IHP

Integrated Human Practices

Integrated Human Practices (IHP) is where we show how conversations with society shaped our project, and how PhytoBlock, in turn, aims to responsibly serve society.

Integration

Human Practices were integrated from the earliest design stages to ensure that PhytoBlock developed as a socially responsible and ecologically safe solution. Stakeholder insights continuously shaped technical, ethical, and business decisions, guiding shifts such as adopting a Bacillus subtilis chassis and prioritizing smallholder-friendly distribution strategies.

Responsibility and global relevance

Our project explicitly addressed issues identified in its Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) analysis, including child labor, deforestation, pesticide dependency, and exclusion of marginalized farmers. Measures such as the design of biological containment systems and ethical sourcing partnerships demonstrate our commitment to creating a project that is both responsible and beneficial to farming communities and ecosystems.

Stakeholder inclusion and diversity of perspectives

Engagement covered the full value chain from farmers and NGOs to industry actors such as Cargill, as well as academic experts. This ensured that multiple viewpoints were integrated. Insights from West African stakeholders grounded the social dimension, while biotech and sustainability professionals helped align the scientific and regulatory framework with real world needs.

Transparency and reproducibility

All IHP steps are publicly documented through detailed tables, stakeholder interviews, and HREDD mapping, making the methodology reproducible for future teams. The inclusion of quantitative indicators such as farmer income changes and yield improvements allows us to have measurable outcomes.

Overview

For PhytoBlock, Integrated Human Practices (IHP) is not just a checkbox—it drives how we design and improve our project. From the very beginning, we committed to inclusivity and diversity in our stakeholder engagement and set out to ensure that our solution to black pod disease would not be developed in isolation but with the people most affected by it. This meant actively seeking out diverse perspectives: from Ivorian farming cooperatives and chocolate producers to regulatory officers. Each conversation shaped our work, helping us refine technical choices, anticipate regulatory challenges, and adapt to the realities and needs of the cocoa sector.

We also recognized the importance of anticipating not just the benefits but the risks. Could our work leave certain groups out? Could solving one challenge create another? To structure these reflections, we used the Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) framework. This approach helped us turn broad values like responsibility and sustainability into practical guidance for our technical and strategic choices.

Integration of Human Practices is about closing the loop: taking what we learned from various stakeholders, reflecting on it, and feeding it back into our project design. By keeping this cycle alive, we aim to make PhytoBlock not only scientifically sound but also socially relevant, feasible, and trusted by those who will use or be impacted by it.

Team Management

Given the pace of the iGEM season, clear coordination is essential. Our team captain and sub-team leads steward planning and alignment while making space for iterative learning. We relied on a mix of frameworks—setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, pairing waterfall planning with agile execution, and tracking commitments transparently—to keep the project moving without losing flexibility.

Our S.M.A.R.T. Goals

We defined our key objectives using the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) [1]. This ensured each sub-team could track progress and know what success looked like.

Project Management Approach

We blended waterfall and agile practices to balance structure with adaptability [2]. During spring, we relied on waterfall planning—sequencing fundraising, design, and documentation milestones to align with immovable deadlines [3]. Once lab work began, we moved to fortnightly sprints: backlog reviews, stand-ups, and retrospectives helped us respond quickly to experimental results, wiki feedback, and stakeholder requests.

The hybrid approach provided two key benefits: transparent accountability for deliverables, and the ability to pivot when experiments or interviews surfaced new priorities.

Engineering Cycle

The iGEM engineering cycle—design, build, test, learn—was driven by wet lab outputs, dry lab modelling, and human practices insights. Stakeholder feedback continuously reshaped chassis selection, kill-switch design, and deployment plans. You can see the detailed iteration history on our engineering page.

Stakeholder Management

We engaged actors from across the cacao value chain: farmer cooperatives, local NGOs, international companies, regulators, academics, and policy advisers. Each dialogue helped us test assumptions, pressure-test safety frameworks, and align our solution with realities in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

To keep this grounded, we maintained a living stakeholder map and tagged every conversation with the design decisions it influenced.

