Modern Slavery in Supply Chains: What You Don’t Know May Hurt You

Introduction

The ‘Transparency in Supply Chain’ clause of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires around 11,000 companies operating in the UK to publish a ‘slavery and human trafficking statement’ within 6 months of each financial year end. The statement must specify the actions taken by the company to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not present in any part of the business or supply chain. This requirement is legally binding and mandatory for all companies that fall under the following criteria:

• Turnover of £36m per year or above
• All those that ‘carry on a business’ in UK – but could be incorporated elsewhere
• Private, public or non-profit – all are affected equally
• Those using goods for sale or service
• Have a 31^st March 2016 year end, or later

What Do I Do?

Ecometrica has prepared a number of resources to help you understand and comply with the new regulations. Firstly, a paper written by Ecometrica Researcher Hermione Fleck outlines all the detail of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 that relates to supply chain transparency for businesses. There, you can get all the information you need to decide whether your organisation is directly or indirectly affected by the regulations.

Secondly, as a result of her paper, Hermione has created a practical, realistic 9-step action plan to help any company to prepare for the regulations, both now and in the future. These steps are all real, tangible, specific action points that your company can start putting into place immediately.

Thirdly, to help with some of the points included in the 9-step guide, Ecometrica has produced a detailed infographic of the main geographical areas that are at risk from bonded and child labour, the steps being taken to reduce it in those regions, and the key products that are vulnerable to being generated as a result of modern slavery.

You can download all three resources by using the links below:

Modern Slavery Infographic: Impact by State and Product

Further Information

The Ecometrica Platform can help you to track what’s happening in your supply chain, across a number of stages and at varying levels of complexity, by combining historical data with near real-time satellite feeds, local information and your existing business intelligence. The Platform’s Social module, combined with other Sustainability modules like Ethical and Supply Chain, can be used both by impact investors to track their portfolios or assess risk from new investments, or organisations looking to prove their social and environmental credentials.

The Ecometrica Platform brings together sustainability, environmental, risk and business management with geospatial intelligence and mapping applications to allow businesses, governments and organisations to make smarter decisions and build long-term value.