WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:17.100 Hello everyone, my name is Vasily Kigaz Yaki and I'm working with Whitturated International 00:17.100 --> 00:23.160 is a small non-profit organization based in Berlin and today I'm going to talk about the 00:23.160 --> 00:28.440 beyond compliance project and the work we do at Whitturated Together with Walk Free, Walk 00:28.440 --> 00:37.200 Free is an organization, a human rights organization that focuses on tackling motor slavery. 00:37.200 --> 00:42.920 So in this presentation I'm going to talk about how we do assessments or motor slavery 00:42.920 --> 00:54.480 statements, our approach to research and what the results showcase about corporate reporting 00:54.480 --> 00:57.160 on motor slavery. 00:57.160 --> 01:02.320 So before we dive into the project I would like to take a minute to talk a little bit about 01:02.320 --> 01:09.600 motor slavery and I'm pretty sure that everyone has heard the term before. 01:09.600 --> 01:21.600 A motor slavery as a term includes a set of legal concepts and includes including 01:21.600 --> 01:28.080 forced labor that bond its force merits and human trafficking. 01:28.080 --> 01:34.000 The truth is that it is a still a significant issue globally and impacts millions of 01:34.000 --> 01:36.280 people worldwide. 01:36.280 --> 01:42.000 It is estimated that more than 50 million people today are affected by motor slavery 01:42.000 --> 01:48.200 and at least 28 million of people are enforced labor. 01:48.200 --> 01:54.080 The reality is that the products that we buy and use daily from our clothes to our electronics 01:54.080 --> 02:02.120 can access the motor slavery as forced labor still persists in supply chains of many industries. 02:02.120 --> 02:06.200 So what can we do to prevent motor slavery? 02:06.200 --> 02:12.640 We actually need really strong motor slavery legislation that protects all work with 02:12.680 --> 02:16.280 the supply chains and holds companies accountable. 02:16.280 --> 02:20.960 Companies must ensure supply chains are guaranteed to identify and address motor slavery 02:20.960 --> 02:21.960 risks. 02:21.960 --> 02:25.640 There is a little bit of a reluctance from companies to publish the suppliers because they 02:25.640 --> 02:31.040 think they lose competitive advantage, but the truth is without supply chain transparency 02:31.040 --> 02:34.200 is very difficult to tackle motor slavery. 02:34.200 --> 02:38.640 Companies must engage in combating motor slavery by taking responsibility of their operation 02:38.640 --> 02:41.600 and the partnerships. 02:41.600 --> 02:47.960 So the UK and Australian motor slavery acts were among the first laws that came into place 02:47.960 --> 02:50.360 specifically address motor slavery. 02:50.360 --> 02:57.080 There require companies above certain revenue thresholds to produce annual motor slavery 02:57.080 --> 03:02.120 statements and they aim to increase transparency in global supply chains. 03:02.120 --> 03:11.520 Later more laws came into action in different countries, but in our project we are focusing 03:11.520 --> 03:17.000 on the UK and Australian motor slavery act. 03:17.000 --> 03:24.880 So since 2016, we curate and work free have partnered to analyze motor slavery statements. 03:24.880 --> 03:32.040 Using in the beginning 18 and then we extended to 21 criteria, we have assessed over 2000 03:32.040 --> 03:40.280 statements and thousands of contributors and volunteers have participated to this project 03:40.280 --> 03:46.600 and we have engaged for at least 20 universities. 03:46.600 --> 03:54.440 So the motor slavery laws ask companies to report on motor slavery. 03:54.440 --> 03:58.360 And the question that we had in the beginning of the project was are the companies treating 03:58.360 --> 04:03.560 that as a ticking box exercise or are they taking any measures to actually combat motor 04:03.560 --> 04:08.880 slavery and they are going actually beyond the compliance of the law. 04:08.880 --> 04:12.120 So how do we do the research? 04:12.120 --> 04:17.840 We are taking an open and community driven approach. 04:17.840 --> 04:23.120 So our approach is based on community building and crowdsourcing. 