One thing social responsibility practitioners ARE agreed on

2019 "conference season" may not be over yet, but I have experienced some real quality content from NSF International, Sedex and the Innovation Forum recently in and around labor/labour standards, responsible sourcing, modern slavery and worker exploitation.

Some tensions of course:

• Collaboration – essential, yet slowing us down and can involve compromise.
• Transparency - masses of progress but really just signalling the end of the beginning. So much to now do.
• Looking “down” the supply chain compared to UP – the need to go “upstream” to where workers are coming from.
• Regulation – some wanting more, some wanting less.
• Worker Voice – is it causing us to miss the real issues?

But is there one thing people are agreeing on - yes I think there is, so let's call it out for 2019  - there is a critical point at which vulnerability can literally get loaded into workers. It is in the process of recruitment. And prevention is key.

2019 - the year of responsible recruitment.

Agreed?