The Human Rights Opportunity – Living Wages

Living Wages /

15 cases of how companies are boosting their contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals by putting people first.

The provision of living wages for workers in global value chains could contribute to supporting entire families and communities in surfacing from conditions of poverty, fueling the economic and social development called for by both public and private actors in their endorsement of the SDGs.

Every day, workers head to factories, fields, mines, warehouses and other job sites across the world. There, they put in a full day’s work, contributing their time and labor to ensure the smooth running and expansion of businesses and, in many cases, the development of national economies as well.

More than 340 million workers are currently living with their families on less than US $1.90 per person per day. /

Yet, despite this contribution, day in and day out, many of these workers go home at the end of their long work days and still struggle to meet their basic needs and those of their families. Minimum wage laws in their countries may be weak or unenforced. The wages and any in-kind earnings they do receive are simply not enough to cover essentials such as nutritious food, clean water, sanitary housing, affordable health care, and opportunities for education.

The private sector’s role in these workers’ lives is immense. Wage-setting by employers – which in turn is regulated by governments and often influenced by the purchasing practices of those employers’ business partners – directly impacts the ability of these workers to live lives of dignity, through which their most basic rights as human beings are met.

Given this role, companies across sectors and geographies are asking, “What exactly is a living wage?” and “How can the provision of living wages be realistically achieved?”

In general terms, a living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker and their family to meet basic needs, including some discretionary income. In many cases, a living wage is considered to be higher than the minimum wage set by national laws.

What this looks like in practice is very likely to vary across contexts and even within countries. But, as the case studies below aim to demonstrate, there are credible processes out there that are starting to set and implement living wages in real ways.

The provision of living wages for workers in global value chains could contribute to supporting entire families and communities in surfacing from conditions of poverty, fueling the economic and social development called for by both public and private actors in their endorsement of the SDGs.

Among others, the human rights to freedom of association, collective bargaining and non-discrimination are key drivers in supporting the provision of a living wage, which in turn can contribute to the fulfillment of the human rights to food, water, health, adequate housing, education, family life, fair working hours and so on.

As illustrated in the graphic above, and depending on the specifics of the relevant corporate initiative, the provision of a living wage may contribute to the achievement of an array of Global Goals, including:

  • Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere [i]
  • Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture [ii]
  • Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages [iii]
  • Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all [iv]
  • Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls [v]
  • Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all [vi]
  • Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all [vii]
  • Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all [viii]
  • Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries [ix]
  • Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable [x]
  • Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts [xi]

More than 450 million people work in global supply chain-related jobs. When combined with these workers’ families, the number of individuals directly affected by wage-setting in global value chains rises to 2 billion. /

So, how are companies currently demonstrating respect for human rights and supporting a world in which these goals can become a reality – a world in which workers earn living wages such that they and their families are meeting their basic needs?

 Examples illustrated by the case studies below include:

These case studies explore each of these innovative and evolving models in more detail. Each case study captures publicly available information on the initiative, alongside experiences and opinions from various actors involved.

The following summaries do not claim to give a definitive account of a specific initiative or of all perspectives on that case study; instead, they are intended to serve as illustrative examples of how action toward corporate respect for human rights can make a critical contribution to the achievement of various goals and targets under the SDGs.

Key Takeaways on Living Wages: /

Individual Company Action
  • The human rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining play central roles in company action on living wages.
  • Mature industrial relations are key in figuring out what a living wage means in a particular context and in generating feedback loops that help maintain the provision of living wages over time.
  • Improved wage management systems and more comprehensive strategies for promoting fair wages can address many elements that influence whether a living wage is provided in the long-term. Such elements include timeliness of payments; fair working hours; pay adjustments based on skills, experience levels and performance; and open communication channels between workers and management.
  • Collaborative initiatives that drive systemic change at both industry and government levels can greatly inform and enhance individual company action on living wages.
  • Producer-buyer partnerships are possible and can facilitate direct involvement from workers in determining living wages in specific work sites, thereby having a real impact on the lives of workers and their families via the provision of a living wage while collaborative initiatives with a larger scale are built at a national level.
Collective Action
  • Industry-wide, collaborative action across each step in the supply chain builds leverage (the ability to influence another party to prevent, mitigate and/or remediate a human rights harm) at the national level to help make living wages a reality for workers, regardless of which brands their employers supply.
  • Collective bargaining across an industry bolsters meaningful stakeholder engagement between employer associations and trade unions, as well as between suppliers and buyers, while also facilitating access to remedy when commitments are not met.
  • The re-examination of key aspects of the core business, including product quality investment and purchasing practices, can clarify the contribution of global brands to systemic labor rights issues and inform holistic responses.
  • The identification of particularly vulnerable stakeholders helps companies focus their efforts on the most salient human rights issues associated with their business.
  • Recognizing that living wages cannot be tackled in isolation inspires multi-faceted approaches that use a confluence of different incentives to drive change from many angles.

H&M’s Fair Living Wage Strategy /

The challenge /

Over 1.6 million people work in the factories that supply H&M apparel, 65% of whom are women.

There is thus little question about the scale at which this global apparel brand has the ability to contribute to sustainable development by supporting the provision of living wages to workers in their supply chain.

The response /

Acknowledging the substantial number of individuals involved in its global supply chain, H&M has identified and prioritized living wages as one of its salient human rights issues – defined as the human rights at risk of the most severe negative impacts through the company’s activities and business relationships.

“We developed our global Fair Living Wage Strategy in 2013 with guidance from multiple experts, trade-unions and NGOs. The strategy focuses on governments, factory owners, our own purchasing practices and most crucially, workers. The strategy is both interlinked with and dependent on well-functioning industrial relations, including collective bargaining. Therefore, it is crucial for all parties involved to work together for the strategy to really come to life.”

