Search 
Search On 22nd March, The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Director of Sustainability, Didier Bergeret, joined a panel at Sedex’s Xplore Sustainability Conference to discuss trends in human rights due diligence practices in the consumer goods industry. During a panel entitled, “The future of human rights due diligence is global supply chains,” Didier shared his insights as director of the CGF’s Human Rights Coalition, which is working to make due diligence the norm in our industry to enable respect for human rights throughout the value chain.
During the panel, Didier discussed with the other panellists current opportunities and challenges around the widespread implementation of human rights due diligence (HRDD) throughout consumer goods value chains. Mandatory due diligence legislation is one such evolving space where companies can be enabled and encouraged to take further action on human rights, but can also be difficult to understand and implement practically. Didier shared how the Human Rights Coalition helps businesses see HRDD requirements as an opportunity more than a risk and prepare for other emerging regulations by working with companies to implement and improve an aligned, industry-approved, robust due diligence approach.
Didier was joined by Richard Mojica, Practice Lead of Customs and Import Trade, Miller & Chevalier Chartered; and Sophie Zinser, Lead International Relations Officer, Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT), US Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), US Department of Labor. The session was moderated by Bex Hall, Head of Consulting, Sedex.
The HRC is the leading collective of consumer goods companies strengthening due diligence throughout their business practices to ensure Workers’ rights are protected, respected, and remedied at every step of the value chain. As a CEO-led initiative hosted by the CGF, the only organisation to convene manufacturer and retailer CEOs globally, the HRC supports companies to effectively address salient human rights impacts, notably around forced labour, in their business practices through aligned, accelerated action driven at the highest levels of leadership. The work of the HRC continues the CGF’s long history of engagement on the issue of forced labour within consumer goods value chains by building on the CGF’s Social Resolution on Forced Labour, the first of its kind in the industry; its Priority Industry Principles; and ongoing relationships with key stakeholders in the industry. To learn more about the Human Rights Coalition, visit www.tcgfsocial.com.
