2018 February 2

Report recommends Washington State affiliation to Electronics Watch

The University of Washington Women’s Center has urged the State of Washington to develop enforceable anti-human trafficking procurement legislation that requires vendors (state contractors) to map and manage an ethical supply chain. In its report to the State Legislature, “Human Trafficking and Supply Chains - Recommendations to Reduce Human Trafficking in Local and Global Supply Chains,” the Center writes that  Washington State should ensure that “all applicable vendor supply chains [are monitored]… by an independent monitoring agency, preferably Electronics Watch for electronics contracts.”

As the first state in the US to criminalize human trafficking, Washington “has an opportunity to continue this momentum and initiate meaningful and impactful laws that will reduce the State’s investment in forced and trafficked labor,” the report states.

Electronics Watch has been highlighted and recommended in several other reports within the last year:

In Protecting human rights in the supply chain: A guide for public procurement practitioners,“ by London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC), University of Greenwich, Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, and Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges, Electronics Watch is an example of collaboration between public authorities to monitor supply chains to greater effect. “Sharing resources means more monitoring, auditing and more effective intelligence gathering can be done,” the report notes.  “It also means increased leverage and better expertise when negotiating with the global brands – far better than public authorities could hope to achieve on their own.”

The report, “Responsible Procurement Project: Review of Findings for Food & Electronics” from the President’s Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights at the University of Michigan, encourages the University to affiliate to Electronics Watch as “a necessary partner for monitoring and collecting data from suppliers.”

The first International Standard for sustainable procurement best practice— ISO 20400—was launched in April 2017.  It builds on the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights and Business and the ISO 26000 standard on social responsibility. Electronics Watch founding member, LUPC, was the first organisation to be assessed against the standard in the UK public sector and in the education sector globally, achieving a score of 3.71 out of 5. Public Spend Forum observes that among the LUPC good practices, “LUPC director, Andy Davies, has been one of the leaders around sustainable and responsible procurement in the UK public sector for many years, and has been instrumental in Electronics Watch becoming an important force in terms of improving the working conditions of staff in that industry.”