– THE H&M GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2017

At the center of the company’s work on this issue is H&M’s Fair Living Wage Strategy. Launched in 2013, it is the first comprehensive wage strategy undertaken individually by a global brand.

In implementing the strategy, the company defines a living wage as “a wage which satisfies the basic needs of employees and their families and provides some discretionary income such as savings. It should be revised annually, and negotiated with democratically elected worker representatives.”

Key aspects of the initiative /

H&M’s Fair Living Wage Strategy, which the company has refined since its launch in 2013 based on its stakeholder engagement and involvement in various collaborative initiatives, has four main components and respective results so far:

1- Workplace dialogue and industrial relations programs to facilitate positive communication and negotiation on wage increases and other working conditions between (a) employers and employees at the factory level and (b) employer associations and trade unions at the national level.

These programs support the establishment of democratically elected worker representation at strategic suppliers, which can lead to the establishment of trade unions if the employees so choose. 

The programs also include training at the factory level on workplace cooperation, negotiation skills, collective bargaining and labor law. The global union federation IndustriALL, the Swedish trade union IF Metall, the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the Swedish development agency Sida are key partners in several of these programs.

According to H&M:

  • By the end of 2017, 458 factories were enrolled in the company’s workplace dialogue and industrial relations programs, representing 52% of H&M’s total product volume. In 2018, an additional 223 factories are enrolling in these programs.
  • More than 600,000 factory workers are directly covered by democratically elected worker representation through these programs.
  • The programs are currently run in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Turkey.
  • In 2017, democratically elected worker representation was in place at suppliers representing 52% of the company’s product volume.

“At H&M group, we believe that well-functioning industrial relations are crucial to the creation of fair jobs. Good relationships between workers and management and effective interactions and negotiations on factory, industry and country level, promote good working conditions and better wages. Good labour relations also support stability and performance in our production markets.”

// THE H&M GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2017

2- Fair Wage Method to ensure that wage-setting takes the individual worker’s skills, experience, performance, and responsibility into full consideration.

The Fair Wage Method, developed by the Fair Wage Network and based on twelve dimensions, supports the creation of holistic pay structures that enable and sustain fair living wages and facilitate improved dialogue between employers and employees at the factory level.

Distinct from an audit approach, the Fair Wage Method focuses on partnerships with factories, stores, and brands to assess wage practices through worker and management surveys, identify root causes, and implement improvements, including within Human Resources policies and practices.

According to H&M:

  • Systems taking the Fair Wage Method into consideration are being implemented at an increasing number of factories: 140 at the end of 2016 (representing 29% of H&M’s total product volume), 228 at the end of 2017 (representing 40% of H&M’s total product volume), and a total of 336 by the end of 2018, superseding H&M’s goal of 50% of the total product volume by the end of 2018.
  • Implementation of the Fair Wage Method takes place in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Myanmar, India, and Indonesia.
  • Approximately 200 factories will also be enrolled in the Wage Management System Program internally developed by H&M.
  • Implementation of the Wage Management System Program takes place in Bangladesh, Turkey, Ethiopia, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, China, and Cambodia.

3- Strategic collaborations in recognition that H&M shares its suppliers with many other brands, meaning that living wages are an industry-wide challenge that must be tackled in partnership with others.

Here, H&M’s membership in the ACT (Action, Collaboration, Transformation) initiative plays a key role in the company’s strategy, as the company is one of the founding members of the initiative (see the ACT case study).

This collaborative work is further complemented by the now-permanent Global Framework Agreement between H&M, IndustriALL and the Swedish trade union IF Metall.

This agreement is already demonstrating its value and has facilitated conflict resolution between workers and management within H&M’s supply chains. Implementation of the agreement has been mainly channeled through the National Monitoring Committees (NMCs) that consist of representatives from local trade unions and H&M. In Myanmar, where a month-long strike took place after eight union leaders were fired in October 2015, the agreement was “key to getting trade unionists back to work, as well as achieving trade union recognition at the Jiale Fashion factory in Yangon.” In Pakistan, the agreement was invoked to bring together IndustriALL Pakistani affiliate NTUF and local management of the Denim Clothing Company factory for joint negotiations, which resulted in the reinstatement of 88 workers after they had been fired for demanding better working conditions at the factory.

Moreover, the company continues its collaboration projects with Sida, ILO, and IF Metall to train management and workers on workplace cooperation and dispute resolution.

4- Government engagement in recognition of H&M’s influence and access to the governments in the countries where the company’s products are made.

For example, since 2014, the company joined peer companies to advocate for the Cambodian government’s Trade Union Law and its compliance with ILO conventions. According to H&M, this influence and access relies on the fact that the company’s presence in all of its sourcing markets includes an H&M office and a sustainability team.

“The government engagement aspect of H&M’s work is key. Governments must install an enabling legislative environment for labor rights, one that creates a better balance of power and supports collective bargaining between social partners. In particular, governments must secure implementation of international labor standards when it comes to trade union rights – the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining. Employers must be required to adhere to these standards; and in that sense, buyers can do much more to engage governments and stress adherence to these rights by their suppliers.

In the end, sustainable industrial relations can only be achieved by workers organizing themselves in democratic, independent trade unions at the factory or company level and at the national level. This requires action from governments, but it also requires education. Workers need to know their own rights and have channels for claiming them. Management must understand workers’ rights and put systems in place that foster better industrial relations and social dialogue. And brands must support their suppliers in improving working conditions. Training all actors on these issues across the supply chain, as H&M is doing in partnership with us and others, is incredibly important.”

