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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.

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.

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

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.

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: 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.

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.

Report; Forced evictions at industrial cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Con
https://www.amnesty.nl/content/uploads/2023/09/EMBARGOED_EN-version-Powering-Change-or-Business-as-Usual.pdf


This trend is driving the demand for other raw materials. Electric vehicles and energy storage facilities require vast and increasing amounts of mined metals, including copper and cobalt. According to the International Energy Agency, copper is the most widely used mineral in clean energy technologies, while cobalt is an essential mineral for most lithium-ion batteries. Expectations of accelerating demand for these two minerals are behind the increase in industrial mining in and around the city of Kolwezi, in the southern province of Lualaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where many of the country’s most productive cobalt and copper mines are located. The DRC holds the seventh largest reserves of copper globally and is the third largest producer. It also holds approximately half of the world’s cobalt reserves and accounts for more than 70% of global production. The people living in the region should be benefiting from the growth in mining. Instead, many are being forced out of their homes and farmland to make way for the expansion of large-scale industrial mining projects. As this report shows, such evictions are often carried out by mining operators with little concern for the rights of affected communities and little heed for national laws meant to curtail forced evictions in the mining sector.

PDF; Fisheries and Aquaculture Certification, Standards and Ratings Ecosystem
https://www.humanrightsatsea.org/sites/default/files/media-files/2023-03/LR_HRAS_Fisheries%20Human%20Rights%20Standards_8%20MARCH%2023_v1.1.pdf
As consumers we’re led to believe we hold the power to ensure the goods we buy are not harmful to humans and the planet. In classic economics, companies simply supply what the market demands. We are ‘the market’ and it is the market that sets the price. And we are increasingly aware, in this information age, that price goes far beyond the ticket on the shelf. It’s not just what’s in the tin, but how it got there – the husbandry, the working conditions, the production process. The outcome? A plethora of labels of various certification schemes aimed at meeting that demand. But do these labels really address the true cost and help empower consumers to leverage their purchases to get what they want? This much-needed data-driven examination of labels – certification standards – within the fisheries industry shows that all is not what it might seem. It demonstrates the complexity of a solution based on voluntary standards, beginning with the plethora of schemes, each with its own criteria, inconsistent both in mandate, assessment process and enforcement. The existence of such a report, on just one industry, indicates just how unrealistic it is as a means for consumers to understand the true cost of a product and exercise our purchasing power accordingly.

PDF, Final checklist for traceability in seafood
https://media.salttraceability.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/09143734/Final_Checklist_for_Governments_SALT_12_9_22.pdf


This checklist was developed to support governments in designing and implementing lasting and scalable traceability systems in their seafood sectors. It compiles insights and advice gleaned from traceability experts from five continents and 32 published resources and case studies. After reviewing findings for common themes and factors that influenced or interfered with traceability, this checklist was created for governments to consider, use, and revisit to avoid others’ “glorious failures” and work towards effective solutions. Scalable and lasting seafood traceability can be achieved by adhering to an iterative, 4-stage process outlined in this checklist and in conjunction with the Comprehensive Traceability Principles and Pathway.

PDF: Towards more accurate and policy relevant footprint analyses
http://resources.trase.earth/documents/Godar%20et%20al.%20(2015)%20Ecological%20Economics.pdf
The consumption of internationally traded goods causes multiple socio-environmental impacts. Current methods linking production impacts to final consumption typically trace the origin of products back to the country level, lacking fine-scale spatial resolution. This hampers accurate calculation of trade and consumption footprints, masking and distorting the causal links between consumers' choices and their environmental impacts, especially in countries with large spatial variability in socio-environmental conditions and production impacts. Here we present the SEI-PCS model (Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems), which allows for fine-scale sub-national assessments of the origin of, and socio-environmental impacts embedded in, traded commodities. The method connects detailed production data at sub-national scales (e.g., municipalities or provinces), information on domestic flows of goods and in international trade. The model permits the downscaling of country-to-country trade analyses based on either physical allocation from bilateral trade matrices or MRIO models. The importance of producing more spatially-explicit trade analyses is illustrated by identifying the municipalities of Brazil from which different countries source the Brazilian soy they consume. Applications for improving consumption accounting and policy assessment are discussed, including quantification of externalities of consumption, consumer labeling, trade leakages, sustainable resource supply and traceability

SEI-PCS: Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems
https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sei-2019-p2cs-summary-sei-pcs.pdf


Countries, companies and individual consumers are increasingly aware that their consumption could be linked, via supply chains, to environmental and social sustainability impacts in distant parts of the world. However, most of the footprinting methods available prior to 2015 critically lacked detail – of the connections between consumption and production, and of how particular commodity flows were linked to sustainability issues in specific production sites. Instead, they estimated footprints at country level, based on assumptions and macroeconomic figures.

