Labour rights assessment: L’Oréal’s bergamot supply chain in Italy

The aims and objectives of this labour rights assessment were to:

• Identify and describe the actual and potential human rights risks and impacts in L’Oréal’s bergamot supply chain – with a particular focus on labour rights – based on desktop review, observations and interviews with representatives of suppliers (farm owners), management, workers and external stakeholders (trade unions, civil society organisations, intergovernmental organisations);
• Propose actionable recommendations to L’Oréal on how to address identified actual and potential human rights risks and impacts;
• Jointly build an understanding of the challenges in the citrus supply chain, with a particular focus on bergamot.

Background

L’Oréal, the world’s largest beauty company, commissioned the Danish Institute for Human Rights to conduct an impact assessment in its citrus supply chain in the Calabria region of Italy to better understand the actual and potential human rights impacts with a particular focus on labour rights. The main focus of the assessment was the citrus fruit bergamot, which only grows in this region of the world.

The report shares the findings of the assessment as well as recommendations to L’Oréal.