This year we once again had the pleasure of attending RightsCon, the world’s leading event on human rights in the digital age.
Our first experience of the conference was in June 2017, when we took part in the session ‘Crowdsourcing data and analysis for human rights organizations’. During this session we introduced the work we do at WikiRate — a platform that opens up datasets on the social and environmental performance of companies and makes them accessible to all.
The following year, at RightsCon 2018 in Toronto, we gave a lightning talk on ‘How open data can revolutionize supply chains’ explaining the power of bringing disparate supply chain data-sets together. And so, in June this year, we landed in Tunis looking forward to our third RightsCon.
Together with worker’s rights advocate Clean Clothes Campaign and tech tool Open Apparel Registry, WikiRate hosted the strategic round table “Transparency with Teeth: Making supply chain data work in the apparel industry.”
Moderated by Jill Tucker of the C&A Foundation, we engaged a diverse audience of advocates, researchers, and private sector participants in a discussion on how transparent disclosures, open data and digital tools can 1) help hold companies and factories accountable and 2) provide avenues to remedy when workers human rights are violated.
The panel began reflecting on whether transparency initiatives can achieve systemic changes in the apparel sector. Representing WikiRate, Program Manager Laureen van Breen stated:
Systemic change is about finding larger underlying patterns and addressing the dynamics that “broke” the system in the first place. WikiRate contributes to this by gathering as much information about supply chains as we possibly can over long periods of time.
Ultimately, this will allow us to analyze global supply networks on a systemic level, pinpointing things like how and when these networks change, where the black boxes are, in which contexts issues arise, and what practices have proven most effective or ineffective. This, in turn, will help companies systematically improve their approach to managing their supply chains.
To this, Paul Roeland from the Clean Clothes Campaign added:
Just supply chain transparency is not enough. Yet, transparency is a necessary enabling condition for many other rights, such as the right to remedy. Only with basic transparency in place, can we move on to linking that data with wages, safety inspections, and other relevant information.
Katie Shaw from the Open Apparel Registry highlighted the need for joint efforts to make the sector more transparent and accountable, and how open data is key to achieve impactful collaborations.
At WikiRate we agree and believe that without free and open data on how companies are performing we cannot hold them to account nor can civil society begin a dialogue with them on how to improve their impacts. A lack of transparency from a company is not only damaging to its stakeholders, it can actually be damaging to the company itself. Without knowledge of their supply chains and the support of their supply chain stakeholders, companies cannot fully protect themselves from risks of environmental damage and human rights violations.
The discussion then centered around the benefits and challenges of transparency for supply chain workers. Open data makes it possible to gather data faster and more systematic, but it also makes it possible to combine, aggregate and analyze datasets that were previously disparate. In turn, new conclusions can be drawn about what brand policies apply to which workers, and this information helps on-ground organizations like Clean Clothes Campaign and their partners to advocate for improvements in labour conditions.
On the other hand, the panelists agreed that it is necessary to find a balance between transparency and privacy. Supply chain transparency becomes counterproductive if it poses a risk for workers or union organizers. All personal data of the workers or information that can be traced back to them must be protected and treated as highly sensitive. Katie Shaw from OAR pointed out that:
Company concerns over losing competitive advantage by disclosing their suppliers are no longer considered valid — at least not for the huge global brands.
However, she also recognized that there are still legitimate concerns from SMEs.
Following the panels remarks, the audience engaged in a round table discussion on topics such as the incentives for companies to disclose, the reliability of social audits and self-reported disclosures from companies, the pitfalls of worker voice tools, and the need to triangulate data-sets in order to have a solid and reliable understanding of supply chain operations.
RightsCon 2019 Learnings
RightsCon is such a powerful event because it gathers a broad diversity of activists and stakeholders from all over the globe, and set up the most urgent discussion in well-balanced sessions. The Tunis edition brought together nearly 3 000 participants and offered them the opportunity to attend any of the 450 sessions discussing technology’s impact on society and human rights from every possible angle. It can be rare to attend a conference like this where there is a real sense of connection and support among participants and we are honored to be part of its community.
At the end of the event, a Learnings Statement was released highlighting the major topics of this year’s conversation. Starting from the premise that every aspect of human rights is impacted by technology, it calls all stakeholders to come together and achieve shared understandings of how their work uniquely impacts human rights in the digital age. At WikiRate we are proud to be working towards this goal by:
- Using and supporting the development of a free and open-source platform that is opening up and standardizing corporate data. WikiRate data can be accessed through its API to better assess, understand, and mitigate companies impact on human rights.
- Connecting a global community with a variety of stakeholders enabling academics, nonprofits, standard bodies, investors, companies, tech developers and the broader public to research, discuss and rate company performance and human rights due diligence.
- Feeding data contributed to our platform into impactful new technologies designed to empower civil society to aid their human rights advocacy efforts and for helping to remedy abuses.
Projects and initiatives that caught our eye
We were fortunate enough to attend a large range of inspiring presentations, roundtables and panels. These are a few of the projects and initiatives that caught our eye:
- Investor Alliance for Human Rights. A collective action platform that works along with civil society to engage with the investment community to put the investor’s responsibility to respect human rights into practice.
- Shared Space Under Pressure: Business Support for Civic Freedoms and Human Rights Defenders. A guide that advises companies to address the challenges and opportunities to support civic freedoms and human rights defenders.
- Impact OSS. An open source platform to improve realisation and transparency of human rights and the SDGs
- Datos Protegidos. A non-profit organization working to promote and improve the rights to privacy and data protection of the citizens of Chile.
We are looking forward to continuing the conversation at RightsCon 2020 in San José de Costa Rica and hope to see you there!
WRITTEN BY Lucía Ixtacuy, Aileen Robinson & Laureen van Breen
