Why social auditing must change
The revelations that factory workers for multinational retailer Tesco in Thailand have suffered 99-hour work weeks, serious injuries and unsanitary conditions is one of the latest human rights scandals and shows the shortcomings of a traditional approach to social compliance.
Companies like Tesco can no longer claim that they did not know about human rights violations in their supply chain and not face consequences. With the new Human Rights Due Diligence regulations adopted worldwide, companies are now being held accountable for negligent social impact.
While Tesco was not involved in the day-to-day running of the factory beyond setting and checking standards and placing orders – it was and is responsible for knowing whether the supplier complied with existing labor standards.
Tesco has said that if they had identified the serious issues at the time, it would have ended its relationship with the factory immediately. But they lacked visibility and control of their supply chain.
The multinational retailer and their auditor company are now facing legal action in the UK from factory workers, who are suing them for alleged negligence and unjust enrichment.
Gaining visibility and control of your supply chain
With increasingly opaque and complex supply chains and the new requirements from the regulatory field, the traditional way of working with social compliance no longer provides the assurance that your supply chain is compliant.
Today´s supplier collaboration is inefficient, documents are stored in organizational silos and checking documents and answering questions is manual. Thus using a great deal of time, the supplier and auditor are often not well prepared, leading to more non-conformities. And this gives the companies visibility and control once a year, at best.
ComplAi has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to address this, and answers critical compliance questions in just seconds. With our platform you always have visibility and control of your supply chain’s requirements compliance. Documentation can be shared seamlessly across stakeholders in your organization, with your suppliers, and your auditors.
Here is how ComplAi´s AI platform can help:
- Reduces risk of human rights violations. If there is a risk that one of your suppliers is not compliant with social due diligence regulations, you will know instantly. ComplAi provides automatic, intelligent policy commitment checks across the supply chain.
- We help you become more efficient. We give you access to up-to-date requirements, standards, and questionnaires in a structured way with custom dashboards, saving you time and money. With our platform you can state your claims of compliance for each regulatory, standard and customer requirement.
- We transform visibility into action. By providing visibility into supplier compliance risk our AI platform reduces inventory and delivery risk. Suppliers can act, and alternatives can be secured, preserving your revenue and customer trust.
In today’s rapidly evolving regulatory landscape and increasingly complex supply chains it has never been more critical to have control and visibility of company´s impact on human rights.
ComplAI’s intelligent platform reshapes how you work with the S in ESG.
About ComplAi
We’re on a mission to enable supply chains that are transparent and sustainable. ComplAi´s platform brings real time visibility and control of supplier compliance for enterprises through a world-class AI powered cloud platform. We help our customers transform compliance into a competitive advantage, where risk can be identified, acted upon and resolved. Our customers rely on our solutions to make better, quicker decisions with confidence.