Richard Howitt

speaker

582 appearances 7 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 29 Jul

Richard Howitt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 4.

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Frankly Speaking - A Podcast on Responsible Business · #117 How Businesses Can Combat Modern Slavery: Professor John Dumay · 29 Jul 2026 podcast

Or is it simply the start of what should be an integrated human rights due diligence approach?

And if so, what are your thoughts on how it can be integrated?

Now, in Europe, we've obviously got the corporate sustainability due diligence directives, much talked about on this podcast.

But we've also got the forced labour regulation coming in, being agreed, but will be implemented next year, 2027.

Are these complementary?

How do they relate to each other?

Will that forced labour regulation have some impact where perhaps some of the past legislation you're talking about hasn't?

I think on the European legislation, there's a chance, and I think this is the intention of legislation, they will move companies beyond the risk management approach.

Because, you know, it says that whether...

In case manufacturing companies, the components that you want to import or the raw materials that you want to import, which are an intrinsic part of your products, might just be stopped.

And so I think there's a...

And I hope there's more of a business case for companies to look at this where they haven't done before.

I'm very interested to push a bit further on this systemic issue because I've been, and so have you, John, been to so many meetings and conferences where

People say we need a systems approach, we need to change the system, companies can't do it individually.

And I believe that.

I think it's a very, very proper argument.

But there is evidence in the modern slavery...

in the example of modern slavery and modern slavery issues that companies instead of taking a systemic or ecosystem approach use it as an excuse to say it's not our responsibility we can't do anything about it and so how do you respond if you hear that from companies and what can companies do to enter into systemic solutions for dealing with modern slavery?

The Ansell example is really a good one because in a way they've gone through the pain barrier.

And we know in the business and human rights space that companies are very comfortable in drawing up policies and reporting structures as long as human rights violations are sort of seen as a risk and in theory, but not actually in practice.

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