What is the business case for paying living wages, and how can businesses implement living wages across their value chains?

Ideas
81

To which extend adopting leaving wage will get the world close to SDG 1 ( no poverty) ? Do we have figures on that ?

82

The other area is regulation. The business sector can work together to use its advocacy voice to champion increases to minimum wages. This would have the effect of reducing the gap between minimum wage and living wage, and so making it easier for companies to pay living wages whilst remaining competitive. Ideally, the minimum wage and living wage would be the same, but we are not there yet.

83

I found Farmer Income Lab’s “Poverty and Procurement through a Pandemic” report to be very useful for thinking through how procurement practices can help increase incomes.
https://www.mars.com/sustainability-plan/thriving-people/increasing-farmer-income/farmer-income-lab-publications

84

Totally agree, the value chain analyses that were done for farmers’ other crops and the landscape level water interventions were critical guides to achieving wider impact for smallholder farmers in Uttar Pradesh. That’s the value that partnerships bring - same passion, different perspectives, complementary expertise all combine to create a more sustainable less crop-dependent outcome.

85

Wholeheartedly agree collaborative partnerships in which multiple actors come together create a bigger, deeper and long-lasting impact. Acknowledging the contributions from the different actors is always a valuable way to show recognition for those contributions.

86

@annabelbeales fully with you on this - driving income should never come at the expense of turning a blind eye to the essential fundamentals of “decent work”, especially when it comes to identifying child safeguarding and gender inequality issues, including for example Gender Based Violence and the incidents of menstrual shaming and similar discrimination within impoverished farming communities. This is why I personally welcome the EU Supply Chain Due Diligence legislation with wide open arms - it means that companies can no longer conceal evidence that may reveal the incidence of child labour within their supply chains, instead they must consciously acknowledge and tackle such challenges, even if it may take a generation to solve.