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Incorporate Human and Environmental Rights safeguards into the Vegan Society Product accreditation process
The Summary
Human and Environmental rights are intrinsically linked to animal rights and Veganism.
The current Vegan Society product accreditation process confirms that the product has no animal or animal derivatives in it. However, there are no safeguards in the process to ensure the legal treatment of animals, humans and the environment. In theory a company could be involved in child slavery, have broken animal welfare laws or been found guilty of environmental atrocities and yet still have Vegan Society accreditation.
This petition will suggest a process by which the Vegan Society could incorporate animal, human and environmental protection into its accreditation procedure without increasing its costs, time or administration of the accreditation process. Similarly, it will only result in reduced income if the applicant for accreditation has committed crimes against animals, humans or the environment or has violated its own policies.
The Details
The process suggested by this petition will allow the Vegan Society to;
- Reject applicants who have violated animal, human & environmental legislation.
- Revoke the Vegan Society accreditation if the accredited company violates any animal, human or environmental legislation or company policy.
This petition recognises that;
- the income gained from accreditation is an important source of funds for the Vegan Society.
- the process of awarding the Vegan Society accreditation is time consuming and expensive.
- the Vegan Society accreditation is important to all vegans.
The mechanism by which this will be achieved is to include a self-certification of legislative compliance, and submission of company policies and compliance thereof, relating to the following issues;
- Animal Welfare legislation
- Human Rights legislation
- Environmental legislation
The Petition
We the undersigned request that the Vegan Society create a committee to investigate and implement a self-certification process in the Vegan Society product accreditation process that ensures that companies applying, and holding Vegan Society product accreditation, are and have been, operating with the legislative framework.
NB the “company” is the applicant or the holder of a Vegan Society product accreditation
The areas that the committee will need to investigate are, but not limited to, for each of the following Animal Welfare, Human Rights and Environmental issues;
- What constitutes a company with regards to breach? The ultimate holding company and all its subsidiaries? Only the company itself? One, two, etc holding companies above the company requesting accreditation? etc
- What legislative framework must the company be in compliance with? The country in which the potential violation occurred? UN legislation? or a regulatory body? etc
- What constitutes a breach? Legal action? Breaking their own policy? Regulatory body fine?
- Which companies must submit a company policy? Turnover greater than $10M, $20M etc
- Legislation is a construct of the powerful, hence, are there any additional requirements that are currently legal that we would want to include, such as zero CO2 targets, rainforest destruction, air pollution, recycling policy, a plastic policy etc
