The Social & Labor Convergence Program (SLCP) has come up with a new Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) toolkit equipped with a system, process and a unique value-add that supports human rights due diligence across supply chains.
- The HRDD Toolkit explains how SLCP's Converged Assessment Framework (CAF) is uniquely useful in supporting HRDD compliance.
- SLCP facilitates due diligence efforts by informing companies of their due diligence impacts. This is a critical part of the ‘facilitation initiative’ role. SLCP is built on the principles of stakeholder collaboration, harmonisation of assessments, accountability and driving transparency.
- It is critical for sustainability initiatives to be clear on which components of due diligence they can support, and the HRDD Toolkit provides an honest depiction of SLCP’s tool, system, design, and scope to ensure that the approach aligns with the demands of the policy, guidance, or law.
The Highlights: SLCP's unique value-add for supporting human rights due diligence is highlighted by the following four categories:
- CAF a foundational social assessment. The CAF is a broad social assessment that can act as a first step for companies when undertaking human rights due diligence. By asking questions on a wide range of social and labour compliance topics, it comprehensively covers many risks that companies need to address in their supply chain.
- SLCP prioritises credible and actionable data SLCP prioritises data quality. SLCP facilitates the sharing of aggregated data and works with key partners to inform industry stakeholders on the sector specific trends in supply chains. The data represents the working conditions in a facility. With facility ownership at the core of the data collection process, SLCP understands the immense demand for actionable and credible data particularly when it is used for policy compliance. With quality data and a unique 'facility ownership' model, facilities and workers can provide information regarding human rights impacts to stakeholders such as complying companies.
- Tool mapped against international labour standards & national labour laws. Through SLCP's collaboration with ILO Better Work, the CAF is mapped against international labour standards and national labour law. This means that the data collected is highly relevant to any emerging policy which aligns with the existing standards.
- Capacity to unlock resources for improvement programmes. By using a converged tool, stakeholders can reduce the focus on repetitive auditing and redirect resources into improvement programmes which can include measures to prevent, mitigate, and remedy harms — other key steps to the due diligence process.
Human Rights Impacts: With the expanding scope of human rights due diligence, more and more businesses in global supply chains will need to reinforce or establish new mechanisms to guarantee that they respect human rights. One foundational element of this is understanding the working conditions in facilities.
- Going beyond voluntary frameworks such as the OECD Due Diligence Guidance, the European Union, Germany, and the United States—among others—are enforcing mandatory requirements for companies to identify, assess, prevent, and mitigate their human rights impacts.
- While the responsibility to undertake HRDD remains firmly on the complying company, SLCP, along with other effective initiatives, can provide support.
WHAT THEY SAID:
There is a growing appetite from various stakeholders for clear, practical communication on how initiatives can support human rights due diligence. SLCP offers an effective tool for supporting due diligence. With over 75% of facilities who completed SLCP assessments in 2022 being repeat users of the tool, SLCP data can now be used not only to identify risks, but to track and monitor progress towards improved working conditions. We are pleased that the HRDD Toolkit provides evidence to demonstrate SLCP’s usefulness in this context.
— Janet Mensink
Executive Director
Social & Labor Convergence Program
Through increased alignment, Fair Wear and SLCP re-iterate the joint vision for enhanced cooperation between brands and reducing the burden on manufacturers in the gathering and verification of social and labor data to support human rights due diligence. By facilitating companies in conducting human rights due diligence, we can jointly avoid duplicative efforts & focus on promoting impactful implementation.
— Hester Janssens
External Relations Officer
Fair Wear Foundation
