A 'buyer' just means your business has suppliers, as most businesses do. In fact, most businesses are 'buyer-suppliers', with both customers and suppliers.

 

This guide, however, is designed for 'reporting entities' - larger companies with over $50 million turnover - who must submit an annual modern slavery statement in order to comply with anti-slavery legislation wherever they operate around the world.

 

And you’ve received an email from one of your customers or suppliers inviting you to participate in the SlaveCheck platform, and you’re wondering...what’s this all about?

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You probably already know about the modern slavery problem. If not, our homepage and other resources on our website provide an overview of the problem, the challenges and how SlaveCheck was designed to address them.

 

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The invitation you received is related to other companies in your supply chain using SlaveCheck's Business Compliance Platform (BCP) to comply with the particular anti-slavery legislation where they operate.

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You can download a SlaveCheck solution overview here and below are some of the benefits of SlaveCheck for reporting entities.

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1. Automated, All Tier Supplier Engagement

For compliance, you need the cooperation of all your suppliers - not just your direct or Tier-1 suppliers, but their suppliers, and their suppliers, and so on. SlaveCheck's SVIR (Sequential Voluntary Inter-Company Relay®) System makes it free and simple for all Tiers of suppliers to connect and exchange the necessary modern slavery information up and down the supply chain.

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2. It's free for Suppliers

Reporting entities pay a fee per supplier but SlaveCheck is free for your suppliers, and if you have subsidiary companies, or portfolio companies you have invested in, it's free for them as well. The free plan has enough to allow your suppliers to do their bit to assist you to meet your modern slavery compliance obligations. You can compare the free and paid plans at Pricing.

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3. It’s Simple, for You and your Suppliers

Most reporting entities will only need one MSAdmin to spend 1-2 weeks a year to operate SlaveCheck. It should only take your suppliers an hour or two each year to do what they need to do. 

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4. It’s The Right Thing To Do

We, the G20 countries – the world’s 20 wealthiest, most advanced economies – import the bulk (over 80%) of slave-made goods. We are the ones enabling this callous exploitation of a global subclass of humanity – 50 million people, over 10 million of them children. When the cost to fix the problem is so negligible (see next point), how can we ignore it?

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5. Cost to Fix The Problem: 5c on a $5 T-shirt

Here's the research Paying a living wage.

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6. Just focus on your direct suppliers

Your 'direct operational network' ('DON') - your own operations, any subsidiary companies you may have and your Group's Tier-1 suppliers - is all that you have rights to investigate and request information from. Companies immediately strike numerous roadblocks trying to investigate outside their DON. SlaveCheck takes care of this.

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7. SlaveCheck can scale for global supply chains

The Act defines ‘supply chain’ as everything - all raw materials, components, services and labour - that has been involved in getting your company's products and/or services from its source to its ultimate end-consumers.

 

The table below highlights the sheer scale of the collaboration challenge to investigate, remediate and monitor global supply chains as required by the Act:

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SlaveCheck’s SaaS technologies and infrastructure was designed specifically for scaling to global-level modern slavery compliance and remediation management.

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8. Avoid Losing Investors and Customers

Increasingly ethical investors and end-consumers are putting companies under pressure to prove they are properly addressing modern slavery and provide transparency about what they're doing about it. SlaveCheck's Solutions Platform supports companies in building ‘socially responsible’ brand value with customers, investors and other stakeholders.

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9. Increase Sales

Harvard Research shows that products clearly labelled with information about fair labour standards realised 14% higher sales than those that didn’t.

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10. Engage & Manage Your Subsidiary Companies

You can onboard your subsidiary companies, track their progress with supply chain engagement and risk reduction, and produce one group-wide summary report covering parent company, subsidiaries and all Tiers of Suppliers.

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11.  Build Pride & Brand Value

Once you’ve been using SlaveCheck for two years - and can demonstrate two years of continuous improvement and compliance with the Act - you can showcase your ethical and responsible credentials to staff, customers, investors and the communities within which you operate. You can also include the ‘slavechecked’ icon as part of your branding and marketing communications.

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12. Inspire Others to Make a Difference

Success breeds success. Being able to demonstrate your responsible participation in global slavery elimination efforts may inspire your staff, customers, investors, business partners, philanthropists, industry bodies, community groups – to also participate in the collaboration.

 

If you’re interested to find out more, please contact us.