This limited their value for policymaking, attributing responsibility and taking preventive action, given the often localized nature of issues like deforestation, as well as the heterogeneity of landscapes and vulnerability that can exist, particularly in large countries like Brazil. br>
SEI-PCS (for Spatially Explicit Information on Production to Consumption Systems) is a modeling approach developed at SEI.1 SEI-PCS allows for fine-scale subnational assessments of the origin of traded commodities and the socio-environmental impacts embedded in them, such as carbon emissions, local pollution or biodiversity loss. It recreates supply chains and attributes sustainability impacts to commodity flows and actors, using a combination of detailed production data at subnational scales, information on domestic trade flows, customs data and international trade flows between countries.

IFT’s Tech-Enabled Traceability Insights Based on the FDA’s Low- or No-Cost Traceability Challenge S
https://www.ift.org/-/media/gftc/pdfs/ift-tech-insights-fda-nolowcost-traceability-report-2023.pdf


As an activity under the New Era for Smarter Food Safety blueprint, the goal of the Low- or No-Cost Tech-Enabled Traceability Challenge was to encourage development of innovative approaches for scalable, cost-effective food traceability solutions to advance widespread implementation of tech-enabled traceability systems throughout the supply chain. This report documents these efforts.

PDF; Towards a Digital Product Passport Fit for Contributing to a Circular Economy
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2289
The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a concept of a policy instrument particularly pushed by policy circles to contribute to a circular economy. The preliminary design of the DPP is supposed to have product-related information compiled mainly by manufactures and, thus, to provide the basis for more circular products. Given the lack of scientific debate on the DPP, this study seeks to work out design options of the DPP and how these options might benefit stakeholders in a product’s value chain.

Article: A proposed universal definition of a Digital Product Passport Ecosystem (DPPE): Worldviews,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622051125
This paper contributes new knowledge and understanding about the role that Product Passports might play in advancing sustainable business practices towards a Circular Economy. The significance of this research is the proposed universal definition of a Digital Product Passport Ecosystem (DPPE) for international policy, industrial and technical communities. The novelty of this research lies in the systems thinking approach, coupled with systems engineering, to define and model a DPPE as a System of Systems to derive a definition. Stakeholder perspectives and requirements concerning Product Passports were synthesised using data and analysis from the European Commission's (EC) open consultation on the Sustainable Products Initiative (SPI). Nine high-level capabilities of a DPPE have been identified, and each is explored by mapping a list of information requirements discussed within the consultation. It is shown that different Product Passport applications benefit (or detriment) different stakeholder groups.

PDF; Turbulent Circulation
https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26197/3/Introduction%20-%202018.05.23%20revised%20for%20EPD.pdf
Since the mid-20th century, logistics has evolved into a wide-ranging science of circulation involved in planning and managing flows of innumerable kinds. In this introductory essay, we take stock of the ascendancy and proliferation of logistics, proposing a critical engagement with the field. We argue that logistics is not limited to the management of supply chains, military or corporate. Rather, it is better understood as a calculative logic and spatial practice of circulation that is at the fore of the reorganization of capitalism and war. Viewed from this perspective, the rise of logistics has transformed not only the physical movement of materials but also the very rationality by which space is organized. It has remade economic and military space according to a universalizing logic of abstract flow, exacerbating existing patterns of uneven geographical development.

