The UK has a “once-in-a-decade opportunity” to transform the the country’s environmental and human rights impact around the world, aid campaigners have told The Independent.
As part of the UK’s Trade Strategy, which was announced last year, the government launched a review into responsible business conduct policy, with a focus on the global supply chains of businesses operating in the UK.
These supply chains are the arteries of the modern global economy, spanning continents and sectors, and often highly specialised and complex. Recent years have shown just how vulnerable they can be, with events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Brexit all causing disruptions to food and energy prices.
But as well as posing risks to consumers in the UK, weak oversight of supply chains poses significant risks for the countries that supply UK businesses, including human rights concerns such as forced labour or child labour, as well as risks to the environment and the impacts of the climate crisis.
With government ministers publicly saying that Britain wishes to become an “investor” rather than a “donor” when it comes to overseas assistance in the era of foreign aid cuts by the UK and Donald Trump in the US, campaigners say reforming UK supply chain laws could ensure that overseas investment maximises benefits to people in developing countries.
Groups including the Fairtrade Foundation are calling for what they call a “mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) law”, which would see companies compelled to continually measure and address problems in their supply chain related to human rights and the environment.
Rather than the “tick-box exercise” that many existing schemes require, it would demand “proactive risk management” and “long‑term solutions” to protect human rights and help reduce the impact of the climate crisis, according to Fairtrade’s senior policy manager Sophia Ostler.
“This is a significant moment: It’s really a once-in-a-decade opportunity to address environmental and human rights problems in our supply chains, with a government that really might do something about it,” she tells The Independent. “It’s about making trade pay enough for workers in developing countries have enough to afford a good quality of life.”
This campaign has been building for years – from a civil society open letter dating from 2019, a further letter from 167 businesses from 2024, several landmark reports including one looking into forced labour in UK supply chains, and a parliamentary Westminster Hall Debate on Fairtrade at the end of last year.
“With the reductions in official development assistance by the UK and globally, and the ongoing climate emergency, we should be viewing ethical trade including through mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) as a cost-effective way to put our principles into practice,” Martin Rhodes, the Labour MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fairtrade, tells The Independent.
“Principles such as poverty reduction, gender equality and environmental sustainability can all be advanced through strong due diligence laws, and by growing our trade with others that share the same high standards.”
Current legislation influencing supply chains is piecemeal and incomprehensive, according to Fairtrade’s Ostler, being based largely on parts of the Modern Slavery Act and the Environment Act. A new HREDD law could level the playing field for all large companies and ensure that high standards on climate and human rights that the UK seeks to meet domestically would also be met overseas.
“We are calling for a holistic approach and understanding of what the issues are and how they’re all interconnected,” says Ostler, who adds that the specific HREDD standards should align with the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which the UK has already signed up to.
“Human rights and environmental protections are interlinked, whether in how pollution impacts health and livelihoods, or how forced labour can take place in mining, which causes environmental harm,” Ostler continues. “New legislation should take a big-picture view that reflects that.”
