KnowTheChain benchmarks current corporate practices, develops insights, and provides practical resources that inform investor decisions and enable companies to comply with growing legal obligations while operating more transparently and responsibly.
The KnowTheChain benchmarks aim to help companies protect the wellbeing of workers by incentivizing companies and identifying gaps in each sector evaluated.
The KnowTheChain methodology is based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and covers policy commitments, due diligence, and remedy. The methodology uses the ILO core labor standards (which cover the human rights that the ILO has declared to be fundamental rights at work: freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and the elimination of forced labor, child labor, and discrimination) as a baseline standard. The methodology has been developed through consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and a review of other benchmarks, frameworks, and guidelines such as the OECD Due Diligence Guidance on Responsible Business Conduct.
The company has a supplier code of conduct that requires suppliers throughout its supply chains to respect the ILO core labor standards, including the elimination of forced labor. The standard is easily accessible on the company’s website, is regularly updated, is communicated to the company's suppliers, and requires suppliers to cascade the standards to their own suppliers. The company's supplier code of conduct:
(1) requires suppliers to respect the ILO core labor standards, which include the elimination of forced labor;
(2) is easily accessible from the company's website;
(3) is updated regularly, following internal review and input from external stakeholders;
(4) is communicated to the company's suppliers; and
(5) requires its first-tier suppliers to take steps to ensure that their own suppliers implement standards that are in-line with the company's supply chain policies addressing forced labor and human trafficking.