04:23.120 --> 04:28.880 We have a global community and volunteers that assess the motor slavery statements. 04:28.880 --> 04:31.520 We have accessible metrics we make. 04:31.560 --> 04:39.280 We try to simplify the metrics in a sense that we allow an enable participants from 04:39.280 --> 04:44.040 diverse background to participate with this project. 04:44.040 --> 04:49.200 Our methodology is open and transparent. 04:49.200 --> 04:56.040 Even when it comes to analysis we try to make our methodology as transparent as possible. 04:56.040 --> 04:58.960 And we follow an open data approach. 04:59.000 --> 05:02.040 I think we think this is really important. 05:02.040 --> 05:09.520 All the results and the data are licensed under creative commons for point to owe by attribution. 05:09.520 --> 05:17.520 And in a sense that we want to allow other civil society organizations to use this data for advocacy. 05:17.520 --> 05:23.120 Researchers and also even investors if they want to use this data to see what companies 05:23.120 --> 05:26.440 that they invest in do to tackle motor slavery. 05:26.480 --> 05:31.720 And also when it comes to research, we want to think that we empower a little bit. 05:31.720 --> 05:36.240 We do a little bit of power and through education that we educate a little bit. 05:36.240 --> 05:41.720 The volunteers on topics like Monteslavery. 05:41.720 --> 05:47.560 So the most important aspect of our approach is our community. 05:47.560 --> 05:53.880 In the beginning, every year we do a couple of rounds of research. 05:53.880 --> 05:57.000 And we have an open call for volunteers. 05:57.000 --> 06:02.520 We have a passion and knowledgeable volunteers in our partners network and in our network as well. 06:02.520 --> 06:07.800 We're training them on the metrics and on the platform that we do the research. 06:07.800 --> 06:12.680 And we have regular cut ups with them and we have a Slack channel that we are communicating 06:12.680 --> 06:16.840 and they can raise questions if they have any. 06:16.840 --> 06:23.320 And we always analyze the contributors in the reports that we are producing in our communications. 06:23.320 --> 06:27.400 And in any chance we have. 06:27.400 --> 06:32.120 So the research process includes several steps. 06:32.120 --> 06:38.920 So in the beginning, we make sure that we have comprehensive and clear methodologies for assessments. 06:38.920 --> 06:43.640 To make it as easy as possible for them to proceed with their assessments. 06:43.640 --> 06:47.720 We allocate the companies among contributors. 06:47.720 --> 06:52.600 And we collect the data and the research comments in one place. 06:52.600 --> 06:59.080 And we do peer reviewers and quality assurance of also the final research. 06:59.080 --> 07:04.600 And at the end of the cycle, we do refine the pathologies based on the feedback that we get 07:04.600 --> 07:13.240 from the volunteers for the next round to have some better guidance in place. 07:13.240 --> 07:18.760 So the research is done using Wikivate.org, the Wikivate platform. 07:18.760 --> 07:22.600 And so for any of you that you are not familiar, I think most of you, 07:22.600 --> 07:28.440 Wikivate is an open data, open source and open research platform that brings corporate 07:28.440 --> 07:31.880 environmental, social and governance data in one place, 07:31.880 --> 07:36.920 making accessible, comparable and free for everyone. 07:36.920 --> 07:43.720 So the research of the platform is actually organized around research projects. 07:43.720 --> 07:51.080 In these projects, we have certain metrics, we define certain metrics that we want 07:51.080 --> 07:56.440 our volunteers to research and also center companies that we want them to research. 07:56.440 --> 08:02.360 So this is a research project for research and model slavery statements. 08:02.360 --> 08:12.440 Here the volunteer wants to research the collaborations and memberships metric 08:13.400 --> 08:18.520 to see if the company engages with any nonprofit organizations that they do 08:18.520 --> 08:26.520 multislavery work and they have to select the year that they want to research, 08:26.520 --> 08:32.280 then they try to find if there is an existing source of the platform. 08:32.280 --> 08:36.440 So there is already a multislavery statement for the company there. 