Management School and Princes Group host first Modern Slavery Policy Panel

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Centre for Sustainable Business and Princes Group host first Modern Slavery Policy Panel

The Management School has partnered with international food and drink group, Princes, for their first Modern Slavery Policy Panel.

Held on 18 January, the roundtable event convened an expert working group led by the School's modern slavery specialists, Dr Bruce Pinnington and Dr Alexandra Williams-Woods, alongside Princes Ltd. Global Head of Environmental and Social Sustainability, Paul Williams.

"This first meeting sets the foundation to develop the panel’s vision of working collaboratively with a variety of stakeholders, to define ‘what works’ in encouraging organisations to take meaningful action on modern slavery within their supply chains", said Paul Williams.

"The goal is to bring together academic research, third sector expertise and experience from the business world, to discuss issues involved in tackling modern slavery and find ways to advocate positive change in policy and business."

This includes desirable changes to relevant legislation, official guidance and public procurement, as well as best practice to effectively counter modern slavery in global supply chains, while simultaneously improving business performance.

In particular, the first panel meeting focused on ‘what we need to see happen’, and how this could be achieved and monitored across four main themes:

1st Modern Slavery Policy Panel

In addition, modern slavery experts facilitated discussions with non-academic stakeholders on how research can fill existing evidence gaps, and offered a ‘bigger picture’ perspective on the challenges and opportunities in the wider business context.

“The event has given us the opportunity to share our research and discuss what good practice in procurement practices might look like and what changes to legislation, policy and guidance are needed to understand, tackle and prevent modern slavery in supply chains”, said Dr Alexandra Williams-Woods.

“The panel discussions provide invaluable insights on how, and to what extent, organisations are dealing with this problem.

“By gaining a better understanding of the practical issues organisations face, we can offer existing evidence-based guidance and develop new research projects for issues which are yet to be explored.”

Promoting positive business action on modern slavery

The first Modern Slavery Policy Panel meeting is the initial milestone in a long-term initiative, to pool expertise from stakeholders and expand debates on new aspects in dealing with modern slavery in supply chains.

The panel roundtable events are part of a wider knowledge exchange project, in partnership with Crown Commercial Services, Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA), International Slavery Museum and Stronger Together.

The research team, in collaboration with colleagues from the Management School and beyond, have undertaken an extensive research programme over the past five years focused on modern slavery and business.

Modern slavery in supply chains research

The research is building significant evidence which reveals:

  • What organisations say they are doing to tackle modern slavery in supply chains
  • How common approaches counterintuitively maintain conditions for exploitation
  • How supply chain managers make sense of their efforts to tackle modern slavery
  • The critical (but often under resourced) role of supply chain discovery
  • How managers frame and engage with modern slavery, and the impact it has on supply chain and procurement action.

Find out more about our research on modern slavery in supply chains

The aim of this project is to promote positive and evidence-based change in UK business, utilising innovative research produced by the wider research team.

To do this, the research team are partnering with stakeholders in the policymaking, business practice and commercial sectors.

In addition to ongoing research, they are producing relevant content for training/awareness raising, hosting workshops and knowledge exchange events.

The focus of these activities is to facilitate implementation of best practice, and engage with a network of experts to consider future opportunities for knowledge exchange and utilisation of research.

If you would like to find out more about the Modern Slavery Policy Panel, please contact Dr Alexandra Williams-Woods at a.williams-woods@liverpool.ac.uk

You can also read the reserach team's latest research translations: