosure

We will disclose timely and accurate information related to foreseeable risk factors and our response to particular environmental, social and human rights impacts to potentially affected communities, at all stages of the investment cycle. We will also provide accurate, verifiable and clear information that is sufficient to enable consumers to make informed decisions.

Consultations

We will hold good-faith, effective and meaningful consultations with communities through their own representative institutions before initiating any operations that may affect them and we will continue to hold consultations with them during and at the end of operations. We will bear in mind the different risks that may be faced by women and men. We will hold effective and meaningful consultations with indigenous peoples through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent consistent with achieving the ends of the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples and with due regard for particular positions and understanding of individual states.

Benefit sharing

We will ensure that our operations contribute to sustainable and inclusive rural development, including, as appropriate, through promoting fair and equitable sharing of monetary and non-monetary benefits with affected communities on mutually agreed terms, in accordance with international treaties, where applicable for parties to such treaties, e.g. when using genetic resources for food and agriculture.

Grievance mechanisms

We will provide for legitimate, accessible, predictable, equitable and transparent operational-level grievance mechanisms in consultation with potential users. We will also co-operate in other non-judicial grievance mechanisms. Such grievance mechanisms can enable remediation when our operations have caused or contributed to adverse impacts due to non-adherence to RBC standards.

Gender

We will help eliminate discrimination against women, enhance their meaningful participation in decision-making and leadership roles, ensure their professional development and advancement, and facilitate their equal access and control over natural resources, inputs, productive tools, advisory and financial services, training, markets and information.

2. Human rights
Within the framework of internationally recognised human rights, the international human rights obligations of the countries in which we operate as well as relevant domestic laws and regulations, we will:

• Respect human rights, which means avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts with which we are involved.

• Within the context of our own activities, avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts and address such impacts when they occur.

• Seek ways to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to our operations, products or services by a business relationship, even if we did not contribute to those impacts.3

• Carry out human rights due diligence as appropriate to the size, nature and context of our operations and the severity of the risks of adverse human rights impacts.

• Provide for, or co-operate through legitimate processes in, the remediation of adverse impacts on human rights when we identify that we have caused or contributed to these impacts.

• Within the context of our own activities, ensure that all persons’ human rights are respected, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

3. Labour rights
We will respect international core labour standards in our operations, namely the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, including for migrant workers, the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, the effective abolition of child labour and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

In our operations, we will also:

• Ensure occupational health and safety.

• Ensure decent wages, benefits and working conditions that are at least adequate to satisfy the basic needs of workers and their families, and strive to improve working conditions.

• Promote the security of employment and co-operate in government schemes to provide some form of income protection to workers whose employment has been terminated.

• Seek to prevent abuses of migrant workers.

• Adopt approaches, measures, and processes to enhance women’s meaningful participation in decision-making and leadership roles.

We will contribute to the realisation of the right to work, by:

• striving to increase employment opportunities, both directly and indirectly

• ensuring that relevant training is provided for all levels of employees, to meet the needs of the enterprise and the development policies of the host country, including by increasing the productivity of the youth and/or their access to decent employment and entrepreneurship opportunities

• ensuring maternity protection at work.

4. Health and safety

We will promote public health by:

• adopting appropriate practices to prevent threats to human life, health, and welfare in our operations, as well as threats deriving from the consumption, use or disposal of our goods and services, including by adhering to good practices in food safety

• contributing to the protection of the health and safety of affected communities during the life-cycle of our operations.

5. Food security and nutrition
We will strive to ensure that our operations contribute to food security and nutrition. We will give attention to enhancing the availability, accessibility, stability and utilisation of safe, nutritious and diverse foods.

6. Tenure rights over and access to natural resources

We will respect legitimate tenure rights holders and their rights over natural resources, including public, private, communal, collective, indigenous and customary rights, potentially affected by our activities. Natural resources include land, fisheries, forests, and water.

