Supply chain risk assessment and management toolkit

The Supply Chain Risk Assessment and Management Toolkit, developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT in collaboration with FMO and Mercon Coffee Group, has the objective of helping companies assess the risks of engaging with or endorsing unlawful/unethical practices in their agricultural supply chains, and defining adequate measures to prevent, minimize and mitigate their impacts. The toolkit groups risks in three major Areas: Labor, Human Rights, and Environment, which are further disaggregated in Sub-Areas and Components. The analysis is carried out at a Macro and Micro level, providing companies a contextualized, nuanced, and granular understanding of the challenges they (may) face, which will guide the development of tailored risk management strategies.

The toolkit is comprised of four different tools: i) Macro Risk Assessment, ii) Supply Chain Mapping Tool iii) Micro Risk Assessment and iv) Prioritization and Action Planning.

i. Macro Risk Assessment: This tool assesses the risk exposure of engaging with or endorsing unlawful/unethical practices in agricultural supply chains at a national level. The result of the assessment is a relative rating of risk exposure in the three risk areas, based on national statistics and other publicly available databases, indexes, reports, news, and similar sources.

ii. Supply Chain Mapping Tool: This tool is designed to help collect and organize data on the company's in-country operations along its supply chain, as well as the importance of the target origin for the company's overall business. This information is useful in considering risk mitigation strategies as well as for prioritizing among countries/origins.

iii. Micro Risk Assessment: This tool assesses the risk exposure of engaging with or endorsing unlawful/unethical practices in agricultural supply chains at a local level. The result of the assessment is a relative rating of risk exposure in the three risk areas, based on information available from visits to randomly selected farms coupled with interviews with farmers, workers, company personnel, civil society representatives and other local key informants.

iv. Prioritization and Action Planning: This tool supports the process of prioritization and action planning for minimizing the risk exposure of engaging with or endorsing unlawful/unethical practices in agricultural supply chains, by providing guidelines and resources for facilitating relevant discussions among company personnel. It combines the results from the Macro and Micro Risk Assessments with discussions of potential consequences of risks, and the efficacy of current mitigation strategies, for estimating a relative rating of risk exposure in the three risk areas. This information is used to guide the development of recommendations and action planning to prevent, minimize and mitigate risks.

Each tool contains specific instructions and is accompanied by relevant supplementary materials, including data collection instruments and templates designed to streamline the process of inputting and analyzing data. All tools have been designed using generic terms to accommodate different commodities and countries.

The toolkit includes an introductory file with general information to understand and navigate through the different tools and supplementary files.