A guide to addressing modern slavery in your business and supply chains for Canadian directors and CEOs - Part 10
After nine previous articles in this series on how Canadian directors and CEOs can address modern slavery in their businesses and supply chains, I want to take the opportunity to address the question that I am regularly asked by business leaders and in-house counsel, "Where do we start?"
I always respond to this quintessential question by offering the quintessential answer: You start at the top of your business – whether it be the Board of Directors, the C-Suite or the General Counsel. The leadership of your business will be, and must be, the catalyst for this initiative.
The next question is always, "And so what should we do first?"
My answer is always that it isn't just one thing that needs to be done. The path forward is beyond a "tick the box" exercise.
In my view, there are four steps of every strategy to address forced labour, child labour, modern slavery and human trafficking (collectively referred to as "modern slavery") in a business and its supply chains:
- Set the Business Principles
- Conduct Risk Assessment and Due Diligence
- Operationalize the Principles within the business and its supply chains
- Advance the Principles and Remediate
This was excerpted from a 22 March 2021 article by Gowling WLG.