BSI finds supply chain slavery checks lack evidence of impact

Many businesses undertaking modern slavery risk assessments cannot demonstrate whether those measures improve conditions for workers, according to international research commissioned by BSI and developed with the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply. The study, released on 19 October, found that only 36% of surveyed business leaders said they could evidence the impact of their risk assessments, despite high levels of reported activity.

The research surveyed 600 business leaders across six countries and covers multiple industries. Its results are relevant to food manufacturers and packaging businesses managing complex supply chains, but the published figures must not be represented as a separate food industry sample. The findings describe respondents to this particular survey rather than every global business or every factory supplying food products.

BSI reported that 96% of respondents said their organisations had identified modern slavery violations during the preceding year. That unusually high finding warrants precise attribution to the surveyed leaders and the research method; it is not an independent count of confirmed cases in the global economy. The separate question of whether identified problems are being remedied effectively is central to the report’s conclusions.

The research suggests a substantial gap between documenting a process and demonstrating its effect. Seventy-seven per cent of respondents believed they had enough evidence to show their supply chains were free from modern slavery, yet just 18% reported comprehensive visibility of third-party suppliers. The difference points to uncertainty about the information available beyond a business’s immediate commercial relationships.

Food production can involve agricultural inputs, ingredients, packaging components, outsourced processing, warehousing and transport, often supplied through more than one tier. Manufacturers may receive contractual assurances from a direct supplier without seeing employment conditions further upstream. That structure gives the BSI findings clear practical relevance, although the report does not identify a particular food company or assert that a specific ingredient supply chain failed an audit.

BSI found that 62% of surveyed leaders described their visibility of social risks at the first supplier tier as partial or minimal. The corresponding proportions were 68% at the second tier and 72% at the third tier and beyond. More than one quarter of respondents said they did not know who their sub-tier suppliers were. The numbers show how the evidence available to a buyer can become thinner as the chain extends away from its direct contracts.

The consequences are evident in the reported evaluation of common controls. Among businesses carrying out supplier training on labour rights, 57% could not evidence its impact or had not tried to measure it. A similar 61% figure applied to those undertaking unannounced supplier audits. The report also found that only 39% could evidence an impact from their social auditing of suppliers.

These distinctions matter because completing an audit, delivering a training course or recording a corrective action does not by itself establish that a worker’s conditions improved. Evidence of an effective intervention may require following outcomes after the initial assessment, checking whether the change has been sustained and considering whether workers can report problems safely. The BSI survey identifies the difficulty of showing impact but does not prescribe a single measurement system suitable for every supply chain.

Governance gaps were also apparent. Fifty-seven per cent of respondents said their organisations lacked clear internal ownership of the issue. More than a quarter did not require disclosure of lower-tier suppliers in contracts, while others reported insufficient resources to undertake checks beyond their direct trading partners. These challenges can be important where buying decisions are split between central procurement, plant operations and product-specific supplier management teams.

The research found that 54% of respondents who had identified modern slavery issues chose to work with suppliers on remedial action rather than immediately terminate agreements. That can reflect a desire to improve conditions instead of simply shifting sourcing elsewhere. Whether it succeeds depends on subsequent results for affected workers, which the reported survey suggests organisations frequently struggle to demonstrate.

BSI also reported strong confidence among respondents that their records would satisfy regulatory review or legal scrutiny. Confidence of that kind does not remove the need to test the underlying evidence. Harold Pradal, president of assurance services at BSI, argued that businesses should focus on measuring outcomes and improving supplier visibility, rather than relying solely on evidence that a compliance procedure has been performed.

For food and beverage manufacturers, the practical implication is to examine what happens after a supplier concern is recorded. A documented policy, a completed audit and a closed corrective action are three different points in a process; none automatically confirms a lasting improvement. The newly published cross-industry results provide a useful prompt for reviewing those distinctions, while leaving company-specific risks and sector prevalence to be established through separate evidence.