Commodities

There are hundreds of commodities that are traded across the world daily - broadly divided into two categories. Hard commodities are extracted from the ground, and soft commodities are mainly agricultural (ranging from rice to cotton to timber). Hard commodities such as coal and oil have contributed to the climate crisis, whilst others - such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths – play a critical role in the transition to a low carbon economy. If not managed properly, the growing markets for, and extraction of these commodities can cause human rights harms for workers, children, communities, indigenous peoples and the environment. 

IHRB works on a range of issues relating to trade and commodities, focusing in particular on addressing adverse human rights impacts associated with the extraction of commodities as well as efforts to improve the performance of actors involved in buying, refining, trading and transporting commodities across global markets.

Extraction is of particular relevance with the exponential demand for transition minerals (copper, cobalt etc) needed to accommodate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

IHRB’s Commodities Programme sits across several programmes, including Built Environment, Just Transitions, and Migrant Workers and comprises several projects. The core of the programme focuses on how commodity traders – who are often removed from the production processes – can ensure human rights due diligence on the commodities they trade. We do this by engaging with industry, governments, standards organisations and civil society to raise standards sector-wide. This work covers all commodities. Other commodities work focuses specifically on hard commodities (energy transition minerals or ETMs) associated with low carbon energy.