ILRVR501 - Sustainable Supply Chains

Course Description

Research from Cornell’s New Conversations Project shows that despite 25 years of sustainability efforts through codes of conduct, factory auditing, and remediation, there has been little improvement overall in labor conditions in global supply chains.

Data from leading firms demonstrate that sustainable improvement in supplier labor practices occurs when companies integrate their sustainability practices with their sourcing practices. While many organizations have already begun to do this, the COVID-19 crisis has hastened the process, forcing companies to reexamine their supply chains and reconfigure relationships among buyers, suppliers, and workers.

How can sustainable improvements in working conditions be made in the COVID era with its rapid reorganization of supply chains? What factors limit an organization's abilities to integrate sourcing and sustainability strategies? How will global companies in apparel and other sectors navigate the necessary changes in relationships with suppliers and workers? What does Cornell’s new analysis tell us about supply chain resiliency generally and how to achieve better results in labor and human rights programs?

In this live interactive online program, you’ll explore how rigorous analysis of supply chain data and evidence-based decision making can be scaled up to produce better labor practices, sourcing decisions, and responsible business strategy.

• Session 1: 25 Years of Codes of Conduct: Data on Failures and Successes
  • Wednesday, November 11, 2:00 - 4:00pm EST What have we learned from 25 years of codes of conduct and auditing?
  • What does new Cornell research show and what are the key problems that limit effectiveness? This session explores the meaning for global brands of comprehensive new research on the effectiveness of corporate codes of conduct and monitoring systems. The research highlights both failures and successes.
• Session 2: Causes of Failure: Decoupling Organizational Policies and Practices From Worker Outcomes
  • Wednesday, November 18, 2:00 - 4:00pm EST
  • What explains the general ineffectiveness of private regulation? How do we reorganize programs to address the root causes? This session delves into the dynamics — practice multiplicity, behavioral invisibility, and causal complexity — that prevent labor programs from seeing what works. The interactive aspect allows you to assess your program against this new perspective.
• Session 3: How Best to Align Sourcing and Compliance Strategies Inside Companies
  • Wednesday, December 2, 2:00 - 4:00pm EST
  • How should labor and sourcing be linked in practice? How can you measure and track improvements in labor and sourcing practices? This session will draw from a 2020 case study of a leading apparel brand’s major organizational change to improve labor results via integration and analysis of sourcing data.
• Session 4: What Next? Towards Systemic Change and Evidence-Based Decisions
  • Wednesday, December 9, 2:00 - 4:00pm EST
  • What works to improve outcomes for workers in global supply chains? How can the evidence support systemic changes in labor and human rights programs? This session suggests a number of collaborative as well as individual corporate actions to improve performance, highlighting the role of data analysis and predictive modeling. We will learn from data scientists at leading “best practice” firms and, in workshop mode, create predictive models.

As this program is highly interactive, participants are expected to fully participate in all four live sessions.

Faculty Author

Benefits to the Learner

• Discover barriers to the effectiveness of current labor policies and practices based on new industry research by Cornell’s New Conversations Project
• Use best practices, predictive analysis, and evidence-based decision making to assess and improve the effectiveness of your organization’s global labor supply chain
• Get up to speed on emerging models, coming changes in public regulation of supply chains, and new evidence about what works to improve supply chain labor practices

Target Audience

• Senior employees (VPs, AVPs, department heads, deputy department heads, etc.) of buyer, supplier, civil society, government sustainability, and labor practice programs involving global supply chains
• Senior employees with corporate social responsibilities for a company with global supply chains