We are at a turning point where British businesses, banks, and government agencies are linked to human rights violations and environmental degradation, yet often escape accountability. For too long, these abuses have gone unchecked, particularly impacting vulnerable populations and ecosystems in the Global South, where corporations exploit weak regulations to shield themselves from consequences.
The Labour Government now has a chance to lead by introducing a Business, Human Rights, and Environment Bill. This legislation would legally compel businesses to identify, address, and rectify any actual or potential impacts their activities may have on individuals and the environment, both domestically and globally. Such a law is crucial to holding businesses accountable and would restore public and investor trust as we enter a new era under Labour’s leadership.
To explore these issues further and why the Labour Government must introduce a Business Human Rights and Environment Bill, we spoke with Belinda Borck, Global Public Policy Specialist at Tony’s Chocolonely.
How and why did Tony's involvement with the campaign for a Business Human Rights and Environment Act start?
Tony’s was founded to end exploitation like child labour and deforestation in cocoa and to prove that you can make delicious chocolate and be commercially viable while operating in a more ethical and sustainable way. But we need all companies to adhere to these standards if we want to end human rights abuses and environmental harms in supply chains.
We know from the cocoa sector that voluntary schemes simply do not work. In 2001, the major chocolate companies signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a non-binding commitment to solve child labour in the sector. Over 20 years later, we have an estimated 1.56m children working on cocoa farms. Moreover, existing UK legislation is outdated and ineffective; the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is weak and has no penalties for non-compliance, meaning that over 40% of companies fail to comply and corporate behaviour is unchanged. The Environment Act 2021 provides for secondary legislation intended to ensure products sold in the UK do not cause deforestation.
However, the legislation is mired in negotiations over post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland and in any case, the proposals as currently drafted are weak. With other countries moving ahead with national and EU-level legislation, the UK risks becoming a dumping ground for tainted goods, so Tony's is campaigning for better legislation so that products sold on British shelves don’t harbour environmental harms or human rights abuses in their supply chains.
Why would this bill be a good step for UK businesses?
Instead of a piecemeal approach, a Bill of this type will codify all businesses’ obligations in one place for clarity and certainty and make enforcement, scrutiny and compliance easier. New legislation would help the UK to keep pace with or even exceed similar legal developments internationally and to remain competitive as a centre for excellence in regulation and corporate governance, key to its attractiveness as an investment destination. Otherwise, UK businesses will be at a competitive disadvantage, while also increasing the compliance burden for UK businesses set to fall in scope of new and upcoming European laws. If the UK Government can move swiftly with legislation, businesses can structure the systems and processes they are putting in place for EU laws so they will also be compliant and future-proofed for inevitable UK legislation.
Would this bill present any challenges to UK businesses? How could a Labour Government mitigate these challenges?
Many UK companies already conduct some level of due diligence and most larger companies will be in scope for the pending EU legislation that will make the exercise more meaningful. UK legislation could, as in the EU, initially target only companies of a certain size. However, smaller companies often have better oversight of and closer relationships with their suppliers, so including them albeit with a longer lead time and other appropriate support would help these businesses grow successfully.
How has similar legislation in other countries impacted businesses? Are there any lessons we can learn?
While we await full implementation of EU legislation, it is important to note its passage was championed for many years by progressive businesses who saw a dire need to tackle issues like environmental harms and human rights abuses in supply chains with a level playing field for all businesses. For example, in the chocolate industry, the EU Cocoa Coalition was established by a group of companies, certification organisations, NGOs and other stakeholders to campaign for a package of new, robust mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence laws, which cite cocoa as a high-risk commodity, and which were recently passed at the EU level.
Critical to the success of this – and indeed any UK legislation – will be to work closely and collaboratively with producer countries and, importantly, to ensure any compliance burdens are borne by the corporations, not the farmers.
Finally, the reason Tony’s, along with a broad coalition of NGOs, trade unions and businesses, is supporting legislation like the BHREA model that encompasses both human rights abuses and environmental harms is because in cocoa - as well as many other commodities - these are intrinsically linked and need to be tackled together to be effective.
Why is this bill a good step forward for a Labour government?
Legislation of this type is not only aligned with Labour values and policy goals, such as the Green agenda, but is electorally popular, enjoys cross-party support, meets international obligations, and is being championed by over 150 businesses and investors. BHREA has the advantage of closer alignment with the EU, providing UK companies the level playing field they need to succeed, but is a British model steeped in our traditions of fair play and rule of law, lending an opportunity for the UK to once again become global frontrunners on good corporate governance.
A great deal of work has been done by a coalition of NGOs, trade unions, legal experts and progressive businesses which lays the groundwork for a new UK Act, based on recommendations by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, independent reviews of the Modern Slavery Act and analysis by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
Effective and robust oversight of supply chains can help solve some of the biggest challenges we face, like climate change and human rights abuses, and ensure products causing these harms are not for sale in the UK.
