Ergon authored a key publication entitled “Beyond auditing – tapping the full potential of labour standards promotion”

The publication looks at key issues in moving the debate forward in the supply chain labour standards debate.

The paper was commissioned and published by IDH – the Dutch Sustainable Trading Initiative – to support discussions at their first major conference on November 2. The publication was written by Alastair Usher and Kirsten Newitt from Ergon and begins by considering the business case for addressing labour standards, including the benefits of promoting better and deeper employee engagement.

Crucially, the publication looks at ways to move beyond a pure audit model and sets out some examples of possible approaches, including: building supplier capacity and ownership; promoting better HR practices; listening more to workers and their representatives; working with other stakeholders on common issues; and pursuing labour standards improvement through public policy engagement.