Garments

Politicians and companies see the need to address labour rights issues in South Indian textile industry

The report Captured by Cotton by SOMO and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) was published in May 2011, looking at how South Indian girls and young women are making our clothing in wretched conditions. This evoked responses from businesses, civil society and politicians, and was given a great deal of media coverage. Furthermore, various companies have acknowledged the issue and are working together with interested parties on an improvement plan. SOMO and LIW will be following up on concrete developments in this area.
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Tax Avoidance

'Tax haven the Netherlands’ as a problem for developing countries

The social debate about 'Tax haven the Netherlands' reminds the Ministry of Finance of its responsibility to ensure that developing countries do not suffer as a result of Dutch tax policy. This is supported by the programme broadcast by Zembla on 18 October 2009 and questions put in Parliament by the SP and PVV political parties. The work of SOMO forms the basis of this debate, including the report ‘The Netherlands: A tax haven?’ and the establishment of Tax Justice NL.
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Tea

Sustainability in the tea sector

‘Sustainability issues in the tea sector’, the SOMO report from June 2008, turned out to be the first of its kind, and was therefore an important moment for the stakeholders in the global tea sector. SOMO’s report identifies situations in the tea sector which are harmful to both humans and the environment. Unilever and Sara Lee (Pickwick) responded in the Dutch media. For the first time, they publicly acknowledged their (shared) responsibility for the abuses referred to in the SOMO report. Various tea producers have meanwhile started to use sustainable hallmarks for part of their products.
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Energy

Politics stirred up in public debate about sustainability of energy companies.

Partly thanks to the campaigns of Greenpeace and SOMO's research, a political and public debate has arisen in the Netherlands in recent years about the usefulness of new coal-fired power stations. All six of the coal-fired power stations which were scheduled to come online in 2007, when SOMO carried out this research for the first time, have been delayed or cancelled.
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Electronics

Increasing awareness among consumers of the link between conflict minerals and mobile phones 

More than thirty different metals are needed in the production of mobile phones, computers and other electronics products. Research has shown that serious breaches of human rights and environmental problems take place during the mining of the raw materials in developing countries. Access to these raw materials also fans the flames of bloody conflicts in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where cassiterite (tin), gold, coltan and wolframite are mined. SOMO has played a role in promoting increased attention for this subject. Partly as a result of this, recent media attention paid to subjects such as 'conflict minerals' and 'blood mobile phones' has been based on knowledge from SOMO and studies by the European campaign makeITfair.
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Recycling and re-use of electronics is being given more attention

The mountain of waste from computers, television sets, mobile phones and other old electronic products (e-waste) is growing. This is causing serious problems for people and the environment worldwide. The problem of e-waste can be tackled by introducing changes to the recycling and production of electronics. This is a reason for SOMO to propose policy changes and to encourage companies to take responsibility for the waste attached to their products. This was fleshed out in 2010 by the contribution by SOMO to the European policy debate on the electronic waste directive (the WEEE directive), which is currently showing a cautious improvement. In addition, SOMO called on mobile telephony providers – via the makeITfair campaign – to ensure more recycling of telephones. As a result, recycling is now higher on the list of priorities of mobile telephony providers.
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Electronics/Extractives

Electronics companies are acknowledging their responsibility for the mining of metals in developing countries

During a meeting in 2007 of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), an initiative of businesses in the electronics sector, companies referred to SOMO's proposal that they take responsibility for the mining of metals for their products as 'utter madness'. According to the companies, the mining of raw materials does not fall under their responsibility, but under that of their suppliers. Moreover, how could they know what went wrong at the start of the chain? Several years later, after various studies and dialogues, electronics companies understood their influential position and recognised their responsibility.
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Pharmaceuticals

Putting EU regulations for the protection of test subjects in developing countries on the agenda

The successful lobbying by WEMOS and SOMO, and the research by SOMO which formed the basis for it, have resulted in the European Medicines Agency (EMA) really getting to work now. The EMA will be implementing the current EU legislation on the testing of medicines for the European market on people outside Europe.
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