– MATS SVENSSON, IF METALL

Egedeniz Textile’s Living Wage Project /

Driving the provision of a living wage from the producer perspective

The challenge /

The majority of initiatives around living wages tend to be spearheaded by multinational brands in response to international or national pressure, with producers and manufacturers subsequently affected by such initiatives and occasionally brought in as partners as collaborations unfold.

While there is widespread agreement that cross-industry, collaborative efforts are necessary for systemic change when it comes to living wages, it is also important to highlight opportunities for producers to jointly lead initiatives around this issue, as such efforts can be deeply transformative in enhancing the lives of workers and their families.

The response /

One such example of a producer-buyer partnership is the Living Wage Project of Egedeniz Textile, the first certified organic textile company in Turkey and a medium-sized producer supplying to brands in the United States, Japan and Western Europe.

In partnership with Swedish children’s wear brand Mini Rodini and the Fair Wear Foundation, Egedeniz launched the Living Wage Project in June 2016 after deciding as an employer to prioritize the provision of a living wage to its workers.

Key aspects of the initiative /

In the first two years of the Living Wage project, Egedeniz has:

1. Carried out a cost of living survey with its workers across three wage groups and cross-referenced the results with government data and analysis, with support from the Fair Wear Foundation.

2. Engaged with its buyer Mini Rodini on the survey findings, working with the brand to calculate an initial premium (an additional €0.18 per garment) that resulted in an average 14% wage increase on the lowest monthly salary among the three wage groups covered by the survey.

“The most important part of this project has been the relationships between all the steps in the supply chain. From the brand side, supplier relations are increasing positively. From the supplier side, it’s really important to believe in your role in the partnership with a buyer. If your working conditions will change simply based on the brand, then there are risks of huge negative impacts for the workers. You need to believe in and own your role in the sustainability of the business and in the partnerships involved.”

– Mümin Can Eker, Egedeniz Textile

3. Facilitated dialogues and awareness-raising across the three wage groups to ensure understanding of the program and how the wage increases are set.

4. Began approaching additional buyers to join the program in an effort to enhance the sustainability of the project over time.

5. Conducted an initial evaluation survey among its employees, assessing workers’ knowledge about the Living Wage Project, their experiences throughout the implementation of the project, how they are using the additional wages, and what their general opinions are concerning the initiative. Overall feedback to date has been positive, reflecting workers’ clear understanding of how the initiative is carried out and demonstrating positive impacts in terms of the ability of workers to meet their and their families’ basic needs.

“You can see the change in the eyes of workers when you walk through the sewing line. We’re stopped and the workers say thanks. It can be seen as such a small payment, but it’s such an important thing to these workers. It’s increased their loyalty and motivation – they feel like a valued part of the business and we’re seeing clear improvements in the quality of the work and worker recruitment and retention. We’re also hearing positive feedback from worker representatives and we can see the relationship-building directly on the production line.”

– OZGU CUBUKCUOGLU, EGEDENIZ TEXTILE

ACT Initiative /

Tackling systemic worker issues through industry collective bargaining

“The ACT initiative is an example of how companies have been working together with trade unions, governments, and others to address some of the most severe and systemic labor rights abuses in their supply chains. It illustrates the promise of collective action to leverage change.Importantly, initiatives like ACT are not just about voluntary philanthropic contributions to development, but also the product of a recognized responsibility of companies to address severe human rights risks in their supply chains. In meeting this responsibility, ACT makes a critical contribution to sustainable development as well.”

– Professor John Ruggie, former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights

The challenge /

April 2013: The Rana Plaza factory collapse shook the world and the business community along with it. For the textile and apparel industry in particular, the deadliest garment factory accident in history – totaling 1,134 individuals killed and approximately 2,500 injured – crystallized awareness about continued failings in both government and business oversight of supply chain conditions and the potentially devastating human cost of those shortcomings. The Bangladesh Accord was thus born, creating the first legally binding agreement between global brands and trade unions to ensure safe working conditions in the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry.

For many apparel and textile brands, engagement in the Bangladesh Accord became an important first exposure to the necessity and power of collective, industry-wide action in the face of a pervasive supply chain issue. Due in part to this experience and a drive to examine other working conditions alongside health and safety issues, several leading brands came together to face another systemic issue in their supply chains – the lack of a living wage in garment factories and the severe impacts that this has on workers, their families and their communities.

“We can’t talk about ACT without talking about the Bangladesh Accord. Many of the relationships we have with the brands now involved in ACT were forged through the Accord context.

There has to be a willingness to work together, but also to jointly commit to a common set of rules and systems that work. And, in all of my engagements on ACT, across all of the relevant actors, not one person has said, ‘That won’t work.’ This is extraordinary. And it’s because we’re providing a logical framework that will be built out in each country by the unions and employers standing together on their common interest platform and taking wages and working conditions out of industry competition. This is the only path toward systemic, sustainable change in this industry on this issue.”

– JENNY HOLDCROFT, IndustriALL

Even before the Rana Plaza tragedy, however, various brands had built foundational relationships with trade unions through global framework agreements that are now feeding into collective, industry action in this area. These agreements, which are “negotiated at a global level between trade unions and a multinational company,” put in place standards across a company’s operations and business relationships and can be enforced regardless of whether those standards are in place and upheld in an individual country.

“An important benefit of the ACT initiative is that it is an opportunity to reinforce and build on what we are already doing around living wages within the Global Framework Agreement with IndustriALL Global Union, which Inditex signed in 2007 and which plays a priority role in our sustainability strategy. ACT is focused on building more positive relationships between brands and suppliers and between suppliers and workers through enforcement of collective bargaining in the industry. And it is increasing internal awareness within Inditex on our living wage efforts. The more brands that join this effort, the more powerful the impact will be.”

