The Modern Slavery Research Program in the Monash Centre for Financial Studies (MCFS) measures the disclosure quality of companies required to report on risks to modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. Researchers developed the Modern Slavery Disclosure Scoring Framework as a benchmark for evaluating the statements submitted by Australian Securities Exchange companies under the requirements under the Modern Slavery Act.

Work conducted by MCFS in 2021 had exposed “wide disparities in the quality and disclosure levels of modern slavery statements” among major companies listed on the ASX, with only six ASX300 companies demonstrating best practice. In October 2022 the findings of the second year of the program were released, evaluating statements by ASX100 companies on the ABF Modern Slavery Statements Register to June 2022. The research noted encouraging improvement in the quality of disclosure, and recommended three key ideas to further improve the risk reporting and disclosure: “the importance of a supplier risk assessment system, understanding their relationship to risk, and centring the remediation process on the risks to victims, not just businesses”.

MCFS has an extensive record of engagement with companies and investors on improving modern slavery disclosure. Investors have used the modern slavery disclosure assessment of ASX companies as part of their ESG risk assessment of portfolio companies. Contributions by MCFS have also been acknowledged by several companies in their modern slavery reporting statements.

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