PDF; Short Circuit the Counter Logistics reader
https://desarquivo.org/sites/default/files/short_circuit_a_counterlogistics_reader.pdf
Counter-logistics is not simply a matter of blocking all flows, of stopping movement, of locking things in place where they are. It is a matter of blocking those flows that constitute the material and metaphysical tissue of this world, while simultaneously enhancing our own ethical connections, movement, and friendship. Helping migrants to cross borders and remain undetected, helping information to cross through and within prison walls, destroying surveillance cameras, defending the basis of new worlds seized in opposition to the old—these are as important as blocking rail lines and disrupting commerce

From the White House: Building resilient supply chains
https://whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/100-day-supply-chain-review-report.pdf


More secure and resilient supply chains are essential for our national security, our economic security, and our technological leadership.
National security experts, including the Department of Defense, have consistently argued that the nation’s underlying commercial industrial foundations are central to our security. Reports from both Republican and Democratic administrations have raised concerns about the defense industry’s reliance on limited domestic suppliers; a global supply chain vulnerable to disruption; and competitor country suppliers. Innovations essential to military preparedness—like highly specialized lithium-ion batteries—require an ecosystem of innovation, skills, and production facilities that the United States currently lacks. The disappearance of domestic production of essential antibiotics impairs our ability to counter threats ranging from pandemics to bio-terrorism, as emphasized by the FDA’s analysis of supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients.
Our economic security—steady employment and smooth operations of critical industries—also requires secure and resilient supply chains. For more than a decade, the Department of Defense has consistently found that essential civilian industries would bear the preponderance of harm from a disruption of strategic and critical materials supply. The Department of Energy notes that, today, China refines 60 percent of the world’s lithium and 80 percent of the world’s cobalt, two core inputs to high-capacity batteries—which presents a critical vulnerability to the future of the U.S. domestic auto ind

PDF: the EJAtlas, Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice
https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/1932/galley/2191/view/
This article highlights the need for collaborative research on ecological conflicts within a global perspective. As the social metabolism of our industrial economy increases, intensifying extractive activities and the production of waste, the related social and environmental impacts generate conflicts and resistance across the world. This expansion of global capitalism leads to greater disconnection between the diverse geographies of injustice along commodity chains. Yet, at the same time, through the globalization of governance processes and Environmental Justice (EJ) movements, local political ecologies are becoming increasingly transnational and interconnected.

Paper: Price-Setting Power in Global Value Chains
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41287-022-00543-z


This paper calls for integrating price-setting power and related uneven exposure to price risks into the analysis of governance in global value chains (GVCs) as it adds to other power dimensions in producing unequal distributional outcomes. This is shown for the cocoa GVC, in which—unlike in today’s mostly liberalised market structures—the world’s top cocoa-producing countries, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, pursue price stabilisation measures. These measures address intra-seasonal producer price volatility, and recent collaboration has achieved a living-income differential on top of export prices, but such measures do not shield export and producer prices from inter-seasonal variations in world prices determined on commodity derivatives markets. Based on interviews with actors along the cocoa GVC, we argue that this is related to the price-setting power of ‘grinder-traders’ and the key role of financial hedging and trading on commodity derivatives markets in their business strategies.

From

Supply and value chains from the trade in ivory and rhinoceros horn
https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/wildlife/2020/WWLC20_Chapter_8_Value_chains.pdf


Little is known about the profits made by organized crime groups from illicit wildlife trafficking and the significant gaps in understanding supply and demand for certain wildlife products make such estimates challenging. Existing estimates that monetize the size of wildlife trafficking and crime are highly aggregated and utilize broad frameworks that include envi- ronmental costs and loss of public revenues. These aggregates are useful for advocacy purposes but have lim- ited usefulness for understanding how wildlife traffickers operate and for monitoring and evaluating progress made in containing the illicit profits and financial flows generated by the illegal wildlife trade.

Map of Lithium Reserves
https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/download/global_critical_metal_deposit_maps/G2122_052_V4CMYK.pdf

Report, DataPorts Solving End-to-End Value Chain Content Integration
https://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/wp-content/uploads/members-content/E2E-dataports-solving-end-to-end-value-chain-content-integration.pdf


Today, when a retailer needs to assemble a complete view of informa- tion about a product for an online product catalogue, that retailer will typically go to multiple web-based sources, search for information, transform the information obtained into a format fit for purpose, and assemble the information elements for publication to the catalogue.

Today that content integration process is difficult. It is difficult because the steps of the process and the technology required for search and retrieval of information vary sufficiently from source to source, and even from item to item such that it is difficult to fully automate. The content integration problem blocks operational efficiency, in- troduces product information errors, and slows down the speed to market - resulting in increased costs and lost sales.

One of the approaches traditionally proposed for solving this con- tent integration problem is “data federation”. Data federation works by standardising on a common federated data model and map- ping all data sources to that standardised model. Content might be mapped either real-time in response to requests, or it might be stored using the common data model in an intermediate data store ready for consumption.