– FÉLIX POZA PEÑA, INDITEX

The response /

The ACT (Action, Collaboration, Transformation) initiative, which formally launched in 2015, is an agreement between international brands and retailers and trade unions to “transform the garment and textile industry and achieve living wages for workers through industry-wide collective bargaining linked to purchasing practices.”

The initiative centers on a memorandum of understanding between the global union IndustriALL and 17 global brands and retailers (including ASOS, C&A, H&M, Inditex, Kmart, Next, Primark, Target, Tchibo, Tesco and others). It is led by a 50% union, 50% brand board and a full-time secretariat.

“There’s no playing to the galleries on this. With living wages, there’s an astounding opportunity to improve lives. But, before ACT, there was never any means of dealing with the issue in any effective way. After the Bangladesh Accord, we built on the relationships with IndustriALL and other brands that were strengthened as part of that effort to tackle living wages.

How many environments are there where you have brands, retailers, manufacturers, governments, trade unions and employer associations all at the same table? This is real innovation.”

– Christopher Grayer, Next

Key aspects of the initiative /

Putting freedom of association and collective bargaining at the center, the ACT model is comprised of three distinct but interrelated components:

“There’s no playing to the galleries on this. With living wages, there’s an astounding opportunity to improve lives. But, before ACT, there was never any means of dealing with the issue in any effective way. After the Bangladesh Accord, we built on the relationships with IndustriALL and other brands that were strengthened as part of that effort to tackle living wages.

How many environments are there where you have brands, retailers, manufacturers, governments, trade unions and employer associations all at the same table? This is real innovation.”

– Christopher Grayer, Next

1. Industry-wide collective bargaining between employers and unions of registered and legally enforceable agreements at the national level, such that “workers in the garment and textile industry within a country can negotiate their wages under the same conditions, regardless of the factory they work in and the retailers and brands they produce for.”

2. Purchasing practices of the member brands and retailers that ensure that “payment of the negotiated wage is supported and enabled by the terms of contracts” between global buyers and their suppliers.

3. Government engagement on national minimum wage fixing enforcement mechanisms, so that they provide “an adequately resourced regulatory, inspection, and legal system that ensures that no less than legal minimum wages are paid to workers” since “minimum wages play a vital role in underpinning living wages and must be set in accordance with this level and regularly reviewed in line with cost of living increases.”

In tackling each of these components, ACT is currently supporting capacity- and relationship-building among member brands’ supplier factories, IndustriALL’s affiliated unions and governments in target countries, as well as research on how purchasing practices can best facilitate payment of a living wage.

The initiative’s current countries of focus include Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkey and Vietnam. It is working to bring additional brands on board to further increase its scope and influence and avoid competitive disadvantages.

“This is a groundbreaking program. We’re organizing ourselves in a way that we never had before. Yes, this takes time, but it is the only way to tackle systemic, structural challenges.

Importantly, we’re connecting this back to our own human rights due diligence at the same time. If we want to secure our future as a business enterprise, we can’t cherry pick what we want to work on, including when it comes to the SDGs. We need to thoroughly look at both our positive and negative impacts on people and then take action, collectively and independently, from there.”

– ACHIM LOHRIE, TCHIBO

Malawi Tea 2020 /

Joining forces at a national level to address root causes of endemic poverty

The challenge /

Malawi, East Africa: A young child is nestled on her mother’s back, wrapped snuggly in a chitenje and napping soundly as her mother moves up and down seemingly endless rows of tea plants, picking the vibrant green leaves with expert efficiency and filling basket after basket before the sun goes down on another full day of work in the fields.

Based on Malawi’s malnutrition rate of approximately 50%, the chances are high that this child’s growing body will become stunted physically and in other developmental areas, notwithstanding her mother’s wages and in-kind earnings as a worker in the Malawian tea industry.

As international non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigns have highlighted since the early 2000s, wages remain low in the Malawian tea business despite it being the largest formal employer in all of Malawi. Approximately 62% of Malawians live below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of US$1.25 per day; approximately 50,000 tea plantation workers were documented in 2013 as being trapped in conditions of extreme poverty. Research commissioned to calculate what a living wage would be in the Malawian tea industry concluded that wages and in-kind benefits would need to double to achieve a living wage.

The response /

In 2015, 20 different groups along the Malawian tea chain got together and agreed that more had to be done to tackle the serious issue of worker wages in their industry. The resulting Malawi Tea 2020 Revitalisation Programme (Malawi Tea 2020) is a coalition of Malawian tea producers, the largest international tea buyers, NGOs, relevant certification organizations, and donors. 

The initiative is aiming to “create a competitive Malawian tea industry where workers earn a living wage and smallholders are thriving.” The partnership is endorsed by the Malawian government and involves companies of a range of sizes. All participating tea producers are part of the program through the Tea Association of Malawi (TAML).

The Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), TAML, Oxfam, IDH (the Sustainable Trade Initiative), and GIZ (the German Agency for International Cooperation) jointly lead the initiative, which is the first of its kind in the tea industry.

“None of this would have happened without the burning platform from NGOs and other campaigns. But once that has happened, you must then have shared knowledge about what the problem is; and then shared commitment across brands, producers, workers and governments to practical approaches that will have a real impact.”

– Rachel Wilshaw, Oxfam

Key aspects of the initiative /

Recognizing that living wages cannot be tackled in isolation but must instead be addressed using a multifaceted approach, Malawi Tea 2020’s five-pronged initiative and respective results to date include: 

1. Improved productivity and quality of Malawian tea to generate a more profitable and competitive industry that is able to support the payment of living wages to its workers.

  • Outreach to financiers and donors to revitalize the industry through irrigation, replanting and factory refurbishments has resulted in two ongoing deals at an estimated US$3 million.

