NORTH AMERICA - Social responsibility is a vital element of any business, and Fyffes knows this well. The banana brand recently released its second-ever Human Rights Report, which features the results of the Human Rights Impact Assessment conducted by the expert group Business for Social Responsibility (BSR®) in 2022.
“In sharing our Human Rights Report, our goal is to be transparent with our communities, employees, stakeholders, and customers about the challenges we face as well as our plans to address those challenges,” said Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Caoimhe Buckley. “I would like to thank BSR and the sustainability team, led by Julie Cournoyer, for their leadership in this area, placing Fyffes at the forefront of human rights due diligence.”
As a press release noted, BSR conducted the in-depth assessment in Honduras and Guatemala, including a site visit to Honduras where they spent time with the new management team, appointed in September 2021. The organization also visited two of Fyffes’ largest and longest business partners in Colombia, Banasan, and Uniban.
As part of its social responsibility efforts, Fyffes has established a human rights core team, which will evolve into a human rights and environment committee, in addition to conducting a Climate Change Risk Assessment in 2022. Next, the company will look to identify the more localized impacts of climate change on individual operations.
The longstanding banana provider’s approach to human rights due diligence is founded on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights as well as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, enshrined in Fyffes' code of conduct, the Fyffes Principles. As the release went on to note, the producer is in a strong position to meet the existing and emerging legislation regarding human rights and environmental due diligence, including the new German Supply Chain Act, the French Vigilance Law, the Swiss due diligence and reporting legislation, and the new European Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and Reporting Directives.
For a deeper look at the company’s second human rights report, click here.
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