In today’s global economy, goods and services are consumed far from where they are produced. Global brands procure their products from tens of thousands of suppliers, making it difficult to trace a path from raw material to finished product. The overwhelming complexity of global supply chains puts millions of people, including children, at risk of forced labor and exploitation. Tens of billions of dollars worth of everyday goods that make up our diets and daily routines, from coffee and chocolate to cell phones and the clothes we wear, are tainted by forced labor.
Despite consumers’ increased demand for socially responsible goods, detecting forced labor remains a challenge. Companies contract with first tier suppliers but lose visibility on lower-tier factories beyond that. When labor is unseen, companies and governments have limited oversight or accountability. These are the conditions that allow slavery to persist and thrive.
GFEMS works with partners around the globe to improve supply chain integrity, from beginning to end. We develop tools and technologies to help companies ensure their products are ethically sourced, and we produce research and learnings to help governments better regulate unfair and exploitative practices.
Predicting Risk and Minimizing Burden on Companies
To address the challenge of identifying instances of forced labor in increasingly complex supply chains, GFEMS created FLARE: a scalable machine learning tool in-house that predicts the risk of forced labor at the company level with nearly 84% accuracy. By utilizing existing datasets and open source data to identify risks of forced labor, this tool minimizes the cost and burden of data collection, and acts as a first-pass screening tool for companies to perform due diligence.
Identifying Risks at Deeper Levels
We worked with a consortium of partners, including ELEVATE Limited, Diginex Solutions, RCS Global, and Responsible Mining Initiative, on a project to enhance the tracing of goods made with forced or child labor. Our partners are designing and building a supply chain tracing system that captures traceability and verification data to enable companies to assess child or forced labor at deeper levels of their supply chains. Pilot tracing is being conducted in two high-risk supply chains: cotton in Pakistan and cobalt in Democratic Republic of the Congo. After this pilot period, the tools under development will be open, accessible, and replicable across different industries.
Engaging Businesses to Prioritize Social Responsibility
We partnered with Social Accountability International to develop a digital platform that connects buyers with suppliers in India’s apparel sector to improve labor practices and worker conditions throughout the supply chain. While the platform grants suppliers making improvements access to new buyers, it also gives buyers greater visibility into their supply chains, reducing risk of labor compliance violations and ensuring they have access to ethical, reliable producers. The platform includes a sophisticated mechanism for monitoring production capacity, minimizing the risk that overwhelmed suppliers will turn to unauthorized subcontracting.
Supply Chain Management I India
During standard social audits, auditors often do not have the time or resources necessary to verify the presence of unauthorized subcontracting (UAS). As a result, this high-risk activity is underreported and buyers do not know where their products are being made. ELEVATE’s model enables buyers to focus on where to conduct in-depth investigations, making it easier to identify high risk producers. The tool leverages standard audit data – supplier metrics such as overtime, wages paid, and health and safety non compliance – and buyer information to identify Tier 1 suppliers at highest risk of unauthorized subcontracting. Equipped with a clear understanding of where there is potential risk of UAS, buyers can direct their resources to targeted production verification or UAS assessments among their highest-risk suppliers, ultimately gaining better visibility over their supply chain.
An initial assessment of the model in its prototype phase recorded 70% accuracy in the prediction of unauthorized subcontracting at the supplier level. ELEVATE continues to enhance its accuracy through ongoing training of the model and incorporation of more qualitative information from buyers.
Working with local partners, leaders with lived experience, and others invested in human dignity, GFEMS is building the momentum needed for sustainable change.