The challenge though is that agreeing on a standard model is difficult and despite big efforts and successes in standardisation across the value chain there always seem to be exceptions and in most cases there remains data which does not fit the model. We’ve been asked to find a more general way to share information such that partners can c

Report, Data Ports in action
https://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/wp-content/uploads/202004-CGF-E2E-DataPorts-in-Action-Paper.pdf
Managing and sharing product information across the entire value chain is still a fundamental challenge for the consumer goods and retail industry. The Board of The Consumer Good Fo- rum (CGF) acknowledges the need to move urgently and at scale beyond current industry and organisational paradigms to drive a step-change forward via the Product Data Coalition of Action. Most of the current initiatives have focused on managing and sharing product master data across the industry:

(1) verifying GTINs globally
(2) defining and maintaining a core set of product attributes and
(3) ensuring the best possible data quality via a consistent approach based on Data Quality Business Rules. In addition, there is a voluntary innovation track which has focused on new technologies to leapfrog data exchange (4) via DataPorts.

One of the key premises is that new technologies such as Arti- ficial Intelligence (AI) promise a future for data transformation, validation and exchange that is likely to be more responsive and accurate than current approaches. For that reason, we are currently exploring “DataPorts” as a new, easy and cost-efficient way to exchange data in a decentralised, federated manner across the whole value chain (including consumers), lever- aging technology innovations in cloud/APIs, AI and Machine Learning (ML). This new way of peer-to-peer data exchange allows for more automation and flexible dialogues between systems of trading partners.

WWF, Key Data Elements (KDE) and Traceability
https://wwflac.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/triptico_kde_en.pdf


2 page infographic / PDF

Report, Key Data Elements for Seafood: A Compilation of Resources
https://fishwise.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2017.05.25_KDEs-for-Seafood-Compilation-of-Resources_Final_-1-1.pdf
1 The purpose of this document is to compile existing publicly available key data element (KDE) resources regarding production, product identification, and supply chain traceability for seafood into one central location. This document does not address the full scope of KDEs that can be collected for seafood products (e.g. KDEs regarding food safety are not included) nor does it seek to define or clarify KDE definitions or terms. This document is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice nor as providing recommendations of any kind. Readers should always refer to the original reference source for complete information and important contextual background such as the scope and objectives of the specific resource. FishWise cannot be held liable for the accuracy or completeness of this document.

Report, THE NEED FOR TRANSPARENCY IN TEA SUPPLY CHAINS
https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/2021_Tea_Report_v4.pdf


The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre sought to address this gap by approaching 65 major companies with a request for them to disclose their supply chain details to be held centrally in the first Tea Transparency Tracker. The 17 companies which disclosed ranged from large multinational corporations and supermarkets to small family-owned companies sourcing just a few tonnes of tea, making it clear the only thing stopping companies from being transparent was their own commitment and willingness. Only 10 companies fully disclosed and just seven committed to full transparency in the future

Report, Food Barons 2022
https://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/food-barons-2022-full_sectors-final_16_sept.pdf
It’s time to divest from the Industrial Food Chain. Institutions under pressure from civil soci- ety have already succeeded in partly directing funds away from tobacco, arms and fossil fuels on moral grounds. Grassroots climate movements have successfully named fossil fuel compa- nies as the obstruction to meaningful climate action. Food movements should follow suit: it is a logical next step to demand the elimination of all financial support to the Industrial Food Chain, exposing its high degree of transnational corporate control and its multiple abuses.

ACM Leidraad Duurzaamheidsclaims
https://www.acm.nl/sites/default/files/documents/leidraad-duurzaamheidsclaims.pdf


De Autoriteit Consument en Markt (hierna ook: de ACM) is een onafhankelijke toezichthouder. De missie van de ACM is om markten goed te laten werken voor mensen en bedrijven, nu en in de toekomst. Dit doet de ACM onder meer door toezicht te houden op de naleving van de wetten en regels waaraan bedrijven zich moeten houden in hun omgang met consumenten. De ACM draagt bij aan voldoende informatie en vertrouwen zodat consumenten een goede beslissing kunnen nemen over de aankoop van een product of dienst. Ook beschermt de ACM bedrijven tegen oneerlijke concurrentie van bedrijven die zich niet aan de regels houden. Met deze ’Leidraad duurzaamheidsclaims’ (hierna ook: de leidraad) legt de ACM aan bedrijven uit hoe zij de consumentenregels over oneerlijke handelspraktijken toepast op duurzaamheidsclaims.1 Met vuistregels, uitleg en praktische voorbeelden geeft de ACM handvatten aan bedrijven voor het formuleren en evalueren van duurzaamheidsclaims. De voorbeelden dienen als illustraties van duurzaamheidsclaims die mogelijk misleidend zijn. Of een claim daadwerkelijk misleidend is, is afhankelijk van de omstandigheden van het geval.

