Modern Slavery and Procurement Obligations – Dr Olga Martin-Ortega at LUPC/SUPC Event

Another of the strong sessions at the recent London Universities and Southern Universities Purchasing Consortia joint conference was “Managing Human Rights Risks in the Supply Chain: Responsibilities Under the Modern Slavery Act”. The speaker, a real expert on the topic, was Dr Olga Martin-Ortega, Reader in Public International Law at the University of Greenwich in London

She explained that human rights violations are enabled by the nature of the supply chain, and occur where there are governance and regulation gaps. Global supply chains are increasingly buyer-driven – it is often the brands at the end of the supply chain that hold power. There has been much more outsourcing over the past 20 years, so often the big brands don't make anything themselves, and rely on supply chains, often spread around may countries...

Read More

LUPC shortlisted for THELMAs 2016

LUPC has been shortlisted in the Outstanding Procurement Team category of the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards 2016.

The Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards (affectionately known as the THELMAs) showcase and celebrate the best examples of innovation, teamwork and enterprise within the higher education sector.

LUPC’s entry focuses on our leadership in the area of sustainable and ethical procurement, notably our lobbying for contract clauses to protect labour rights in electronics supply chains; our success in achieving Level 4 of the Sustainable Procurement Flexible Framework; publication of our Slavery & Human Trafficking statement; and our collaboration with the University of Greenwich’s Business, Human Rights & the Environment Research Group led by LUPC Board Member Dr Olga Martin-Ortega.

LUPC faces competition in this category from five other universities, including the University of Cambridge and University of Leicester.

LUPC Director, Andy Davies, said: “This is a great achievement for LUPC, and an important opportunity to raise the profile of ethical procurement across the sector through these prestigious awards.

“As a smaller outfit, we’re facing stiff competition in this category from well-established universities, but we hope that our shortlisting will propel the issue of labour rights within supply chains further up the sector’s agenda, and spread the message that ‘good’ procurement is about much more than saving money.” 

The awards dinner and ceremony will take place on Thursday 23 June at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London.

Read the full THELMAs 2016 shortlist.

The Apple way to make products: a response to Apple’s 10th ‘supplier responsibility progress report’

Apple is among the world’s largest companies and has a supply chain to match, but does its claim to be strict on supplier labour standards hold water?

Apple released its 10th Supplier Responsibility Progress Report this March. “There’s a right way to make products”, Apple proclaims. “It starts with the rights of the people who make them.”1 Currently Apple has 346 suppliers in China alone, more than those in Japan (126), the United States (69), Taiwan (41), Korea (28), Malaysia (23), Thailand (19), the Philippines (19), and Vietnam (18) put together2. Are Chinese workers enjoying their rights in Apple’s supply chain? What responsibility does Apple have to the Chinese workers who make its products?

Click here to read full article