Some of the clothes we wear, the food on our plates and many of the batteries that power our lives all have risks in common: potential harms buried deep in their supply chains.
A recent Amnesty International report exposed oppressive practices and labour rights abuses affecting garment workers in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the supply chains for many global fashion brands. We have seen other such reports of human rights abuses in supply chains over the years. A BBC investigation exposed that tomato paste sold in the UK contained tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour. Meanwhile, around 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt reserves lie in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where tens of thousands of children are reported to work at mine sites.
The World Benchmarking Alliance’s 2026 assessment of 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies found that only 10 per cent assess human rights risks in their supply chains, and only one in five trace their products to understand their impact on nature. We enjoy the benefits of cheap and readily available goods while outsourcing the harms, such as exploitation, environmental degradation and human rights abuses, down the supply chain to other countries and communities.
It is not practical for individuals to investigate the ethics of every product they consume. Legislators have a responsibility to ensure that due diligence is carried out on behalf of citizens. The government can achieve that by ensuring such due dilligence is conducted in line with the environmental and human rights standards citizens expect. This Labour government was elected on, and has delivered on, an agenda of workers’ rights. Such an agenda does not end at our borders. Just as human rights and environmental justice extend to our foreign policy and trade strategy, so too should it extend to product supply chains.
This is why I am advocating for a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act, which would introduce mandatory due diligence legislation. It would require companies to monitor and address human rights and environmental harms in their supply chains. The issues of poverty reduction, gender equality and environmental sustainability can all be advanced through such legislation.
The impact of such a law could be significant. It could help hold mining companies accountable their actions across Africa and deter UK banks from financing deforestation, land seizure and land conversion in the Amazon.
There is not just a moral case for this law but also a business case. Many of the largest UK companies are already required to follow the EU’s similar Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive in order to trade with our biggest external market. We risk becoming a dumping ground for unethically sourced products while our own British companies, following best practice to trade with our closest and largest neighbours, are undercut. Some 50 global businesses have already signed statements calling for human rights due diligence legislation, including UK brands such as Tesco, Twinings and John Lewis. This legislation can promote more ethical consumption, allow companies to better manage risk and help grow British businesses.
Current legislation on supply chains remains ineffective in many ways. For example, Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires companies only to report on their operations, not necessarily to take responsible action to address and prevent problems. Moreover, existing legislation does not take a proactive enough approach to protecting the environment and tackling human rights abuses.
Illegal deforestation, the polluting of waterways and illegal mining all have implicit human rights implications. A child who is poisoned by pollution from an illegal mine can be harmed just as children working under forced labour in the same illegal mine. Human rights and the environment are inherently linked, and due diligence legislation must address both to be practical and effective. Given the fact the EU’s regulation covers both areas, failing to do so would leave the UK exposed to becoming, at the very least, a dumping ground for potentially environmentally harmful products.
Consumers do not always have the resources to find out who made the clothes we are wearing, the conditions of the farmer who grew the cocoa for our chocolate, or where the metals for our batteries are sourced. What we need is assurance – underpinned by legislation – that companies providing these goods are held to a high standard. That means extending our human rights and environmental standards at home to the supply chains that connect us abroad. That is what a mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence law can achieve and why it must be introduced. It will be good for business, people and the planet.
This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
Martin Rhodes is the Labour MP for Glasgow North