Paper: Consumer Trust in Social Responsibility Communications: The Role of Supply Chain Visibility
https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=93602407200008800112210310508706701100504501002909101709901009212709700612601000700704504804005402604600008008701506702912101603001709208301610712606508101010306409102107302412709300409110910912307801309
Consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about companies’ social responsibility (SR) practices. As a result, they are increasingly skeptical when companies do not provide clear information about these practices. One way to overcome this skepticism is to strengthen consumer trust through improved supply chain trans- parency. To create transparency requires a company to both gain visibility into its supply chain and disclose information to consumers. However, the current SR literature has only focused on the effect of disclosure on consumer trust, while the effect of visibility on trust in SR communications is not well understood.

GS1 Digital Link Standard: URI Syntax
https://www.gs1.org/docs/Digital-Link/GS1_Digital_Link_Standard_URI_Syntax_r_i1-2-1_2022-02-08.pdf


This document provides some of the background to the design of GS1 Digital Link, highlighting existing techniques and practices that underpin the World Wide Web, and applying those to the GS1 system. The normative portions set out the detailed syntax of Web addresses (HTTP URIs) that encode GS1 identifiers with exactly the same precision and expressivity as the AI-based element syntax used across the GS1 system, notably in the GS1 General Specifications. The GS1 Digital Link URI syntax distinguishes between primary keys, such as GTIN and GLN, key qualifiers, such as batch/lot and GLN extension, and attributes such as expiry date and ship-to address. The GS1 Digital Link URI syntax is the foundation on which all other aspects of the standard are built.

Report: Untangling Apparel Supply Chains with Open Data
https://cdn2.assets-servd.host/tidy-shrike/production/assets/downloads/From-Opaque-to-Open.pdf
Those working in the apparel industry know how complex and fragmented apparel supply chains are, with even the simplest of items involving multiple suppliers across multiple continents. Following the mass uptake of off- shoring in the 80s and 90s, the supply chains of most global brands are thousands of miles away from their headquarters or the final point of sale, and the majority of brands don’t own the facilities in which their products are being made. This physical distance and lack of ownership makes keeping track of supply chains a complex and costly endeavor.

Paper: Supply Chains and the Human Condition
https://www.sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/anthropos-and-the-material/Intranet/economic-practices/reading-group/texts/tsing-supply-chains-and-the-human-condition.pdf
This article theorizes supply chain capitalism as a model for understanding both the continent-crossing scale and the constitutive diversity of contemporary global capitalism. In contrast with theories of growing capitalist homogeneity, the analysis points to the structural role of difference in the mobilization of capital, labor, and resources. Here labor mobilization in supply chains is the focus, as it depends on the performance of gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and citizenship status. The article uses the concept of figuration to show how difference is mobilized within supply chains, and to point to the importance of tropes of management, consumption, and entrepreneurship in workers’ understandings of supply chain labor. These tropes make supply chains possible by bringing together self-exploitation and superexploitation. Diversity is thus structurally central to global capitalism, and not decoration on a common core.

Article: We Need Assurance!
https://www.acsac.org/2005/papers/Snow.pdf


'We Need Assurance!' is a paper from 1999 by Brian Snow of the NSA. It is a classic in the computer security literature. In certification the term assurance is used to name those activities that safeguard that products sold as certified are indeed entitled to this claim. Supply chain assurance is a distinct field of security and the parallels with the concerns of this paper are obvious throughout.