    Each deal involves a tea estate undergoing irrigation feasibility studies and environmental and social impact assessments, with support from IDH and other investors, to boost volume and quality production while mitigating negative social and environmental impacts such as climate change. 
  •  Tea estates themselves have invested US$6.3 million into revitalization projects, including those around agricultural improvements, infrastructure and electricity generation.

2. Improved conditions for women workers via housing and nutrition improvement programs, as well as efforts to achieve better human resources management.

  • Via a new nutrition program, 30,000 workers (out of a target of 50,000) now receive fortified lunchtime meals and all workers receive weekly vegetable distributions.
  • TAML has adopted a new policy to address sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination, four estates have established gender committees, and gender training sessions for supervisors, managers and workers began in September 2017.

3. Improved opportunities for smallholders to earn a living income via Farmer Field School methodologies, business management programs, and agro-inputs.

  • A living income study has established a living income benchmark for smallholder farmers (MWK2,889 or US$15.04 in PPP – purchasing power parity), as set against current smallholder incomes (MWK1,574 or US$8.16 PPP).
  • 3,300 smallholder farmers (65% women) have improved their farming and business skills.
  • 50 Farmer Field Schools have trained 1,548 farmers, resulting in the improvement of field-level practices. For instance, 540,000 tea plants are being cultivated in 45 mini tea nurseries and 3,138 farmers are participating in a total of 173 village savings and loan groups across Malawi.

4. Improved wage-setting process that centers around collective bargaining between worker representatives and employer organizations.

  • TAML and the Plantation and Agriculture Workers Union (PAWU) igned the first ever collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in the tea sector.
  • Wages have gone up several times since the initiative started in 2015, narrowing the gap between the TAML base wage and living wage from 28% achievement of the living wage to 41%.
  • Training of 337 managers in 2017 on the CBA and wage sensitization sessions with 5,500 workers, have been carried out.

5. Improved environmental efficiency and more sustainable energy use in tea-growing areas.

  • As of September 2017, 7 factories had started collecting primary data on their energy efficiency.
  • In June 2017, key stakeholders took part in a training on climate change impact mapping.
  • 10 tree nurseries have been established and 6 cook stove production groups with 125 members have been established alongside the training of 140 sales agents.

“Malawi Tea 2020 is tackling the issue of extreme poverty in the Malawi tea workforce from a holistic approach. It’s looking at innovation and investment in the industry; it’s seriously examining what a living wage is in this context and how buyers’ procurement practices must change to meet that; it’s empowering smallholders and recognizing their important role in all this; it’s linking to the sector’s environmental efficiency and sustainability; and it’s bringing a gender lens to all it does.”

– Sarah Roberts, Ethical Tea Partnership

In addition, a key highlight of the program has been its ongoing work around sustainable procurement practices. In building out this area, the initiative commissioned Accenture Development Partnerships to develop a methodology to calculate the “additional cost of paying workers a living wage and for this cost to be fairly shared across the tea value chain.” Consultations on the proposed model are currently underway. At the same time, the initiative is seeking additional brands and traders to expand the program to cover 100% of the Malawian tea industry.

“Working on living wages in the context of Malawi Tea 2020 isn’t just about paying workers more. It’s about taking a holistic approach that breaks down what we’re really trying to achieve and coming up with various programs and targets that realistically support the development of a sustainable tea industry in Malawi.

Scale and traction are needed to effect real change when tackling these complex issues. For some companies, it might initially feel uncomfortable to engage with your competitors in this way, but you can and should work through that in order to use your collective influence to drive positive impacts that just won’t happen without collaboration across the industry.
Also, all of the different actors involved in an initiative like Malawi Tea 2020 will have different perspectives; and that’s ok.

It’s when no issues are arising that you have to worry, since this likely means that people aren’t speaking up. Having uncomfortable conversations about what works and what doesn’t work is an important part of the process and companies should be flexible and adapt their approaches based on what they learn along the way from the network of knowledge and various areas of expertise that should be involved.”

– KATY TUBB, TATA GLOBAL BEVERAGE

Dr. Christine Chow /

Board Member

She/Her

Linkedin-in
Dr. Christine Chow has more than 25 years’ experience in investment management spanning sustainable investment, corporate governance, technology and AI.

She has held senior leadership roles at UBS Asset Management, HSBC Asset Management and Federated Hermes, where she led global stewardship, thematic research, responsible investment and engagement with companies on sustainability and governance issues. She was the human rights engagement lead at Federated Hermes, where she pioneered its approach to global value chain engagement with electronics companies, and advocated for provenance and traceability of critical minerals.

Christine served as Managing Director at UBS Asset Management, leading on global stewardship, thematic research and impact engagement. Previously, she was Global Head of Stewardship and a board member of HSBC Asset Management UK Limited, and Head of Asia and Global Technology at Federated Hermes EOS. From 2019 to 2025, she served as a board member and then Chair of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), a global investor-led organisation representing around US$100 trillion in assets under management across more than 40 countries.

Christine is recognised internationally for her work on responsible investment, AI governance and corporate stewardship. She has published influential work on responsible AI and data governance and was a member of the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence, serving on its Data Governance Task Force. She is the Appointed Advisor of AFRC in Hong Kong, the independent regulator of the accounting profession, and Emeritus Governor of the London School of Economics. Her PhD research on responsible investment was shortlisted for a United Nations award recognising industry relevance and academic excellence.

David Vermijs /

Director

He/Him Amsterdam

Linkedin-in

As Director, David engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Specializes in Business Enterprises

As Director, David engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

David has over a decade of experience advising multinational corporations, governments, NGOs and others on business and human rights. Prior to joining Shift, David provided research assistance to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights John Ruggie. As part of his contributions, David field-tested human rights due diligence with a group of Dutch companies and their stakeholders, and he supported research on company-led grievance mechanisms.