Stakeholder management therefore became more than outreach—it acted as an iterative steering mechanism for our technical, ethical, and business choices.

Exploration Progress: 0 of 11 stakeholder groups visited (0%)

Stakeholder Map

We translated insights from more than 40 conversations into four engagement clusters. Each cluster had a specific learning objective, a primary contact, and a list of concrete follow-up actions.

Farmer cooperatives & field partners: CADESA, Cocoa Circle, and Project Hope and Fairness highlighted affordability limits, labour bottlenecks, and farm-level training needs. Their input shaped our price ceiling of €85/ha, the cooperative-led distribution model, and visual training modules for low-literacy contexts.
NGOs & development organisations: Trias, Beyond Beans, and Rainforest Alliance mapped human-rights risks around child labour, gender exclusion, and traceability. They co-designed our HREDD issue matrix, helped prioritise indicators tied to vulnerable farmers, and pushed us to formalise grievance mechanisms.
Industry & certification bodies: Cargill, Choprabisco, and 4C Services stress-tested logistics, procurement requirements, and certification checkpoints. Their feedback defined packaging volumes, documentation bundles for EFSA and local regulators, and the need to integrate satellite deforestation monitoring into the roadmap.
Academics & regulators: Experts from KU Leuven, Imperial College London, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, and Belgian biosafety authorities validated our dual kill switch, logic-gated AMP expression, and contained trial protocol, ensuring our technical work tracks regulatory expectations.

Feedback Cycle

Every engagement followed a Listen–Clarify–Act loop so that insights were translated into decisions rather than staying in meeting notes.

Figure 1: Feedback Cycle framework steps

Listen: Capture stakeholder priorities and constraints. CADESA emphasised rainfall-driven fungicide wash-off and cooperative budget ceilings.
Clarify: Validate interpretations through follow-up calls or shared notes. With Trias we double-checked assumptions around women’s access to training before finalising our indicator set.
Act: Implement a tangible change. After the Cargill session we added a deforestation-monitoring layer to the roadmap and mapped our impact metrics to corporate ESG reporting categories.

This loop, repeated across stakeholder types, kept the project responsive and accountable.

Stakeholder Timeline

Key engagements are captured below. Scroll horizontally or tap any card to open the Listen → Act summary we recorded after each meeting.

HREDD

The Human Rights & Environmental Due Diligence framework was co-developed by Fairtrade and B-Corp, one of the most rigorous global standards for responsible business practices, and it provided us with a tool suited for emerging initiatives like PhytoBlock [4]. We adopted HREDD not as a theoretical checklist, but as a hands-on process to uncover and manage potential impacts of PhytoBlock, and we structured it so that future iGEM teams can also adapt and apply it.

The framework cycles through four steps—Commit, Identify, Address, Track—documented below with the concrete actions we took. This approach requires organizations to move beyond goodwill and take action to respect human rights and planetary boundaries.

Figure 2: HREDD framework steps

1. Commit

Using the template provided in the framework document, we created a commitment statement adjusted to PhytoBlock that reflects our values and goals.

PhytoBlock HREDD Commitment Statement

With this document, PhytoBlock commits to respecting planetary boundaries, protecting biodiversity, and upholding internationally recognized human rights, as expressed in: the International Bill of Human Rights; the ILO's Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; the Paris Climate Agreement; the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

These include, among others:

Safe and equitable working conditions for farmers and communities.
Protection of biodiversity and ecosystems in cocoa-growing regions.
Minimization of chemical inputs and promotion of safe, sustainable alternatives.
Guaranteeing biosafety and transparency in the use of synthetic biology.

