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Modern supply chains, where many hundreds of companies are part of creating one product, present a challenge around issues such as modern slavery and human rights.
What Is Modern Slavery?
It is estimated that there are over 40 million people in some form of Modern Slavery worldwide, 25% are children, 75% are women and girls.
According to the UK Modern Slavery Act, modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, which may be evidenced through:
- Buying, Selling or Transferring a Person (i.e. human trafficking);
- Using a Person;
- Managing the Use of a Person;
- Profiting from the Use of a Person;
- Transferring a Person to an Heir or Successor;
- Forced Labour and Bonded Labour.
Modern Slavery Act
In 2016, the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) came into force, which requires commercial organisations with a turnover of over £36 million to publish a statement detailing what actions they are taking to combat any risks of modern slavery in their own operations and in their supply chains.
We are committed to better understanding our supply chains and working towards greater transparency and responsibility toward people working in them.
What is UCL Doing?
UCL has a diverse and global supply chain, making it difficult to have complete transparency over. Therefore, UCL cannot, and may never, be able to completely eradicate risks of modern slavery and exploitation. However, we have developed processes to mitigate risks:
- UCL works closely with our approved suppliers to ensure we have robust procedures to prevent modern slavery. We recommend you only use suppliers who are on or preferred suppliers list.
- UCL conducts the Defra Prioritisation Exercise, which evaluates UCL's spend against social risks adapted from the ETI Base Code, highlighting high and low risk spend categories.
- We also recognise some particular spend items, such as certain IT hardware and food products are high risk. We will focus our resources on better understanding these supply chain areas. We also want to ensure all staff and workers on our sites are paid a fair wage and feel valued.
- We publish an annual Modern Day Slavery Statement Update, which details our efforts to minimise slavery in our operations.
- UCL are in the process of becoming a Living Wage accredited employer. This includes staff working for sub-contractors.
What you can do?
- Please check with Commercial and Procurement Services before requesting goods/ services so we can continue to protect our supply chain.
- Ask suppliers for modern slavery procedures as part of any procurement activity.
- If you suspect modern slavery, do not approach the person but ring the Modern Slavery Helpline on 0800 021 2700.
Policies on Slavery and Human Trafficking
We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Preliminary work is underway to develop an Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy. This will reflect our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships, and to implementing and enforcing systems and controls to prevent slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains.
We are using the Net Positive Supplier Engagement Tool to find out the actions our suppliers are taking to understand and address these issues.