08:36.440 --> 08:40.920 So they go ahead, very view and read the multislavery statement, 08:40.920 --> 08:47.720 they find the answer and they select the source and then they have to answer the question 08:48.760 --> 08:53.480 and leave comments citing where they find exactly the answer in the document. 08:57.480 --> 09:09.000 So and then the next important step is data verification, the verification of the answers. 09:09.000 --> 09:16.680 So we consider in which you read that one answer is verified when more than one person 09:16.680 --> 09:24.760 have actually came to the same conclusion. So the volunteers, they go ahead and they are 09:24.760 --> 09:28.920 assigned a different company that they have to check, double check, they work that 09:30.200 --> 09:36.920 some other volunteer has done. So here we have the gap incorporation and here we have 09:36.920 --> 09:43.960 actually the volunteer reviewing the answer, they can go back, they can see the comments and 09:43.960 --> 09:53.080 they can also review again the source and they can find out if indeed the answer that the previous 09:53.080 --> 10:00.600 researcher found is correct and they go ahead either of their flagging, the answer or they confirm 10:00.600 --> 10:11.080 the answer. So here they have verified the answer on the platform and yeah that is also a part of. 10:12.920 --> 10:21.720 So another ingredient when it comes to the metrics is that at Wikirate we have different types 10:21.720 --> 10:27.800 of metrics, we have research metrics and calculated metrics, research metrics, function as building 10:27.800 --> 10:38.120 blocks for analysis and on top of research metrics we can write coffee scripts formulas to 10:38.120 --> 10:43.160 actually pool data from different metrics and come to a certain conclusion. For instance for the 10:43.160 --> 10:49.560 UK and Australia Motors Library, there are different criteria that the companies have to address 10:49.640 --> 10:56.200 in the Motors Library statements. So through the calculated metrics we can pool 10:57.480 --> 11:04.360 the data in one metric and he've answered to additional questions. So here we have this 11:04.360 --> 11:13.480 an example of a calculated metric which is if the company needs the minimum criteria under the 11:13.480 --> 11:18.200 UK Motors Library legislation you can see the input metrics and also the formula that is 11:18.200 --> 11:24.920 written in coffee script. There are three mandatory criteria plus to that we have to make sure that 11:26.120 --> 11:33.800 at least the statement have fully assessed by the researchers before we pool an answer to the 11:35.720 --> 11:45.080 to the platform. So here you can also see a little bit more granularity, you can see the calculated 11:45.080 --> 11:58.680 answer and then the underlying answers from this metric. So what are we find? What the research 11:58.680 --> 12:07.160 reveal? Before we go to the results of the project, I would like to just remind you the initial 12:07.160 --> 12:12.280 question that we have when we started the project and especially the first part of the question 12:12.280 --> 12:18.680 are the companies treating the statements as a taking box exercise. We actually consider that 12:19.480 --> 12:27.080 at least the companies report and meet the minimum requirements so they address all the requirements 12:27.080 --> 12:33.000 that the law states. But this is was not the case so only 25% of companies 12:33.880 --> 12:43.080 reporting their obligations under the relevant MSA, measures library legislation. So 75% of 12:43.080 --> 12:50.840 companies fail to meet the minimum criteria and that showcases a big compliance gap. There is a 12:50.840 --> 12:57.000 lack of transparency 50% of the statements disclose no information on the companies apply chains 12:57.000 --> 13:04.440 and 86% do not report any incidents. There is an absence of worker centric policies, 88% 13:04.440 --> 13:10.840 of the statements do not disclose direct worker mediation. There is an overlook on modern slavery 13:10.840 --> 13:17.800 risks, 52% of companies have not identified any modern slavery risks within their operations 13:18.520 --> 13:24.680 and supply chains. And there was a lack of remediation on policies, 51% of companies do not 13:24.760 --> 13:29.400 disclose having remediation policies in place to respond incidents of modern slavery. 