From 2008 to 2010, David was the lead consultant on an 18-month project, the Business and Human Rights Initiative, under the umbrella of the Global Compact Network Netherlands. The initiative was a collaboration between 10 Dutch multinationals – ABN AMRO, AkzoNobel, Essent, KLM, Philips, Rabobank, Randstad, Shell, TNT and Unilever – and led to the publication of a ground-breaking business guidance tool, How to Do Business with Respect for Human Rights, in 2010. Through his work at Shift, David led the update of this publication from 2014 to 2016 with the support of the Dutch government under their National Action Plan on implementing the Guiding Principles.

Another major guidance tool David has helped develop addresses due diligence on child labor, published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) in 2015. The guidance was the result of a multi-year, multi-stakeholder, multi-country project led by David involving the ILO, IOE, companies, unions, NGOs and other stakeholders.

David was previously a Research Fellow at the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, including assisting in teaching on business and human rights, global governance, corporate governance and leadership. David sits in a personal capacity on the board of the Dutch Social and Economic Council International Corporate Social Responsibility Committee. He has a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts in Business from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. David is a Dutch national, speaks English and Dutch and is proficient in Spanish and German.

Anna Triponel /

Senior Associate

She/Her London

Linkedin-in

As a Senior Associate with Shift, Anna advises companies, lawyers, investors and business associations on how to put the Guiding Principles into practice.

As a Senior Associate with Shift, Anna advises companies, investors and business associations on how to put the Guiding Principles into practice. Trained as a lawyer, Anna focuses particularly on working with legal professionals on their role in implementing the Guiding Principles and has led work on analyzing regulations in various jurisdictions and how they align to the Guiding Principles. She also has particular expertise on the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. 

Prior to joining Shift, Anna provided input to the work of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for business and human rights John Ruggie as a legal consultant. During this period, Anna also opened the New York office of the Public International Law & Policy Group, where she advised government officials, opposition leaders, human rights victims and civil society organizations on human rights, constitutional reform and transitional justice in Burma, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Somaliland, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Anna was previously a mergers and acquisitions associate at the law firm of Jones Day in New York, where she advised a broad range of multinational companies on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint venture, private equity and venture capital transactions. She founded and led the law firm’s International Law Pro Bono Group. She began her career as an advisor to the World Bank, advising on development governance structures to better meet the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education.

Anna is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in New York, England & Wales and France. She is a frequent expert speaker and writer on business and human rights and is the recipient of various professional awards, including the Empire State Counsel Award for changing the lives of those unable to afford counsel and the Seymour-Reuben Award for shaping international law. Anna has a Masters in International Law from American University Washington College of Law and a degree in common and civil law from the University of Paris X. She has been awarded the Business Sustainability Management certificate from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and the MBA Essentials certificate from London School of Economics (LSE). Anna is a British and French national and speaks English and French.

Martyn Platt /

Head of Human Resources

He/Him

As Head of Human Resources, Martyn leads Shift’s global people strategy and oversees all aspects of HR across the organization.

As Head of Human Resources, Martyn leads Shift’s global people strategy and oversees all aspects of HR across the organization. He ensures that Shift’s systems, policies and practices foster a thriving, inclusive and values-driven culture that supports our mission to embed respect for people’s dignity at the core of business practice.

Martyn brings over a decade of HR leadership experience across mission-driven and international organizations working at the intersection of business and society. Prior to joining Shift, he was Director of People Development & Culture at the PRI and earlier worked with Business in the Community. In these roles, he developed and embedded HR business partnering models, guided the organizations through significant growth and transformation, and partnered with senior leaders to design and implement people strategies that supported the delivery of their mission. Most recently, he served as a consultant with the WeProtect Global Alliance, where he supported the establishment of their HR function.

He is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and holds a Level 7 Diploma in Human Resource Management, as well as an ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching and Mentoring, reflecting his strong focus on leadership development and coaching. Martyn studied German and International Relations at the University of Exeter, including a year at the University of Würzburg in Germany. He later worked on education projects in Nicaragua, strengthening his global outlook and commitment to people-centred change.

Martyn is based in the United Kingdom.

Brianna Peterson /

Senior Advisor

She/Her Rome

Linkedin-in

As a Senior Advisor at Shift, Brianna advises financial institutions and companies on how to put the UNGPs into practice, with a particular focus on the nexus between human rights and climate change.

Specializes in Financial Institutions

As a Senior Advisor at Shift, Brianna advises financial institutions and companies on how to put the UNGPs into practice, with a particular focus on the nexus between human rights and climate change. Brianna combines environment and climate change expertise with experience developing and implementing human rights policies, due diligence approaches and sustainability reporting.

Before Shift, Brianna spearheaded innovative sustainability initiatives at Sustainable Development Technology Canada and Export Development Canada (EDC). At EDC she led the development and implementation of exciting new portfolio approaches for climate change and human rights risk management, as well as aligning EDC’s corporate reporting with international reporting frameworks, such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and the UNGPs Reporting Framework.  She also led EDC’s international sustainability negotiations and engagements, including as co-Chair of the Equator Principles Climate Change Working Group.

Prior to joining EDC, Brianna worked for nine years as a diplomat with Canada’s foreign ministry, including four years at the United Nations General Assembly where she led environment and development negotiations, advocacy and outreach on behalf of the Government of Canada, including for the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Brianna has also advised international financial institutions including the World Bank Group, institutional investors, bilateral development agencies, and small- and medium-sized enterprises on the practical application of environment, climate change, human rights standards.