Fairphone 3 Suppliers, Smelters and Refiners
https://www.fairphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/016_005_FP3_List_Suppliers_and_Smelters_Web_190930.pdf


Smartphones are intricate products made up of thousands of different components. Each of these parts comes from different suppliers and contain a wide variety of materials. As a result, our supply chain includes mines, smelters, refiners and different tiers of manufacturers that span the entire globe. While it may seem like an impossible task, step by step, we are mapping our supply chain to understand exactly what goes into our phone and where it comes from. By learning more about the hundreds of actors and locations involved in our smartphone supply chain, we can take an informed approach to making a difference. For Fairphone, that goes beyond audits, assessments and compliance. For example, it includes sourcing from more responsible mines and actively connecting them to our supply chain. It also means finding and engaging with suppliers that share our values and initiating improvement programs at the factories and beyond.

A Comparison of Supply Chain Tracking Tools for Tropical Forest Commodities in Brazil
https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/documents/Supply_Chain_Tracking_Tools.pdf
Robust, functional, affordable and scalable commodity supply chain tracking systems are essential to reducing deforestation resulting from the production of tropical forest commodities. In Brazil, monitoring tools are becoming increasingly important to private sector efforts aiming to reduce and eliminate the risk of deforestation from tropical forest commodity supply chains. This report provides a comprehensive comparison of supply chain tracking tools for tropical forest commodities, specifically cattle, soy and timber, currently being used in Brazil. In addition to detailing the objectives, methodologies, scope and cost1 of each tool, the report also describes the advantages and challenges of each system, and concludes with a comprehensive comparison. This report will inform private sector entities, other supply chain actors and consumers about the various supply chain monitoring tools available to help reduce and eliminate deforestation from tropical forest commodity production, and serve as a guide to help companies identify the most suitable tools to increase supply chain transparency and traceability.

Article: Digital extraction: Blockchain traceability in mineral supply chains
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096262982100041X?via%3Dihub
Digital data — including technologically-mediated data generated by blockchain-enabled traceability — is performing an increasingly integral role in extractive operations, but scarce attention has been paid to the structuring effect of these digital technologies or the socio-economic spatiality of data-driven mining operations. Drawing on extensive qualitative research (interviews, participant observation, and two sets of survey data among actors relevant to these mineral supply chains), this article advances the notion of “digital extraction” to describe the collection, analysis, and instrumentalization of digital data generated under the banner of blockchain-based due diligence, chain of custody certifications, and various transparency mechanisms, situated alongside and in support of mineral extraction.

Paper: Traceability is Free
http://vcm-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Traceability-Is-Free.pdf
Competitive Advantage of Food Traceability to Value Chain Management (2013). Well thought out with examples and definitions

A pocket guide to the EU’s new fish and aquaculture consumer labels
https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2014/december/tradoc_152941.pdf


Within the EU fish comes with basic traceability requirements. This pocket guide will explain what must appear on the new labels and what additional information can be displayed.

Apple Supplier Responsibility
https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/
Including PDF's of suppliers and smelters

Digital supply chain model in Industry 4.0
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jose-Luis-Flores/publication/338553270_Digital_supply_chain_model_in_Industry_40/links/5e1dfb5aa6fdcc904f703c2b/Digital-supply-chain-model-in-Industry-40.pdf?origin=publication_detail
The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model that defines the essential components shaping the new Digital Supply Chains (DSCs) through the implementation and acceleration of Industry 4.0.

Supply Chain Evolution – Theory, Concepts and Science
http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/60767/1/__smbhome.uscs.susx.ac.uk_qlfd7_Desktop_Supply%20Chain%20Evolution.pdf
The supply chain landscape is changing. New supply chains emerge and evolve for a variety of reasons. In this paper we examine the nature of new and changing supply chains and their influences, and address the broad question “What makes a supply chain like it is?”. The paper highlights and develops key aspects, concepts, and principal themes concerning the emergence and evolution of supply chains over their life cycle. We identify six factors that interact and may affect a supply chain over its life cycle. A number of emergent themes and propositions on factors affecting a supply chain’s characteristics over its life cycle are presented. We argue that a new science is needed to investigate and understand the supply chain life cycle. Supply chains are essential to the world economy and to modern life. Understanding the supply chain life cycle and how supply chains may evolve provides fresh perspectives on contemporary supply chain management. The paper presents detailed reflections from leading researchers on emerging, evolving and mature supply chains.