13:30.280 --> 13:39.000 So there was also a limited risk beyond tier one, 74% of companies do not have 13:39.000 --> 13:45.160 any modern slavery policy that applies to stakeholders beyond the tier one suppliers. 13:45.880 --> 13:51.880 And the findings showcase that there is a long way to go before we can say companies 13:52.200 --> 14:04.200 do enough to prevent modern slavery risks. So how are the data used? In the context of these 14:04.200 --> 14:10.680 projects we have built a data dashboard to showcase and summarize the results of these projects. 14:10.680 --> 14:21.240 And our main goal was for our partners and other CSOS to use these two as an advocacy tool 14:21.240 --> 14:36.360 for policy change and business behavior change. So the research is not just numbers. 14:36.360 --> 14:44.440 There is a real life and real world impact on shaping policy. Our partners in work free 14:45.080 --> 14:51.320 over the years they have done data driven recommendations on the UK and Australia 14:51.320 --> 14:57.880 and modern slavery reviews. And we several adopted already in Australia. 14:59.000 --> 15:07.800 And the evidence from the research have been also used for advocacy on adoption for adoption 15:07.800 --> 15:15.960 on corporate stability due diligence and directive in the EU. But also it's not just policy. 15:17.080 --> 15:20.760 The research and the results of the research are saving business practices. 15:21.720 --> 15:27.800 Data on the UK companies responses were leveraged to inform updates to the UK, 15:27.800 --> 15:36.280 modern slavery guidance through the UK force labor forum. And actually work free also 15:36.280 --> 15:41.400 engages directly with businesses to improve the reporting and due diligence processes. 15:43.400 --> 15:51.000 So what's the future holds for the project? The project is ongoing. It keeps continues. 15:51.000 --> 16:01.400 And we want to support more assessments and we want to scale also the research. 16:01.400 --> 16:09.000 But the end of the month we're planning to integrate an annotated data set from 16:09.880 --> 16:16.120 Mela AI Institute of 5,000 fully assessed Australian modern slavery statements. 16:16.120 --> 16:22.040 And as a part of a pilot project for scaling up the resources we want to 16:23.480 --> 16:30.200 experiment on using an integrating Mela AI model into our pipeline to automate 16:30.840 --> 16:39.000 the assessment of new and unseen documents. So if you're interested in contributing, 16:41.000 --> 16:47.640 you can sign up to volunteer on this work. There are also different projects looking. 16:47.640 --> 16:53.160 Contributors is not only we're focusing on different topics, not only model slavery. 16:53.160 --> 17:01.560 And you can contact us to share ideas and form partnerships. And yeah, also we create 17:01.560 --> 17:07.560 is under an open license. And you can also create your own dashboards if you want to leverage 17:07.560 --> 17:14.280 any of the data set that exists already on the platform. And yeah, that was everything from my side. 17:14.280 --> 17:22.280 And thank you for all of you. 17:22.280 --> 17:30.280 Will you be taking questions? 17:30.280 --> 17:35.560 Do you want points for the talk? I'm curious if there's been any engagement from a policy 17:35.640 --> 17:42.520 to my case for you? If you can repeat? 17:42.520 --> 17:49.160 Yes, so the question was, if there was an engagement from policy makers based on the results, 17:49.160 --> 17:55.720 yeah, there were work free has already done several recommendations for 17:57.320 --> 17:59.960 making the law more strict. 18:00.360 --> 18:06.120 Some of them they have passed, some of them they are still working progress. 18:07.000 --> 18:12.520 So there is change, but usually when it comes to policy making things are getting a little bit more 18:12.520 --> 18:20.200 time, then they want that we would like to take especially in cases and in topics like Monterey slavery. 18:21.080 --> 18:31.000 I'd like to implement any questions. Many of the companies touched the reactant. 