10 actions business can take on just transition now

Just Transition is high on the agenda at COP30 , and rightly so. The deep economic and societal restructuring required to keep the current 1.5 degree overshoot as brief as possible will only gain widespread public support if it also addresses deepening inequality and meets workers’ and communities’ demands for decent work and respect for rights. 

President Lula has insisted this COP will focus on action. This is welcome, but business doesn’t need to wait for the gavel to fall on COP30’s final text.  Whilst we don’t know everything, we certainly know enough to start making just transitions a reality in global supply chains. 

Here are ten actions responsible businesses can take now.

Action #1, Integrate – build bridges internally

Set-up regular cross-departmental meetings between environment and human rights teams: share and review plans; identify key nexus points ripe for collaboration.

In many companies, environment and human rights teams still operate separately. But just transitions require understanding environmental and social issues as deeply interconnected. Extreme heat, flood risk, unseasonable weather patterns, chemical contamination of water systems are environmental impacts with serious, sometimes dangerous consequences for people, especially workers.

Breaking down the internal siloes is foundational. Environment and human rights teams need to work together not in parallel. 

Action #2, Look deep into supply chains and ask: do our practices as buyers help or hinder our suppliers’ ability to manage climate shocks and stresses?

Suppliers worldwide are already grappling with a warmer, more volatile climate. Devastating rainfall and flooding in Spain and Bangladesh in 2024, and Hurricane Melissa recently in the Caribbean, are sobering reminders. The frequency and severity of climate events will only worsen. 

Primary production is at the frontline, but impacts are felt across processing, manufacturing and transport. Despite the enormity of the challenge, lead firms can work with their suppliers to understand these realities, and crucially, ask how their own supply chain management and purchasing practices help or hinder during crises.

Action #3, Build long-term strategic relationships with suppliers, include sourcing commitments 

Open and honest communication matters, but so do long-term sourcing commitments. Without a level of near and medium term business certainty, suppliers cannot invest in infrastructure upgrades or  worker training needed for supply chain resilience – resilience that ultimately benefits all supply chain actors. 

Action #4, Build flexibility into critical path

In recent discussions with ETI company members, major global brands highlighted the importance of building flexibility into production timelines, especially during periods when climate risks are highest. Extreme heat is more common in summer months; flooding in South Asia is more likely during monsoon season. These impacts make work more hazardous. 

Avoid peak orders during high risk periods and lengthen lead times. Reducing unnecessary pressure on suppliers, directly reduces human rights risks.

Action #5, Seek supply chain transparency, but don’t wait for perfection before acting 

Of course, a level of supply chain transparency is needed for much of the above, and ETI members are making important strides in this. But don’t delay action while waiting for perfect visibility. Commit to transparency and keep improving it, but also pick up the phone. Speak to key suppliers about experiences and work together to agree simple, tangible adjustments to supply chain management and purchasing practices that can strengthen resilience now.

Action #6, Bring human rights into climate transition planning; seek evidence, not assumptions

Many responsible businesses have ambitious net zero and sustainability goals on other related key topics such as waste, water and chemical use. To turn these goals into action in apparel and textiles, and food, farming and fisheries – two of ETI’s focus sectors – we see two important strategies being deployed: circular fashion and sustainable agriculture. Yet, we find the social dimensions, especially impacts for workers’ rights, are often underexamined in these plans. 

There is an assumption that what is good for the planet is automatically good for people.  In many cases this is true, but we encourage companies not to simply assume this, but to interrogate it. 

Ask:
- Who are the workers in circular fashion supply chains? Where are they based? What are their working conditions like? and Who represents them? 
- When agricultural production transitions to sustainable, regenerative, or nature friendly practices, how do human rights risks for farm workers and nearby communities change?  Do they improve, worsen, or stay the same? 

Our intention is not to slow down transitions, but to ensure workers’ and human rights are at their centre, and that decision-making and planning is evidence based.

This loops back to Action #1: environment and human rights teams need shared processes for reviewing plans and closing gaps.

