ILO working to adapt Business and Human Rights guidelines for India's automotive and readymade garments sectors
31 October 2024
New Delhi, INDIA (ILO News) - The ILO India is working with School of Business Environment, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (SBE-IICA), Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India for the adaptation of National Guidelines for Business and Human Rights for adapting the Ready-Made Garments and Automotive Sector.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, brought out the National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct, 2018 (NGRBC) as part of their initiative to equitably deliver benefits of growth by engaging ‘India Inc.’ in the country’s developmental agenda. The NGRBC urges businesses to conduct business responsibly and sustainably and while also encouraging and supporting their suppliers, vendors, distributors, partners and other stakeholders to follow the same principle. The guidelines are articulated as a set of nine core principles and their attendant core elements that promote responsible business conduct with respect to the Indian context.
Although the NGRBC was launched as a voluntary requirement, the disclosures aligned with it have subsequently become mandatory for the top 1,000 listed companies in the stock market based on market capitalization through Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR). The Stock Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has made it mandatory for the top 1,000 companies in India to submit Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) as a mandatory requirement to be listed in the Stock Exchange of India.
When the NGRBC was released, it was envisaged that a sector-specific guidelines/toolkit would be useful for sectoral businesses to adopt the NGRBC for particular sectors, given the individual needs of each industry/sector. To further this vision, SBE-IICA, took the initiative to adapt the NGRBC to the Ready-Made Garments (RMG) sector in India, especially focusing on Tier 1 and Tier II, i.e., RMG Brands and Manufacturers and also defining their roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis their vendors/suppliers and home-based workers in lower tiers of the global and domestic supply chains.
An Advisory Committee was constituted in 2022 to guide the process of development of the RMG Sector-Specific NGRBC Adaptation Toolkit. The members included the IICA, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Textiles, SEBI, UNICEF, civil societies, ICCSPL, Partners-in-Change, Toxic Links, academicians and sectoral employers and workers organizations, central trade union Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh. Ms Bharti Birla, Enterprise Development Specialist, ILO DWT/CO-New Delhi, is the ILO’s representative and technical advisor to the committee.
The IICA organized three pan-India stakeholders’ meetings across India that were attended by RMG Manufacturer Associations, namely, the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA), All India Organisation of Employers (AIOE), Okhla Garment Manufacturers Association and the national level Employers Federation of India and SCOPE; the Trade Unions namely, Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), Labour Progressive Federation (LPF), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and civil society organisations such as International Justice Mission (IJM), Centre for Social Justice, CARE T, DASRA, Partners-in-Change (PiC), READ among others. During the consultation, the participants shared their views and experiences on the major challenges of the India’s RMG. They discussed the opportunities and best practices for enhancing responsible business conduct in this sector. The session for recording the comments of the stakeholders was conducted in the form of group presentations, wherein representatives of each group expressed their views and submitted their comments.
The draft NGRBC for RMG Sector was finalized on 9 October 2024, after five meetings of the advisory committee, and three pan-India stakeholders’ consultations organized by IICA. The advisory committee held detailed principle-wise deliberations on the NGRBC. The draft document adopts the structure of the NGRBC, however, based on the nature of the business operations of RMG brands and manufacturers, distinctions in the action points are made at appropriate places. The first draft of the Guidelines will soon be in the public domain for comments and after finalization, will be submitted to Ministry of Corporate Affairs for further process towards its adoption.
On similar lines, IICA has now constituted an Advisory Committee for the Automotive Sector. The First Advisory Committee Meeting was held along with several distinguished committee members and experts from the organizers, SBE-IICA, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry Of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Labour & Employment, NITI Aayog, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), UNICEF, Employers' Federation Of India, ACMA India, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development, central trade union Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and CSOs Safe in India and Partners-in-Change. From the ILO, Ms Bharti Birla, is a technical advisor to the committee, and was also joined by Ms Yukari Kanamori, Technical Officer for the ILO/Japan Project Building Responsible Value Chains in Asia through the Promotion of Decent Work in Business Operations (Phase II).
The project aims to support the ILO constituents (government, employers’ and workers’ organizations), enterprises and wider stakeholders in building their capacities to further enhance responsible business conduct (RBC) and foster an enabling environment through a collective and collaborative approach.