That title is quite a mouthful, given it's actually about plain language in commercial contracts. This post is about a contribution we've made to a consultation about contracts that promote human rights and care for the environment.
Most household goods come to us via complex global supply chains. For example, in the fashion world there are the large retail chains (such as Zara, H & M, etc) at one end of the supply chain. At the other end are poorly paid garment workers in developing countries such as Bangladesh.
Most brands have a policy on human rights, modern slavery and similar issues, but in many cases it is quite theoretical. They still make demands on suppliers that inevitably lead to abuses, as they demand lower prices and faster delivery. They change or cancel orders with little regard to how it will affect the factory at the end of the globe, and when retailers closed down when Covid19 hit, a million workers in Bangladesh lost their jobs.
The Responsible Contracting Project (RCP) describes the problem with this hard-hitting description of the issues faced by workers:
"This project was born of challenge, frustration, and hope. There is little doubt that workers in international supply chains are being abused, in the most horrifying ways, even as they work to produce the staples of our everyday lives and indeed support much of our economy. Young children and enslaved people pick and process cocoa and coffee beans; they pick and process cotton; they sew clothes, weld steel, and assemble sporting goods; they mine rare minerals and extract valuable sources of energy. Many workers find themselves in injurious and even deadly working conditions, with people hurt and killed by the hundreds. Supply chains can be riddled with modern forms of slavery, particularly debt-bonded labor. Much has been invested in ameliorating these conditions but not enough. They continue, and they are now sharpened and heightened by the enveloping crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic."
It is common for contracts to include human rights concerns, but responsibility is just passed down the supply chain, unenforced and probably unenforceable.
There have been various initiatives to make things better. At the heart of the new approach is the concept of cooperation between the buyer and supplier. Model contract clauses have been developed in the hope that buyers will include them in contracts with suppliers. Only now firms that adopt these clauses can’t just pass on the responsibility but are obliged to work together to solve problems. And the buyer has to support the seller in setting up good processes and facilities. At the heart of this is the concept of due diligence: buyers who adopt the model clauses will be undertaking to actively monitor what happens in reality.
Following initiatives in the USA, there is now a European initiative known as the European Model Clauses (EMCs). It has been published for consultation, and comments were due in by 2 December 2024.
You can find the draft EMCs on the Responsible Contracting Project website, along with a lot of background information (including the US projects).
During the Information Design Summer School, we set this as a project – to review the model clauses and find ways to improvement their presentation. In recent weeks one of the summer school teams got together to finish the work and prepare a report to submit to the European Working Group (drafters of the EMCs) as comments. So here's a shout-out to Hilary West, Peter Hornsby, Sarah Tayeb, Gwendoline Clavé, and Tania Malréchauffé.
You can download our comments here.
We’ve based them on the recently published ISO standard for plain language (ISO 24495-1:2023), and included transformations by 4 of the team, as well as general remarks about the communications challenge of addressing different audiences and contexts.
We’d like to know what you think. We hope we don’t come across as overly critical because we’re huge supporters of this initiative. We think the team does understand the need to communicate simply and directly, but has started with their main focus on the content.
