SAI Platform and the FLA release supply chain mapping tools
10th March 2022
On 1st March, SAI Platform hosted a members-only webinar in partnership with the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to highlight the importance of supply chain mapping when evaluating employment practices.
Attended by 24 members, it was the second webinar focusing on improving child labour and responsible recruitment in the agriculture sector following the successful completion of the Harvesting the Future project last year.
Harvesting the Future was a cross-commodity, collaborative project that engaged suppliers, buyers, workers, labour intermediaries and government officials to address labour conditions for migrant agricultural workers in Turkey. The need for this multi-stakeholder approach arose from the understanding that labourers in Turkey move between multiple commodities across a field season. It is therefore imperative to consider all the systems they are working within when addressing and mitigating risks. The first step to mitigating those risks, is understanding where they arise from; hence the need for supply chain mapping tools.
Mégane Chesné, Sustainable Sourcing Manager for Hazelnut & Palm at Nestlé kicked off the webinar by sharing her first-hand experience with the hazelnut supply chain in Turkey. Highlighting the challenges faced and how they were overcome, she reiterated how supply chain mapping should form the basis of any responsible sourcing strategy. Leah Blechschmidt, Americas Manager at SAI Platform and Richa Mittal, Director of Research & Innovation at Fair Labor Association provided attendees with an overview of the outcomes and shared learning from the Harvesting the Future project before Richa gave a demonstration on how to use the supply chain mapping tools developed by the FLA.
The ten tools, now available for download from the Knowledge Base on My SAI Platform, offer a holistic approach to supply chain mapping by focusing on three important areas: strengthening commitment to accountability and transparency, assessing risks in the supply chain to prioritise social compliance and identifying & engaging stakeholders to mitigate those risks.
The tools and practical guidance will help SAI Platform members to map and evaluate the suppliers, supply chain intermediaries, and producers they are working with, as well as to evaluate their own internal monitoring systems. Developed as part of the Harvesting the Future project, the tools have specifically been designed for the Turkish agricultural context and are therefore available in both Turkish and English. However, they are fully flexible and can be adapted to map any supply chain.
SAI Platform members can access the full presentation and all supply chain mapping tools here.
For more information on the Harvesting the Future project, see here for the case study produced by SAI Platform, or here for the technical report produced by the FLA.