Action #7, Shift the narrative: workers are allies and social dialogue is key 

Social dialogue with workers sits at the heart of just transitions.  But for large companies sourcing from dozens of different countries and potentially thousands of different suppliers, the expectation that firms would get actively and directly involved with dialogue at supply sites may be unrealistic.  Instead, recognise that freedom of association, worker representation, and collective bargaining are mechanisms through which social dialogue happens. 

Lead firms can take concrete steps to institutionalise their support for these fundamental enabling rights by: 
a) Publishing an organisational policy commitment to freedom of association and collective bargaining; 
b) Training key colleagues within the company on the policy and the legal frameworks that underpin it, such as ILO conventions 87 and 98;
c) Developing a sourcing strategy that prioritises sourcing from countries and suppliers where the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining are respected; 
d) Socialising this policy with suppliers, ensuring it is reflected in codes of conduct; 
e) Requesting worker representatives join key meetings during site visits, demonstrating commitment to their inclusion in these forums;
f) Supporting initiatives that strengthen the capacity and role of worker representatives at suppliers; and, where appropriate;
g) Establishing global framework agreements with international trade union federations.

Freedom of association and collective bargaining are fundamental human rights enshrined in international conventions. Social dialogue enables supply chain partners to address issues proactively, before they become problems, whether those relate to climate impacts, transition-related changes, or broader decent work challenges.

Action #8, Bring commercial teams into the conversation

It’s not enough to only strengthen links between environment and human rights teams: relentless downward pressure on price and short-term transactional supply chain relationships are simply incompatible with resilient supply chains and just transitions. Buyers need to be part of the conversation.

Global standards such as the UNGPs, the OECD due diligence framework, ILO conventions, and ETI Base Code, apply universally – with or without the climate crisis and net zero transition. Commercial teams need to understand this; it will take time, but we have to bring them into the conversation and upskill them in these areas. 

Action #9, Be honest about the costs, but don’t let debate stall progress

Let’s be direct: building climate resilient supply chains that respect workers’ rights isn’t cost free. We know that there are already increasing pressures on suppliers to meet environmental standards, yet evidence shows that lead firms expect compliance without co-financing or fair pricing. 

Similarly, when minimum wages increase in supplier countries, those costs are often not reflected in prices paid by buyers. 

Underpinning both of these issues is the same distorted and perilous dynamic: a inequitable distribution of responsibility and risk.  Campaigners, customers, investors, staff and supply chain partners are right to call-out hollow rhetoric in these instances. The first step is honesty about costs and ensuring costing systems and tools incorporate them.

Action #10, Identify champions, secure leadership support, align internally

Leadership buy-in at multiple levels is crucial. Identify and cultivate champions across teams. Seize windows of opportunity - UN international days, climate-related extreme events , or spikes in customer or investor interest – to bring just transitions into leadership conversations. 

Use both formal and informal spaces to strategise and support one another when the going gets tough, because it will. Internal alignment of policies and strategies is the goal: human rights embedded in environmental commitments, environmental considerations embedded in human rights work, and both informing commercial strategy and daily decision-making.

Final remarks 

These actions will help businesses to get started on just transitions. But there’s a lot more that needs to happen to secure a liveable planet for future generations and to ensure that the workers, on whom we all rely for everyday goods and services, are employed in conditions where their right to decent work is respected. Further actions will become clearer as relationships strengthen, lessons emerge, and as new opportunities and needs are identified.

Ultimately, businesses have to make a choice – whether to seek short-term profit from fragile supply chains built on transactional relationships and at higher risk of labour exploitation and environmental degradation; or to invest in resilient supply chains where the risks and responsibilities of transition are understood and shared equitably between supply chain partners. 

The growing body of HREDD legislation around the world indicates that society is willing to regulate business in the direction of the latter, but this will take time. The choice facing companies now is whether they wish to be on the front foot and prepared for this shift, or whether they prefer to be reactive and wait for the change to be forced on them. 

The urgency of the climate crisis is irrefutable.  Hopes are high for COP30.  But to be deserving of the epithet, the responsible business community cannot simply wait for negotiations to deliver the hoped for outcome.  We can and we must start delivering on just transitions in our own businesses and supply chains now.