Supply Chain Transparency: Comparative Analysis on Government Policy and NGO Advocacy

Abstract

Slavery and Human Trafficking are crimes under state, federal, and international law. Legislative efforts have been made to address the market for goods and products tainted by slavery and trafficking by providing transparency for consumers, in hopes that the consumer will make social conscious decisions. This capstone is a policy analysis on the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 . The research focuses on the effectiveness of a state - run policy on supply chain transparency and whether th ere is a relationship with top performing companies and compliance with labor stand ards in their supply chains. This research examines the compliance provisions and requirements in the state - run policy in comparison to Non Government Organizations Advocacy . This research aims to determine whether the provision of law, simply stating transparency, is an effective policy aimed to educate the consumer on violations of human - trafficking and forced labor within a supply chain. The findings in this study support that companies are compliant with the law, but compliance does not effectively inform the consumer of labor violations within the supply chain. Based on the comparison with best practices from NGO’s, the law can be expanded to better educate the consumer in increasing transparency through publishing independent assessments of suppliers, factory visiting tracking charts, and ranking systems.