We actively seek to avoid causing or contributing to human rights violations and negative environmental impacts, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. If such impacts occur, we will work to mitigate and remediate them.
As a biotechnological project, we are committed to biosafety, transparency, and sustainability. We aim to reduce the need for harmful agrochemicals and support farming practices that strengthen resilience and sustainability in cocoa-growing regions.
We will strengthen our due diligence process over time. We seek continuous improvement in identifying, addressing, and remediating potential risks related to biosafety, human rights, and planetary boundaries, and in tracking and communicating our progress. This work is overseen by the PhytoBlock sustainability and human practices team.
To advance environmental stewardship and human rights, we call for concrete collaboration among value chain actors. We seek partnerships and collaboration with farmers, industry stakeholders, civil society, and other iGEM teams, to strengthen our biosafety, human rights, and environmental work.
We will align our project design, practices, and collaborations with this commitment. We look for partners who also respect human rights, biosafety, and environmental sustainability.
We will collaborate with our partners to raise awareness about biosafety, human rights, biodiversity protection, and planetary boundaries within our team and communicate this commitment openly to our partners and stakeholders.

This commitment has been approved by the PhytoBlock Team (KU Leuven iGEM 2025) in Leuven, Belgium on September 10, 2025.

2. Identify

An initial risk assessment was conducted by mapping the main issues in the first region we will operate in, West Africa. Then we identified 7 main issues in our value chain, as well as the people and environmental factors that would be most affected by PhytoBlock. These were prioritized based on scale, scope and likelihood. In the future, this table would be expanded to include issues of lower severities, likelihoods and priorities with a more detailed risk assessment through grievance mechanisms and regular feedback moments in order to ensure a wider view of the problems.

Issue	Risk	Affected stakeholders	SDGs	Indicators	Sources
Child labor in cocoa production	Widespread, serious human-rights harm in cocoa-growing regions	Children of farming communities, seasonal workers	SDG 8	# of children 15 recorded working on pilot farms (baseline & follow-up), % households receiving conditional support for school attendance	[5], [6] Confirmed with Beyond Beans, CADESA, Trias
Modern slavery, forced labor & poor wages	Human rights violations, worker exploitation and low wages	Hired labor, casual workers, seasonal migrants; women may be particularly vulnerable	SDG 1, 8, 10	% of households with written contracts or evidence of fair payment, pilot-level living-income gap estimate	[7], [8] Confirmed with Beyond Beans, Mondelez, Trias
Deforestation & land-use change linked to cocoa farming	Irreversible habitat loss and higher carbon emissions	Forest-frontier communities, indigenous groups, future generations	SDG 13, 15	Hectares of forest cleared within pilot area (monitor with Global Forest Watch + satellite imagery); % pilot beans traceable & verified non-deforestation	[9] Confirmed with CADESA and Trias
Culture intensification & monoculture	Reduced biodiversity and ecosystem resilience	Local wildlife, pollinators, small scale farmers relying on ecosystem services	SDG 13, 15	Plant species richness per plot and bird/insect survey indices (common rapid biodiversity assessments)	[10], [11] Confirmed with Project Hope and Fairness and Choprabisco
Genetic biosafety risks	Unintended persistence, gene transfer	Ecosystems, downstream producers, farmers	SDG 12, 15	Formal Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) before field trials, documented containment measures and regulatory approvals (EFSA)	[12], [13] Confirmed with KU Leuven academics and bioregulation experts
Increased dependency on pesticides	Increased financial strain on small scale farmers and reduced autonomy if farmers become dependent on external suppliers	Smallholder farmers with less resources	SDG 1,2,8	% population living in households with access to basic services, average income of small-scale cocoa producers, % wage spent on pesticides	[14], [15] Confirmed with Project Hope and Fairness
Exclusion of small-scale farmers	Reinforcing inequality in cocoa production, as some farmers may lack financial means, access to infrastructure, or knowledge to adopt PhytoBlock	Smallholder farmers in low-income rural areas	SDG 10	% of cocoa farmers living below 50% of median income, material footprint, material footprint per capita, and per GDP, # of small-scale farmers using PhytoBlock	[14], [16], [17] Confirmed with Project Hope and Fairness, Cocoa Circle and Trias