Supply Chain Digital Twins: Opportunities and Challenges Beyond the Hype
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/237399347.pdf
This paper discusses the application of digital twin concepts, prevalent in the factory unit operations environment, to the supply chain context. While the concept of digital twin is relatively recent in the manufacturing context, its application has now emerged within a wider supply chain context. It is unclear in this broader application what might the benefits of such an approach be in terms of operational control, replicability and efficiency.

Data Set—Real-World Multiechelon Supply Chains Used for Inventory Optimization 2
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/msom.1070.0176/suppl_file/msom.1070.0176-sm-data_set.pdf
Appendix to dataset

History of Food Traceability
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325247189_History_of_food_traceability
In the past the food industry has had its fair share of scandals, accidents, and incidents. It must be pointed out that reported food scares were not always associated with microorganisms; many of them were connected to new technology, environmental pollution or changes in co-product management. For example the food colorant (tartrazine and amaranth) incident reported in mid-1980 in UK; mercury poisoning in oranges reported in 1979; mercury poisoning in fish reported in 1970; radioactivity in lamb reported in 1986; glass, pin and caustic soda found in baby food product reported in UK in 1989 which resulted in the recall of 100 million jars off the shelves and repackaging of another 60 million. These incidents are very much in the memories of the general public.

Net-Zero Challenge: The supply chain opportunity
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Net_Zero_Challenge_The_Supply_Chain_Opportunity_2021.pdf


Supply-chain decarbonization will be a “game changer” for the impact of corporate climate action. Addressing Scope 3 emissions is fundamental for companies to realize credible climate change commitments. It enables companies in customer- facing sectors to use their influence in supply chains to speed and support rapid decarbonization throughout the economy, and it can put pressure on suppliers in regions where governments do not (yet) do so.

UN Guide to Traceability report (2015)
https://d306pr3pise04h.cloudfront.net/docs/issues_doc%2Fsupply_chain%2FTraceability%2FGuide_to_Traceability.pdf


The purpose of this guide is to provide an overview of the importance of traceability for sustainability purposes, outline the global op- portunities and challenges it represents and summarize practical steps for implementing traceability programmes within companies. Research for this guide revealed that trace- ability is a tremendously impactful tool for advancing sustainability objectives, but it still has a long way to go before it is an integral part of sustainable supply chain management and is used widely by companies. At present, only a very small percentage of commodities are traceable on sustainability attributes.

Ferrero Supplier List
https://www.ferrerosustainability.com/int/en/node/588
Ferrero discloses 20/21 cocoa supply chain, with supplier list in PDF

Rainforest Alliance guidance Traceability document 2022
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/RA-Traceability-Guidance.pdf
Traceability ensures that the Rainforest Alliance is able to follow a product from the brand owner back through the supply chain to a certified farm. Traceability is essential to ensure that products sold as certified comply with this promise. Traceability refers to the documentation that tracks the flows of certified volumes throughout the supply chain.

Chain of custody models and definitions
https://www.isealalliance.org/sites/default/files/resource/2017-11/ISEAL_Chain_of_Custody_Models_Guidance_September_2016.pdf
The Chain of Custody (CoC) System (CoC Standard and supporting assurance system) is one of the key elements of most sustainability standards systems.

The objective of the CoC System is to validate claims made about the product, process, business or service covered by the sustainability standard. This is achieved by defining a set of requirements and measures that provide the necessary controls on the movement of material or products, and associated sustainability data, from approved or certified businesses through each stage of the supply chain. Many standard systems set a CoC standard for this purpose, in addition to their production or management standard

Visualization of Raw Material Supply Chains using the EU Criticality Datasets
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC111646/20180525_jrc-tech-rep-supply_chain_viewer_final.pdf


This study uses the existing datasets from the 2017 EU criticality assessment to visualize 74 material supply chains and shows interconnections between them. Firstly, the data sets are rearranged into a simple graph with nodes representing the countries, materials, product applications, and sectors involved in materials supply and use. The weighted edges (links) represent relationships between them, i.e., the production of materials by countries and the flow of materials into product applications and subsequent economic sectors. Secondly, because mapping the critical raw materials data considers the links between countries, materials, product applications, and sectors, the resulting graphs can also be analysed using network statistics (based on their connectivity). For this, degree centrality (a count of the number of incoming or outgoing links of a node) is used to highlight more interconnected nodes (key actors) in the supply and use of materials. This allows, e.g., detection of countries providing a large number of different (raw) materials, materials finding widespread downstream uses, or product applications relying on a large number of materials.