Friedel Hütz-Adams

Friedel Hütz-Adams is working as a researcher at SUEWIND-Institute since 1993. He published research papers on value chains of various products including metals for the car and the mobile phone industry, but also on agricultural products like bananas, hazelnuts, palm oil and cocoa. Additionally, he is deeply involved in the debate about the impact of voluntary and mandatory approaches of companies and government to protect human rights in global value chains. Besides research for studies, Friedel Hütz-Adams organized conferences to strengthen the cooperation in different value chains.

During the last decade, his focus was on the cocoa sector. He published various studies on cocoa production in various cocoa producing states, poverty, human rights abuses including child labour, human rights due diligence obligations and the impact of standard setting organization.

Friedel Hütz-Adams is engaged in VOICE, a network of NGOs and unions working on cocoa; and he was a member of the board of the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (2012-2017), a round table of more than 70 Companies, NGOs, unions, research institutions and standard setting bodies.