The guide enables companies to compare their policies and the voluntary standards they use with recommendations of the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains
The FAO led Responsible Fruits Project works with companies, producers, associations and other actors in the avocado and pineapple value chains to improve business performance by supporting their efforts to become more sustainable and resilient.
The project helps companies in developing risk-based due diligence systems to help them to manage sustainability risks and cope with shocks, such as climate-related events, plant-pest outbreaks and economic recessions. In many countries, newly passed or proposed laws require companies to carry out due diligence to identify, assess, mitigate, prevent and account for how they address adverse impacts of their activities and those of their suppliers and business partners. Due diligence helps companies to avoid activities along their value chains that have negative impacts on the environment and on people’s livelihoods and wellbeing.
Many companies lack the capacity to carry out due diligence and manage risks in a comprehensive manner, but most of them use voluntary sustainability standards. While each company has their own responsibility to avoid and mitigate negative impacts, voluntary standards can support a company’s own capacity to manage risks.
The usefulness of such standards in supporting due diligence partly depends on how aligned they are with international expectations and regulations. To help companies to make an initial analysis of this alignment, FAO has developed a gap analysis guide and a practical gap analysis tool.
The gap analysis helps companies to compare the standards and policies they use with the recommendations of the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains, which is the global benchmark for due diligence and responsible business conduct in agriculture.
The gap analysis tool can be downloaded here and the full guide can be found here. By using these resources, companies can become more confident in meeting international requirements for due diligence responsible business conduct. The gap analysis tool is free, easy and quick to use. It works completely offline and does not require an internet connection. The results are available only to the company using the tool, which ensures confidentiality.
For any questions, please contact the Responsible Fruit Project. The project team can also arrange individual sessions with tropical fruit companies to help them using the gap analysis tool.