Brianna has an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University and a Master’s degree in Environmental Change & Management from the University of Oxford.

Ashleigh Owens /

Director | Financial Institutions Lead

She/Her New York City

Linkedin-in

As Shift’s Director / Financial Institutions Lead, Ashleigh leads our work with financial institutions and supports other partners across industries, leveraging her breadth of experience to tackle cutting-edge issues and entrenched challenges on the road to implementation of the UN Guiding Principles.

Specializes in Financial Institutions | Valuing Respect

As Director / Financial Institutions Lead, Ashleigh engages directly with financial institutions, companies and investors as they embed respect for human rights into their operations and business relationships. She also leads on pieces of research under our Valuing Respect Project, which is focused on developing better ways to evaluate business respect for human rights. Ashleigh has a breadth of experience approaching the Guiding Principles from business, legal and academic perspectives and brings a holistic view to Guiding Principles implementation.

Ashleigh was previously Executive Director at Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services. At EY Japan, she led a team of consultants supporting policy-making, educational program and governance design, stakeholder dialogue and due diligence strategies for multinational and domestic companies across a variety of industries.  As founder of the EY Human Rights Network, she led the enhancement of EY’s human rights capabilities across EY’s global network. In her role she was a frequent speaker and moderator of dialogues at multi-stakeholder fora and functioned as a connector between civil society, government and corporate actors with a common goal of empowering business to respect rights.

From 2012 to 2014 she conducted research at the United Nations University in the field of Sustainability Science, specializing in business and human rights. She prepared research for the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and spent time at the UN Global Compact New York and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Ashleigh later sat on the UN Global Compact’s Human Rights and Labour Working Group and drafted the Global Compact’s 2015 Guide on How to Develop a Human Rights Policy.

Ashleigh is a lawyer qualified in Australia and England & Wales and specialized in intellectual property law, labor law and public international law. She has advised governments and companies on state human rights obligations, companies on the nexus between bilateral investment treaties and human rights and fellow lawyers on integrating the Guiding Principles into legal advice. In 2007 she won the Intellectual Property Society of Australia & NZ prize.

Ashleigh has authored or contributed to a number of publications including: Business and Human Rights: Corporate Japan Rises to the Challenge (joint publication between EY Japan and Global Compact Network Japan), Corporate Social Responsibility Can Save Japan (Op-ed in Japan Times), Cumulative Human Rights Impacts (in UN Global Compact/ Maplecroft Business Dilemmas Forum) as well as several legal publications on intellectual property law in Australia and English translations of Japanese High Court judgments. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)’s Division for Prosperity.

Ashleigh has degrees in Law and Asian Studies from the University of Western Australia, with studies also conducted at the University of Vienna and Sophia University in Japan. She has a Masters of Science in Sustainability from the United Nations University and has undertaken the institution’s Leadership for Sustainability program. Ashleigh is an Australian national, and is fluent in Japanese.

Rachel Davis /

Vice President and Co-Founder

She/Her Sydney

Linkedin-in

As the Vice President and Co-Founder of Shift, Rachel helps shape our strategy and oversees a range of our collaborations with companies, governments, investors, civil society and other partners. Rachel is also responsible for driving our work on standards advocacy and with sports associations.

Specializes in Standard Setters | Sports and Human Rights

Rachel is one of Shift’s co-founders and has led work at Shift over the last decade on standard-setting, human rights and sports, financial institutions, conflict and international law.

As Vice President, Rachel shapes our strategy and oversees a range of our collaborations with companies, governments, investors, civil society and other partners. Rachel leads Shift’s work to influence standard-setters of all kinds to integrate the UN Guiding Principles into the rules that govern business, including engaging with governments and the European Union on mandatory human rights due diligence.

Rachel also has unique experience advising and leading efforts to drive respect for human rights into the operations of global sports governing bodies. Rachel was the Chair of FIFA’s independent Human Rights Advisory Board while it operated, between 2017 and 2021. She has advised the International Olympic Committee on human rights since 2018, including co-authoring recommendations for the IOC on a comprehensive human rights strategy with former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein.

Rachel has more than a decade of experience in implementing the Guiding Principles with a wide range of organizations, including public and private financial institutions and companies from diverse business sectors and geographies, and she frequently leads and facilitates engagements with senior audiences around the world. She is the co-author of the leading study of the costs of company-community conflict in the extractive sector.

Prior to co-founding Shift, Rachel was a senior legal advisor from 2006-2011 to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights, Harvard Professor John Ruggie. She played a pivotal role in the development of the Guiding Principles, advising on all aspects of the relationship between the Guiding Principles and national and international law.

Rachel is also a Senior Program Fellow with the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and has experience at the highest levels of the Australian legal system and internationally, having clerked at the High Court of Australia and at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. She has a particular interest in Indigenous peoples’ rights, having advised the Australian Federal Attorney-General’s Department on Indigenous affairs and acted as Ruggie’s liaison with the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues during his UN mandate.

Rachel has a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School and Bachelors degrees in Law and Politics from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where she also lectured and published in law. She is a (non-practicing) lawyer qualified in New South Wales.

Federico Burlon /

Director

He/Him London

As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Specializes in Business Enterprises

As Director at Shift, Federico engages with business partners to better identify, prioritize and act on salient human rights issues, embedding the UN Guiding Principles in companies’ decision-making processes.

Prior to joining Shift, Federico was Head of Delivery at Impactt. Federico managed a portfolio of clients, supported by a team of consultants. He led human rights assessment and remediation projects in the construction, energy, food and shipbuilding industries. This resulted in positive outcomes such as the return of passports and reimbursement of recruitment fees to workers and the strengthening of companies’ employment practices. Federico led Impactt’s engagement with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy in Qatar as external monitor of worker welfare in the construction of venues for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He also developed Impactt’s Diagnostics community of practice, delivering for clients as well as building internal capacity to execute human rights assessments around the world, with a focus on worker voice.