To the greatest extent possible, we will commit to transparency and information disclosure on our land-based investments, including transparency of lease/concession contract terms, with due regard to privacy restrictions.

We will give preference to feasible alternative project designs to avoid or, when avoidance is not possible, minimise the physical and/or economic displacement of legitimate tenure rights holders, while balancing environmental, social, and financial costs and benefits, paying particular attention to adverse impacts on the poor and vulnerable.

We are aware that, subject to their national law and legislation and in accordance with national context, states should expropriate only where the rights at issue are required for a public purpose and should ensure a prompt, adequate and effective compensation.

When holders of legitimate tenure rights are negatively affected, we will seek to ensure that they receive a prompt, adequate and effective compensation of their tenure rights being negatively impacted by our operations.

7. Animal welfare

We will support animal welfare in our operations, including by:

• striving to ensure that the ‘five freedoms’ for animal welfare are implemented, i.e. freedom from hunger, thirst and malnutrition, physical and thermal discomfort, pain, injury and disease, fear and distress, and freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour

• ensuring high standards of management and stockmanship for animal production, that are appropriate to the scale of our operations, in accordance with or exceeding OIE’s principles.

8. Environmental protection and sustainable use of natural resources

We will establish and maintain, in co-ordination with responsible government agencies and third parties as appropriate, an environmental and social management system appropriate to the nature and scale of our operations and commensurate with the level of potential environmental and social risks and impacts.

We will continuously improve our environmental performance by:

• preventing, minimising and remedying pollution and negative impacts on air, land, soil, water, forests and biodiversity, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions

• avoiding or reducing the generation of hazardous and non-hazardous waste, substituting or reducing the use of toxic substances, and enhancing the productive use or ensuring a safe disposal of waste

• ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources and increasing the efficiency of resource use and energy

• reducing food loss and waste and promoting recycling

• promoting good agricultural practices, including to maintain or improve soil fertility and avoid soil erosion

• supporting and conserving biodiversity, genetic resources and ecosystem services; respecting protected areas, high conservation value areas and endangered species; and controlling and minimising the spread of invasive non-native species

• increasing the resilience of agriculture and food systems, the supporting habitats and related livelihoods to the effects of climate change through adaptation measures.

9. Governance

We will prevent and abstain from any form of corruption and fraudulent practices.

We will comply with both the letter and spirit of the tax laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate.

We will refrain from entering into or carrying out anti-competitive agreements among competitors and will co-operate with investigating competition authorities.

To the extent to which they apply to enterprises, we will act consistently with the Principles contained in the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Principles of Corporate Governance.

10. Technology and innovation

We will contribute to the development and diffusion of appropriate technologies, particularly environmentally-friendly technologies and those that generate direct and indirect employment.

OR Coffee Roasters ANNEX on Due Diligence

OR Coffee Roasters commits to conduct due diligence across the agricultural supply chain, is aware of the potential impacts of the operations, continuously monitors developments closely in cooperation with all our partners involved and is transparent towards its end users.

Furthermore OR Coffee Roasters commits to respect the human rights and labor rights in accordance with the laws of Belgium, has a separate grievance mechanism installed linked to the Rainforest Alliance products (see section 5.a Grievance Mechanism) and respects gender equality (see section 5.b Gender Equality).

Within scope OR Coffee Roasters commits to promote health and safety in the workplace with appropriate safety footwear and worker jackets and general information on production on the label for end users (see section 4.b. Labeling).

OR Coffee Roasters commits to protect food quality at all cost through (unannounced) audits by the governmental agency for food safety (FAVV) and there is a quarterly pest control in place.

OR Coffee Roasters commits to continuously improve its environmental performance by:

➔ applying bulk production when applicable
➔ using machinery to reduce pollution impact on its direct environment
➔ naturally decomposing the by-product that is a result of the production process
➔ recycling waste (cardboard and paper waste, PMD waste, plastic wrapping, jute)
➔ using solar power to support electricity consumption

OR Coffee Roasters commits to good governance in accordance with the laws of Belgium.