Ethical ingredients standards to be revised
The Union for Ethical BioTrade set out its standards that relate to factors around sourcing in 2007, revised them in 2009 on the way to a draft guidance, and now seeks to revise the criteria once more to ensure the highest level of adherence to its ethical trading principles.
“The experiences of UEBT and its members with this framework illustrated that although there were no fundamental flaws, several improvements could be made,” it said of the consultation period that runs until the end of September.
UEBT is a member of ISEAL Alliance (International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling) and the Ethical BioTrade Standard has been designed in accordance with its requirements as well as those of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
In its draft guidance it states: “UEBT members apply the Ethical BioTrade standard to direct their biodiversity management systems and to guide practices in their supply chains. UEBT uses a combination of self-assessment and external verification by third party verification bodies against this standard to assess compliance with UEBT membership obligations.”
“To reflect that UEBT members apply ethical sourcing practices to all natural ingredients they work with, the revised standard does not solely focus on native natural ingredients anymore. A risk-based approach now defines which parts of the standard need to be applied to natural ingredients a UEBT member works with.”
The draft guidance can be found here.
The standard can be applied to different stages of the supply chain, including brands, processing companies, or producers.
More information about submitting comments can be found here.
