Modern Slavery Statement

Three jurisdictions now mandate modern slavery transparency reporting with overlapping but distinct requirements: the UK Modern Slavery Act (£36M+ turnover, annual statement), Australia's Modern Slavery Act (AUD $100M+ revenue, registry filing), and Canada's Bill S-211 (annual report to Public Safety Canada). Germany's Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz and France's Devoir de Vigilance add further due diligence layers for companies operating across European markets. A multinational corporation may owe separate filings in three or more jurisdictions, each with different reporting periods, disclosure requirements, and submission mechanisms.

NGOs like KnowTheChain and WikiRate publicly score and rank modern slavery statements, creating reputational stakes beyond legal compliance. Their evaluation criteria are specific: they look for supply chain mapping depth, identified risks by commodity and geography, remediation case studies with outcomes, training programme coverage statistics, and year-over-year improvement evidence. A generic corporate statement that recycles last year's text with updated dates scores poorly — and that poor score is visible to investors, journalists, and customers.

Sustalium maintains a single supplier evidence base — audit reports, risk assessments, remediation records, training logs — and routes it into jurisdiction-specific statement templates. Your UK filing pulls the same underlying supplier data as your Australian registry submission, but each output conforms to the local format and disclosure structure. Evidence accumulates through the year rather than during an annual drafting sprint, so your statement reflects twelve months of genuine supply chain engagement documented in real time.

For a detailed look at Australian enforcement and timber import laws, read our guide to Australia's Illegal Logging and Modern Slavery laws.