At an industry event in Brisbane recently, the Global GreenTag International announced that it had compliance systems in place to help manufacturers meet the inevitable laws that are coming into effect and which will eventually impact procurement of products all along the supply chain.
According to Global GreenTag CEO and program director David Baggs, the product certification company has had a Modern Slavery Act project team working since last year and a number of initiatives are now in place, which will have global reach and will be announced in the coming days, as the inevitable time arrives for larger companies to start investigating and reporting on modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.
“We are geared to help throw greater transparency onto the human impacts around the production of materials and products for the global built environment industries. There is a massive responsibility to help clean up the supply chain where issues of forced labour conditions are still affecting the quality of life of millions of people,” says Baggs.
“We are keen to get down to business of putting a Modern Slavery Act into action – making it visible and starting with the Infrastructure sector, which in Australia alone is a $100 billion industry. Having government behind this cause is certainly going to help and we congratulate both the NSW and Victorian Governments who are addressing the Act already,” he says.
Baggs adds that eighty percent of Global GreenTag certified products and their companies, have already been identified as being compliant within the scope of a Modern Slavery Act.
Brett Hazlett, Global GreenTag’s business development manager says that, “GreenTag is committed to being on the front foot for manufacturers and it will be our job to help them to articulate as soon as possible where their products are positioned in relation to the new Act – and how to validate those claims.”
According to the Global Slavery Index, modern slavery is a significant global human rights issue with an estimated 40 million people living in some form of modern slavery around the world, including human trafficking, servitude, child labour, sex trafficking, forced labour and Australia is not immune with an estimated 4,300 people living under modern slavery conditions.
