Rubber is everywhere to be found in Danish homes. You use rubber when you use condoms, rubber gloves, wellingtons, mattresses/top mattresses with rubber, pacifiers, balloons, rubberbands etc.
There is also rubber in many products in the healthcare sector, for instance in the more than 50 million rubber gloves that are used in Danish hospitals for examinations and operations throughout the year.
The rubber industry is a global billion kroner industry with millions of rubber farmers and workers. More than 90 percent of the world’s rubber originates from large plantations and small farms in southeast Asia. Nonetheless, the rubber industry has operated below the radar in terms of investigations of socially responsible supply chain management. The aim of this investigation is to change that.
DanWatch has investigated how a number of companies that are behind the common rubber products for Danish consumers and the Danish healthcare sector work with social responsibility on paper and in practice. The investigation addresses the work of 32 companies with socially responsible supply chain management on paper and in practice. This applies for companies that sell wellingtons, rubber gloves (to consumers and the healthcare sector), mattresses and condoms.
The investigation also addresses working conditions at rubber plantations and social conditions for rubber farmers in Asia, which DanWatch has investigated on field trips.