Huge Food Conglomerate Puts Money Toward More Ethical Supply Chain Practices

Giving Compass' Take:

• Mars, the parent company of M&Ms, is committing $1 billion through 2025 to eliminate child labor and pursue sustainable and ethical supply chains. 

• How will Mars stay accountable for creating better supply chains and cast out worker exploitation and child labor?

• Read about other companies discussing the challenges on ensuring more ethical supply chain practices. 

The food conglomerate Mars is investing $1 billion through 2025 to establish sustainable and ethical supply chains, according to Reuters. The company will be working to eliminate child labor from its sourcing portfolio, promote better wages for farmers, reduce deforestation, and create financial stability networks for suppliers.

In the past, the company has come under fire for contributing to deforestation and supporting supply chains that relied on child labor and worker exploitation. The new investment is meant to accelerate earlier efforts to improve sourcing operations and help the company go beyond certification programs such as Rainforest and Fair Trade that have been criticized for failing to meaningfully improve the conditions of laborers, Reuters noted.

“The cocoa supply chain as it works today is broken,” John Ament, global vice president of cocoa at the company, told Reuters.

Mars plans to work with independent verifiers to eliminate child labor from its portfolio. Globally, 152 million children are forced into labor, and 71% of this work is concentrated in agriculture, according to the International Labor Organization.The company plans to work with governments to fight child labor, boost school enrollment, and offer families alternative routes to labor, Reuters reports.

Mars also plans to ensure that a larger portion of supply chain costs go directly to the farmers growing ingredients, such as cocoa, to boost financial stability. Farmers will also be given greater access to finance and programs for increasing crop diversity.