Prior to Impactt, Federico was a Sustainability Manager at Tesco plc. He contributed to the roll out of Tesco’s ethical trading programme to the goods-not-for-resale value chain. Federico engaged with hundreds of product and services suppliers and internal purchasing and sourcing teams to raise awareness of human rights issues and to prioritise and address the findings from third-party social audits. He also worked on climate change to develop a roadmap to achieve Tesco’s carbon reduction commitments related to direct and supply chain emissions.

In prior roles, Federico worked with a variety of human rights organisations in the United Kingdom and United States.

Federico holds a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College, with a focus on human rights law and international migration. He is a United World College Adriatic alumnus and is from Argentina.

Erika George /

Board Member

She/Her

Linkedin-in X-twitter

Erika George is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center and Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah. She has conducted leading research and is a passionate advocate for women’s rights, children’s rights, gender equality and environmental justice. 

Professor Erika R. George is the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, & Engagement, Professor of Law, and Ernest Haddad Faculty Scholar at Boston University School of Law and a leading expert in business and human rights.

Professor George is the author of “Incorporating Rights: Strategies to Advance Corporate Accountability” (Oxford University Press, 2021), which examines the evolution of demands for corporate responsibility to respect international human rights. She was a founding member of the editorial board of the Business and Human Rights Journal (Cambridge University Press) and since 2022  has served on the board of Shift. 

Before joining BU Law in 2024, Professor George spent over two decades at the University of Utah as the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law. She directed the Tanner Humanities Center for four years and worked to enhance engagement and expand and diversify audiences for public humanities programs during her tenure. She also advocated for academic freedom and the right to read. Along with the former poet laureate of Utah, she co-founded the PEN America Utah Chapter to protect access to information and prevent censorship. 

Professor George is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an American Bar Foundation fellow, a trustee of Earthjustice, and serves on the Executive Board of the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Society of American Law Teachers’ M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award and the Salt Lake City Human Rights Commission Human Rights Award.

Professor George earned her BA with honors from the University of Chicago, a MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and a JD from Harvard Law School. She also clerked for Judge William T. Hart of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She was a litigation associate at the law firm of Jenner & Block in Chicago before joining Human Rights Watch as a research fellow.

We recorded an interview with Professor George when she joined Shift’s Board in February of 2022. It is available here.

Erika George is Director of the Tanner Humanities Center and Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law at the University of Utah. Prior to joining the University of Utah, Professor George served as a law clerk and litigation associate at prominent firms in both Illinois and New York. She also worked as a fellow and later consultant at Human Rights Watch, where she conducted investigations in South Africa on women’s rights, children’s rights, violence, the right to education and abuses related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She wrote a book-length report, Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against Girls in South African Schools, which received widespread media coverage in South Africa and internationally. She currently serves as special counsel to the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

Her scholarship has appeared in the California Law Review, the Michigan Journal of International Law, the New York University Journal of International Law and Policy, and the annual proceedings of the American Society of International Law.

Professor George has served on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Department of State Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan and as a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah. She is an Editor for the blog globaljusticeblog.com.

We recorded an interview with Professor George when she joined Shift’s Board in February of 2022. It is available here.

John Ruggie /

Founding Chair / In Memoriam

John Ruggie is the author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In Memory of John Ruggie

John served as the founding Chair of Shift from 2011 to 2021. He was the Berthold Beitz Research Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also taught at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California, and at Columbia University where he became Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. From 1997-2001 John served as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning in the cabinet of Kofi Annan; from 2002-2005 as Special Advisor to the Secretary-General for the Global Compact; and from 2005-2011 as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, he received numerous awards from academic and professional societies for his contributions to social science, public policy and the development of international law. In addition to serving as Shift’s Board Chairman, John was also on the Board of Arabesque Asset Management Holding Company as well as Unilever’s Sustainability Advisory Council. His book, Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Caroline Rees /

President and Co-Founder

She/Her New York City

Linkedin-in

As Shift’s President, Caroline leads our strategic development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights.

As the President and Co-Founder of Shift, Caroline leads our organizational strategy and development and drives our thought leadership work on key challenges and opportunities in advancing corporate respect for business and human rights. Caroline speaks extensively at events around the world and frequently facilitates dialogue and debate amongst companies, governments, investors and civil society. In recent years, Caroline has focused on improving corporate human rights reporting as a catalyst for better human rights risk management, and on improving the data and methods used in evaluating companies’ social performance as part of ESG (environmental, social and governance) analysis. She has written and spoken extensively on the relevance of business respect for human rights, and the UNGPs specifically, to movements that seek to advance sustainability, equality, ESG investing, stakeholder capitalism, and human and social capital.

Caroline previously spent 14 years with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 2003 to 2006 she led the UK’s human rights negotiating team at the UN and she ran the negotiations to establish the mandate of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on business and human rights. The success of this initiative led to Professor John Ruggie’s appointment and from 2007-2011 Caroline was a lead advisor on his team and deeply involved in the drafting of the Guiding Principles.

From 2009 to 2011 Caroline was also the Director of the Governance and Accountability Program at the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and she remains a Senior Program Fellow there. Caroline is a member of the Imperatives Board of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Board of the Capitals Coalition, the Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council, and the Steering Committee of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures.

Caroline’s prior British foreign service career covered Iran, Slovakia, the UN Security Council in New York and the European Union in Brussels. Caroline has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from Oxford University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Caroline is a British national and speaks English, French and German.