Our Members’ approach to business and human rights

The supply of fertiliser in New Zealand relies on international sourcing. The range of risks considered and assessed are growing in scope and depth, and human rights risk is an increasingly important part of this consideration.

The fertiliser industry in New Zealand is dominated by farmer-owned co-operatives. This means our Members are particularly aware that the inputs and fertiliser they supply are at the start of a long supply chain that ultimately lands on consumers’ plates. Our members anticipate that during the next decade consumers will increasingly consider any potential human risk in the same way as they now consider environmental risk. Increasingly, assessment of human rights risks will be core to doing business. Our industry is deepening assessment of human rights risk as part of wider assessment activities.

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set out an approach for such assessments. Our Members acknowledge they are at an early stage of adopting the UNGPs within our industry. They have started with an industry wide Human Rights Statement.

In this Statement our Members focus on the following social values:

• Health and safety
• Freely chosen employment
• Child labour
• Discrimination
• Freedom of association

Our Members are currently working on how to embed these approaches within existing business practices. This process will not necessarily bring new processes and assessments within their businesses but will extend and deepen existing practices.

Having committed to adopting the UNGPs, our Members have already undertaken an assessment of one key supplier to New Zealand – the supply of phosphate rock from the OCP mine at Phosboucraa in Western Sahara.