US' Sourcemap launches Forced Labor Compliance Platform

The FLCP is critical to manage the end-to-end due diligence reporting requirements of the UFLPA, which is expected to place enhanced scrutiny on the automotive, aerospace, semiconductor, solar power, apparel, food and pharmaceutical industries. To date, more than 3,000 companies have registered for Sourcemap’s FLCP in advance of the June 21, 2022 UFLPA enforcement deadline, the company said in a press release.

The UFLPA aims to prevent products from entering the United States if they were made wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), or made from Uyghur labour elsewhere in China. When the UFLPA goes into effect, many of the world’s largest industries will be vulnerable to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement, facing risk of detentions, exclusions, seizures and civil or criminal liability if forced labour is found in any tier of their supply chains.

In direct response to the UFLPA’s passage last December 2021, Sourcemap developed the FLCP specifically to help companies solve the ‘chain of custody challenge’ - proving that they can trace products from raw material to US import - by assembling definitive proof of the entities within their supply chains. This includes supplier discovery (identifying all of the stakeholders in the supply chain), transaction traceability (following every batch of raw material as it is converted into finished goods) and validation, including scanning suppliers for risk of fraud, waste and abuse.

The FLCP marries Sourcemap’s supplier network discovery capabilities, which help companies map their supply chains down to raw materials suppliers, with powerful traceability capabilities that verify the chain of custody for every container entering a US port. The platform equips retailers, manufacturers and brands with a better understanding of their suppliers, from Tier 1 to Tier N, and presents proof of the origin of imported goods required by US law.

The FLCP expands on Sourcemap’s supplier discovery software with an automatic classification of suppliers through forced labour risk heat maps for enhanced due diligence. It collects all of the documentation needed to validate the chain of custody, compliance with forced labour regulations, and to root out fraud, waste or abuse that may obscure the presence of forced labour.

The platform collects real-time data to monitor supplier and overall supply chain risk exposure to fast-changing conditions including sanctions, affiliations, and adverse media, including exposure to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list. It automatically generates detailed reports on the chain of custody and compliance of individual shipments in response to CBP inquiries and Withhold Release Orders (WROs), according to Sourcemap.

With more than 400,000 businesses registered on its network, Sourcemap is the largest supply chain mapping and traceability software company, supporting decision-making on over $1.5 billion of purchased goods. Sourcemap counts eight of the ten largest food companies, four of the seven largest apparel companies and six of the ten largest commodity traders in the world among its customers. 

“Forced labour and the global supply chain have become intrinsically connected. Under the UFLPA, companies may be considered guilty until proven innocent. As suppliers seek to de-risk their supply chains and meet coming ESG and trade regulations, our platform is positioned to become the de facto standard for supply chain transparency and traceability,” Sourcemap founder and CEO, Leonardo Bonanni, said in a statement.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (GK)