18:31.000 --> 18:37.000 Because if there's any like, this is like an open country process, or as we said for us, 18:39.000 --> 18:45.400 where you're going to get people to meet their revision and say we can so much and prove something. 18:46.360 --> 18:52.760 So first of all, does this happen in a second? Is this political figures or people? 18:58.760 --> 19:06.360 So the question was, if we had any reactions from companies when it comes to their 19:06.360 --> 19:10.120 to us reviewing their modest slavery statements, 19:10.280 --> 19:17.640 we didn't, we never had so far companies coming to us discussing their modest 19:17.640 --> 19:27.880 slavery, but work free specifically tries to engage with certain companies to help them improve 19:29.160 --> 19:36.040 their policies when it comes to how they report, but also to their due diligence processes. 19:36.760 --> 19:40.280 And the second part of the question, because there was a second part of the question, can you 19:40.280 --> 19:46.680 remind me? Yes. So you explain the same questions to multiple people and then you compare their 19:46.680 --> 19:57.480 answers, right? So the question was that if we present the same questions to different people 19:57.480 --> 20:04.200 and we compare the answers. No, we don't do that. What happens is we have one researcher, 20:04.200 --> 20:12.920 if you, the statement, and then we have another researcher come back and check if the answers 20:12.920 --> 20:19.240 that the other researchers have found are correct or not, based also on the comments and they 20:19.240 --> 20:23.640 can verify or not the answer that it was given by the researcher. 20:24.600 --> 20:30.520 Yeah, hello, thank you very much for sharing this. One thing we have seen with the 20:30.520 --> 20:36.200 change in the legislative landscape right now is with the corporate sustainability report in Europe, 20:36.760 --> 20:42.680 the things that companies have to say about ESG, they have to be assured by an auditor. Is there 20:42.680 --> 20:48.200 anything like that for the modern slavery statements so that you can tell if they're not lying? 20:48.280 --> 20:59.560 I don't think, sorry to repeat the question. Is there any auditors that have a look on 20:59.560 --> 21:09.000 the modern slavery statements? So, no, they're not any auditors to really say if indeed companies, 21:09.000 --> 21:16.600 but we do some complementary work on that. We have another project, they call value chains, 21:16.600 --> 21:24.760 and we try to research what happens in the factory level. So, if we have, for instance, 21:24.760 --> 21:30.040 what happened with wages, we have a lot of companies promising that they ensure living wages. 21:30.040 --> 21:35.240 And we go to the, we have partners that they are actually working on the ground and they're 21:35.240 --> 21:40.280 asking these questions, how much do you earn? And then we can say, okay, what the company says, 21:40.280 --> 21:45.720 they say yes, but we've seen like 10 factories, this is not the case, because they are not paid 21:45.720 --> 21:47.720 in the living wage. 22:16.680 --> 22:22.280 Okay, so the question was, and correct, if I didn't understood correct the question, 22:24.280 --> 22:33.320 if we have any processes in place for how we can hear a bit because I'm not sure that I understood 22:33.320 --> 22:34.120 the question. 22:34.120 --> 22:52.520 So, other projects that we are working on? So, we focusing specifically on corporate 22:52.520 --> 22:58.760 responsibility and sustainability. We have projects and we had projects in the past that they are 22:58.760 --> 23:04.520 researching, this is an ability developing goals on reports and sustainability reports that 23:04.520 --> 23:13.320 companies publish. But what we want to do, and this is in our plan for maybe one of the next 23:13.320 --> 23:23.800 two years, we want to try to bring not company reported data, because there is just what we see 23:23.880 --> 23:29.400 what the company says, but we want to find ways and we want to form collaborations with other 23:29.400 --> 23:35.800 parties in order to bring more data to verify what the company says about, this is an ability 23:35.800 --> 23:39.480 development goals or about motorslavery or about different topics.