3. Address

To effectively respond to the identified issues, we developed a strategy structured around four hierarchized levels of action:

1. Avoid: Can we prevent the risk from arising?
2. Mitigate: If the problem is not avoidable, how can we minimize its impact?
3. Remediate: If harm occurs, how do we address it?
4. Collaborate: Who can we partner with (farmers, NGOs, policymakers…) to tackle the issue?

PhytoBlock Examples:

Modern slavery, forced labor & poor wages: To prevent our solution from reinforcing these exploitative labor practices, we prioritize partnerships with trusted, certified farmer cooperatives such as CADESA, which follow fair trade and labor standards. By collaborating with organizations like Trias and Rainforest Alliance, we ensure that smallholder farmers, often most vulnerable to exploitation, are included. In future field trials, we commit to fair compensation and transparent agreements, making sure our innovation does not reinforce existing inequities in the cocoa sector.
Genetic biosafety risks: To minimize unintended ecological impact, we are conducting extensive lab testing under expert guidance of KU Leuven professors and consulting with professors from universities like Imperial College and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, before any field applications. Our technical design incorporates a dual kill-switch mechanism. We also plan to continue the dialogue with regulatory bodies and experts such as Charlotte Klank to build trust and accountability in how our biosafety measures are tested and implemented.

4. Track

Tracking progress is central to making PhytoBlock accountable and credible. As our project operates in both the lab and the field, we established a monitoring system that combines scientific rigor with stakeholder participation and balances quantitative and qualitative measures. Some examples of specific potential indicators can be found in the issues table.

How we chose indicators:

We consulted the Shift Project's Indicator Design Tool [18] which stresses the need for indicators that are specific, outcome-focused, and practical.
A vulnerability lens will be applied, highlighting effects on smallholder farmers, women, and biodiversity hotspots.
Indicators will be selected for their traceability by local partners and their ability to feed into industry-level decision-making.

Data collection methodology:

Local partnerships: through farmer cooperatives such as CADESA, industry leaders like Cargill and organizations like Trias and Rainforest Alliance we aim to ensure cultural and contextual accuracy, while allowing us to reach smaller producers who might otherwise be excluded.
Industry input: Chocolate industry partners like Cargill help validate indicators relevant to scalability, regulatory compliance, and economic feasibility.
Regularity: Close monitoring is carried out during initial lab and pilot phases, followed by monthly updates once field trials stabilize. Flexibility is maintained to add "pop-up" assessments if unexpected issues arise.
Triangulation: Quantitative data should be combined with qualitative insights (e.g., farmer satisfaction, inclusivity of engagement) to give a holistic picture.

5. Communicate

To ensure transparency, we will share monthly reports with all project stakeholders, using a standardized template. These reports will provide regular updates on progress, challenges, and next steps. Each report will also include clear contact details and invite feedback, serving as a grievance mechanism to help us continuously identify and address issues across our value chain.

Monthly Update Report Template

Title: PhytoBlock HREDD Monthly Update – September 2025

Overview: Key activities this month (e.g. stakeholder meetings, lab updates).
Issues Identified: New risks or concerns raised.
Actions Taken: What we did to address previously identified risks.
Indicator Update: Metrics progress
Next Steps: Planned actions for the coming month.

References

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[4] B. Gouw and Lumme, 'B Lab Global and Fairtrade International partner to support small, micro companies in developing stronger due diligence on human rights and environmental'. Accessed: Sept. 09, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://www.bcorporation.net//en-us/news/blog/fairtrade-international-partnership-due-dilligence-small-business-guide/.

[5] International Labour Organization and United Nations Children's Fund, 'Child Labour: Global Estimates 2024, Trends and the Road Forward', ILO and UNICEF, Geneva and New York, 2025.

[6] L. Pirkle, C. Zimmerman, S. Sadhu, K. Kysia, and M. Ranganathan, 'Child labour in cocoa growing regions of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire: an analysis of academic attainment in children engaged in hazardous labour.', Global Public Health, vol. 19, no. 1, p. 2320860, Dec. 2024, doi: 10.1080/17441692.2024.2320860.

[7] International Labour Organization, Wages in Africa: Recent trends in average wages, gender pay gaps and wage disparities. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/WCMS_734374/lang--en/index.htm.

[8] Internationales Arbeitsamt, Walk Free Foundation, and International Organization for Migration, Eds., Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage. Geneva: International Labour Office, 2022.

[9] M. Schneider, C. Winchester, E. Goldman, and Y. Shao, 'Mapping Cocoa and Assessing Deforestation Risk for the Cocoa Sector in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana', WRIPUB, Nov. 2023, doi: 10.46830/writn.21.00011.

[10] F. Ruf and G. Schroth, 'Chocolate forests and monocultures - an historical review of cocoa growing and its conflicting role in tropical deforestation and forest conservation', 2004, pp. 107–134.

[11] C. Andres, H. Comoé, A. Beerli, M. Schneider, S. Rist, and J. Jacobi, 'Cocoa in Monoculture and Dynamic Agroforestry', in Sustainable Agriculture Reviews: Volume 19, E. Lichtfouse, Ed., Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp. 121–153. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-26777-7_3.

[12] European Food Safety Authority, 'Guidance on the risk assessment of genetically modified microorganisms and their products intended for food and feed use', EFSA Journal, no. 2011;9(6):2193, doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2193.

[13] L. Fenta and H. Mekonnen, 'Microbial Biofungicides as a Substitute for Chemical Fungicides in the Control of Phytopathogens: Current Perspectives and Research Directions', Scientifica, vol. 2024, pp. 1–12, Feb. 2024, doi: 10.1155/2024/5322696.

[14] A. Damilola Kehinde, 'Access to trade credit and its impact on the use of European Union (EU) approved pesticides among smallholder cocoa farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria', Heliyon, vol. 8, no. 12, p. e12409, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12409.

[15] M. Tamò, I. Glitho, G. Tepa-Yotto, and R. Muniappan, 'How does IPM 3.0 look like (and why do we need it in Africa)?', Current Opinion in Insect Science, vol. 53, p. 100961, Oct. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.cois.2022.100961.

[16] T. Mulugeta et al., 'Smallholder farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding agricultural inputs with a focus on agricultural biologicals', Heliyon, vol. 10, no. 4, p. e26719, Feb. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26719.

[17] H. Sekabira et al., 'Biobased Product Design, Development, and Utilization in the Global South', in Sustainable Bioeconomy Development in the Global South: Volume II Bioeconomy Techniques, M. C. Ogwu, S. C. Izah, J. G. Vazquez-Arenas, S. T. Feleke, and X. Wei, Eds., Singapore: Springer Nature, 2025, pp. 95–129. doi: 10.1007/978-981-96-0305-3_4.

[18] Shift Project, 'The Indicator Design Tool', Shift. Accessed: Sept. 10, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://shiftproject.org/resource/indicator-design/the-indicator-design-tool/.

Table of Contents

Integrated Human Practices

Integration

Responsibility and global relevance

Stakeholder inclusion and diversity of perspectives

Transparency and reproducibility

Overview

Team Management

Our S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Description

Indicators

Description

Indicators

Description

Indicators

Description

Indicators

Project Management Approach

Engineering Cycle

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder Map

Feedback Cycle

Stakeholder Timeline

HREDD

1. Commit

PhytoBlock HREDD Commitment Statement

2. Identify

3. Address

4. Track

5. Communicate

Monthly Update Report Template

References