Modern slavery and human rights due diligence Increasing global scrutiny and legislation requires organisations to develop and deliver effective due diligence. We can help.

“This case illustrates the enormous harm that victims of exploitation suffer. Your business has a role to play in identifying and preventing exploitation.” 
Letter from Dame Sara Thornton to companies, 16 July 2019

Businesses have an obligation to respect human rights in their own operations, associated products, and services and through their business relationships. The introduction of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015 started to bring the conversation to a wider business community.

The increase in legislation at an international level, the increase in civil litigation cases and the increase in interest of the finance sector through the ESG agenda, has moved the issue of modern slavery and human rights due diligence to a key business activity for businesses of all shapes, sizes, and complexities.

Businesses are moving from awareness raising to action and the challenge is to understand how to embed considerations relating to modern slavery and human rights into the heart of businesses, ensuring that it stands alongside other considerations in the sustainability agenda.

Thanks to COP26 the concept of a just transition is starting to provide businesses with a focus on ensuring that climate change strategies are developed with people at the core. This has helped further increase the need for businesses to develop and embed modern slavery and human rights requirements throughout their operations.

BS25700 – Organisational Response to Addressing Modern Slavery

In August 2022 the first standard was launched to help businesses to address the modern slavery issues within their organisation and associated supply chains. As part of the authoring committee and providing technical expertise on procurement, supply chain requirements, and best practice, we are proud to support the standard which provides a comprehensive overview for organisations to follow.  The standard is open access and available here.

If you want to understand how your organisation is performing against the standard, or how you can implement requirements, get in touch.

Action Sustainability are passionate about helping your business address these challenges in a pragmatic and effective way.

What does this support look like?

Gap analysis

To understand activities, you need to undertake to embed effective due diligence, it is always good to assess what you don’t know and where your knowledge gaps lie.

To support you we can:

  • Evaluate your current activity using criteria aligned with the UN Guiding Principles for Human Rights and Business.
  • Evaluate your current processes to understand where interventions can be embedded in existing systems to support the approach of modern slavery and human rights considerations being part of the “day job”.
  • Provide a road map designed to help you prioritise activity that addresses due diligence.
  • Engage with your internal stakeholders to get an understanding of awareness and evidence of application of existing requirements.

Policy Development

Effective policies not only communicate intension to the outside stakeholder community, but also provide direction for your internal stakeholders.  They provide the golden thread for key activity in your organisation across various departments.

To support you we can:

Develop your modern slavery and/or human rights policy.

Engage with your stakeholders to assess the level of ambition.

Test policy requirements with key stakeholders to understand feasibility and identify challenges for implementation.

Enabling your organisation

The key to successful implementation is a change management process that enables and empowers individuals in your organisation to act.

To support you we can:

Review existing governance requirements and develop requirements relating to modern slavery and/or human rights.

Train individuals within your organisation to various levels of competency – from beginner to advanced – in how they can apply the governance requirements in their everyday working life.

Develop key metrics that can be collected to evidence due diligence activity and its effectiveness.

Supply Chain Management

It is impossible for any business to declare that there are zero victims of forced labour in their supply chain.  They may exist at an indirect level, but the reality is that due to the number of global victims, most business supply chains have been infiltrated to a lesser or larger extent.

Supply Chain due diligence is about understanding where modern slavery may occur in your supply chain and what activity you can undertake to address it.

To support you we can:

Identify where risks in your supply chain are likely to exist.

Prioritise those risks to undertake a supply chain mapping activity.

Update your procurement process to ensure that modern slavery and/or human rights requirements are embedded.

Collaborate with your supply chain to help raise awareness and identify activities that needs to be undertaken.

Evaluate your supply chains management systems to ensure they have processes in place to address the issue of modern slavery and/or human rights.

BS25700 – Organisational Response to Addressing Modern Slavery

In August 2022 the first standard was launched to help businesses to address the modern slavery issues within their organisation and associated supply chains. As part of the authoring committee and providing technical expertise on procurement, supply chain requirements, and best practice, we are proud to support the standard which provides a comprehensive overview for organisations to follow.  The standard is open access and available here.

If you want to understand how your organisation is performing against the standard, or how you can implement requirements, get in touch.

Modern Slavery Week 2022

In November 2022, we hosted our very own Modern Slavery Week, where our modern slavery consultancy team delivered a FREE webinar each day focusing on offering up a sample of what we deliver for our clients and help you get the skills needed to tackle modern slavery in your business and supply chain.

Watch all five webinars from the week with our playlist:


Testimonials

“Action Sustainability developed their training in consultation with both councils. They were always receptive and flexible to ensure the content met the needs of attendees, whilst aligning with the respective procurement strategies.

The knowledge and passion from the trainers made all the sessions successful, and the high level of interaction ensured the messages were well received by a range of attendees. The training has led to an increased awareness and knowledge of modern slavery in supply chains, and conversations have started about the next steps taken by both councils to continue this work.” – Charlotte Jamieson, Modern Slavery and Exploitation Coordinator, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, and Westminster City Council

“The work achieved with Action Sustainability has helped us identify medium to high risk spend categories where modern slavery may occur and helped us in creating a tender process to help manage this risk. Through creative work and collaboration from both our teams, we are working to raise awareness amongst our colleagues of where modern slavery can occur so we can continue to tackle this issue both within the GLA Group and our supply chain” – Stuart Coates, Responsible Procurement Manager, Transport for London (Greater London Authority).

“Morgan Sindall has had invaluable support from Action Sustainability with regards to shaping an action plan to combat modern slavery within our extensive supply chain. The depth of experience of their team has helped us in identifying areas of risk, and working alongside our procurement team, it has resulted in the production of a best-in-class action plan that benefits from the close working commitment from the Action Sustainability team. Without doubt, they are to be considered leaders in this field” – Graham Edgell,  Supply Chain Director, Morgan Sindall 

“Action Sustainability have been instrumental in shaping our sectors understanding of the issues around the MSA and in developing support and solutions to help us to respond to them.”  Aaron Reid, Sustainable Supply Chain Manager, Balfour Beatty

“Action Sustainability, and Helen Carter in particular, have developed a strong capability to support companies responding to the Modern Slavery Act. This includes a knowledge base of materials that provide understanding of the Act and guidance on how to embed the necessary changes in a company’s policy and processes. They are acknowledged as experts in the construction and FM sectors, and Helen is a respected conference speaker.” – Dan Firth – Sustainable Procurement Manager, Interserve

“Today’s procurement professionals must understand how to deal with all kinds of risk; a good practical session on how to deal with very difficult challenges with suppliers where there is risk to their employees, local environment and community; we all have a responsibility to our companies, our customers and to our own standards in our home nations.” – Delegate – ICM Supplier Conference, Florida

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