Design for Freedom

Hi John. It is gnarly for sure. Your general strategy is correct: "to be to prioritize high risk products/products from slave labor hotspots, and then chase labor information through the supply chain to the greatest extent possible in order to inform materials selection and procurement." If your client is interested in statistics then I don't think they will get much from this perspective. But you could make up some sort of labour risk scoring system, which has been at the back of my mind but I haven't had a chance to act on it. If the client wants something to celebrate, telling the story of a material, or several materials, is a good way to do it in lieu of data. Your experience in supply chain complexities will lend itself to this work. Reused materials, high recycled content, limiting complex composite components and hyper local supply chains are effective means of limiting the risk of forced labour in the supply chain. 

We have a Boston area working group, which includes James from MASS Design and Nora from DFF, that is starting to dive into these issues.  You may find some notes from our last meeting helpful:
  Simple questions we should ask manufacturer reps when we are reviewing their products:   • Where are your products manufactured?  Easy for a carpet company or a flooring company with only a few products; but difficult for a textile manufacturer like Maharam who sources products from many locations.  We want to avoid products sourced and/or manufactured in countries that are considered “high risk” or conversely, we should give preference to countries that are considered “low risk” (Western European countries, North America, Australia).   • What is your company doing to ensure along its entire supply chain that there is no forced or child labor--and that all the workers are paid living wages and have reasonable expectations for working hours and schedules?    • If your company can attest to good working conditionsl along their entire supply chain, is it being monitored by a 3^rd party?  I recall recently asking the TerraMai rep about their reclaimed woods sourced in Indonesia.  He said they do not use forced or child labor, but at the moment I did not press him for any information that would provide proof.  I did subsequently learn that there is an FSC certification available for reclaimed wood, but I have yet to read the details of the FSC certifications, but do understand there is a social fairness component.   • Does your company have clear written policies for all their labor practices?   • Can you provide us with “certified statements” or practices that verify your company’s labor practices?  They may ask what kind of certifications could be expected.     These are some organizations who do certify labor claims:   • Cradle2Cradle--a product that is certified as C2C 3.1 Silver or above or that complies with the new 4.0 version, and have a “gold” score in the “social fairness” box.   Accoya Interface Carpet with CQuest Bio backing Modulyss Comfortback eco and solution dyed carpet with that backing Patcraft EcoWorx  and EcoLogix carpet tile Shaw EcoWorx and EcoLogix carpet tile Patcraft Strataworx Tile Shaw Strataworx Tile Lindner Metal Ceilings and Lindner Access Flooring Royal Mosa Floor & Wall Tiles Tarkett IQOne resilient flooring Tarkett Linoleum Nora 926 tile Carnegie Xorel Hycrete Admixtures Acrovyn 4000 Wall & Door Protection (C/S) Mondo Rubber Flooring (including the Artigo Collections) Patcraft bio-based resilient tile Sahw bio-based resilient tile Keim Mineral Coatings Tarkett Thermoset Rubber Wall Base Tarkett Ethos Modular carpet tile Purline resilient flooring Teknoflor Bio-Pure resilient flooring AGC Glass – pretty much all their varieties HeraDesign acoustic ceilings (wood wool – now part of USG) Nordic X-Lam CLT   • ILFI (the group that does the Declare labels and Red List Free, etc) - https://living-future.org/just/.  It is interesting to note that so far most of the organizations that have earned the Just 2.0 certification are architectural firms.   The few manufacturers with this certification are   3form Humanscale Industrial Louvers Teknion   • B-Corp - This one is hard to pin down in terms of the labor practices, but I believe social fairness is a component.  Only a few manufacturers seem to be B-Corps:   Hugo & Hoby Carnegie (I think they are still a B-Corp, but need to reconfirm this)   • United Nations Global Compact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Global_Compact) members: https://unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/participants/search?search%5Bkeywords%5D=&search%5Bcountries%5D%5B%5D=209&search%5Bsectors%5D%5B%5D=5&search%5Bsort_field%5D=&search%5Bsort_direction%5D=asc&search%5Bper_page%5D=10   Some mfgs that are UN Global Compact Members:   Carvart Lamtec Armstrong World Industries (ceilings/acoustics) Interface Shaw Industries Haworth Owens Corning   • NSC 373, the National Stone Council’s certification for sustainable quarries.  There is definitely a component in this standard that addresses labor fairly comprehensively.  Some of the stones that will have this sticker and a social justice sticker are   Polycor stones         Bethel White Granite Caledonia Granite Georgia Marble Barre Gray Cambrian Black White Cherokee Indiana Limestone (Silver Buff, Standard Buff, Standard Gray) Coldspring         Mesabi Black         Rockville Beige         Rockville White         Charcoal Black         Carnelian Red         Carnelian         Prairie Brown Stony Creek Quarry - they have one granite and it’s called Stony Creek   • GreenSquared Certified - tile manufacturers that are certified comply with ANSI A138.1 Criteria for social governance, which includes prohibiting all forced or child labor as well as all health and safety regulations.   There are many porcelain and ceramic tiles that have products that have this certification.  The reps will have to dig to identify which of their products have it.  This is a list to start with--but not every product these mfgs have is certified:

• American Wonder Porcelain (20)
• Crossville Inc. (25)
• EGE SERAMIK SANAYI VE TICARET ANONIM SIRKETI (8)
• Florida Tile (10)
• Florim USA (1)
• Interceramic (228)
• Ironrock Capital/DBA Metropolitan Ceramics (5)
• Landmark Ceramics (7)
• Manufacturas Vitromex S.A. de C.V. (276)
• MAPEI (6)
• North American Adhesives (2)
• PL Ceramics Group, Inc. (1)
• Revestimientos Porcelanite SA de CV (6)
• Servicios Comerciales Lamosa SA de CV (4)
• StonePeak Ceramics (1)

• SA 8000 - Not sure where this standard originated, but many of the certified companies are based in China.  The only manufacturer I know of that clearly has this certification is   Forbo - all their linoleum products (I don’t know about Flotex or their vinyl or non-pvc products--Impressa).   • Aluminum Stewardship Initiative         Schuco (but does not score “gold” in the social fairness category on C2C)         Alcoa (Reynobond)   • Other certifications we can pursue for members or compliant manufacturers may be:         Concrete Sustainability Council Certification         The Copper Mark         Fair Stone         FSC (this does have a human rights and labor component)         Global GreenTag         BIFMA Level III certification (much achieve Level III)         Responsible Steel Certification         Sustainable Forestry Initiative (not as rigorous as FSC) ****************************************** You could also look into these paid consultants who have made it a business to track supply chains. Not sure if they have ever acted as consultants for builidng construction projects, but perhaps they could:
https://sourcemap.com/
https://www.frdm.co/  

I should note that the above memo was researched and written by our materials librarian, Brenda Stanfield of Building & Design Resources.

Doug!  This is an amazing compilation!  Thank you so much for sharing your group's efforts.