Advancing Human Rights and Responsible Recruitment in the Thai Fish Supply Chain

At Mars, we’re working to drive positive change for people, pets and our planet. As part of this, we are continually looking for more sustainable ways to source all our raw materials, help reduce our climate impact, help protect vulnerable people and ecosystems and drive responsible practices.    

While the proportion of fish we use accounts for a small share of the global fish market, as a purpose-driven business we believe can make an important contribution to improving environmental and social impacts in fish supply chains. We recognize that our consumers, and the communities we source our seafood from depend on the ocean – be it for food, income, coastal protection, health and wellbeing.  

We believe that the protection of human rights and keeping pace on our ambitious environmental goals go hand in hand. It is the vision at the heart of our Sustainable in a Generation Plan - one where the planet is healthy, people and pets are thriving, and society is inclusive.  

Our approach - Advancing Human Rights and Responsible Recruitment in the Thai Fish Supply Chain

Mars Petcare sources fish in Thailand, and because serious human rights risks have been reported in the seafood sector in Southeast Asia, we began activating our Thai Fish Human Rights Action Plan in 2016(Opens a new window).  

This plan is part of our global approach to advance respect for human rights and to take action against forced labor, as outlined in our Human Rights Policy. It aligns with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which describe the primary duty of governments to protect rights, along with the role of companies to respect rights.  

We believe that business, governments, and civil society groups must work together urgently to understand and address human rights risks in the seafood sector, including forced labor risks. The risks that may be present across the sector can include excess work hours, dangerous working conditions, or migrant workers becoming indebted due to recruiters charging excessive fees for jobs.

The initial phase of our work focused on understanding our supply chain and nature of human rights risks within it through supply chain mapping and traceability processes to the vessel level. We gained new insights on working conditions to target action and tested a range of approaches to introduce third-party worker voice to our suppliers, improve worker’s access to grievance mechanisms and resolution through from local partners, as well as building trusted relationships civil society and industry partners.  

In this first phase, we mapped our Thai fish supply chain to the vessel level and verified that traceability processes are in place. We gained new insights on working conditions to target action, tested a range of approaches to improve conditions on land and at sea with expert partners, and we evaluated what we had learned (Opens a new window)and what challenges still need to be overcome.  

Some of key milestones to date include:    

• Our first-tier suppliers put in place third-party grievance hotlines at our request, providing more than 50,000 workers with a confidential way to report issues and receive assistance.
• We supported human rights training for suppliers, pier owners and vessel owners — reaching more than 80 managers, to help them understand these issues and develop good practice systems to address them.
• We tested new technology to improve traceability and connect fishers to cellular service while at sea, with our supplier Thai Union(Opens a new window). We built on those learnings in a new partnership with USAID(Opens a new window).
• We joined the Board of the Seafood Taskforce to influence industry-wide impact in this coalition tackling environmental and social challenges. We championed a focus on international tuna supply chains and the first Social Code of Conduct for vessels.
• We co-chaired the Consumer Goods Forum’s Forced Labor Taskforce and led its Priority Industry Principles against Forced Labor — driving more focus and action from global manufacturers and retailers across supply chains.

While we have seen some progress in Thailand’s legal framework and enforcement, both the International Labour Organization and civil society partners continue to underscore that more action is needed to stop forced labor risks. These issues are deeply rooted, complex and require major systemic change.  

That’s why we’ve deepened our commitment in the second phase of our work, which began in 2021, with an ambition to ensure that suppliers and vessels in our extended supply chain are part of robust human rights due diligence management systems.  

We’ve prioritized these actions that aims to address human rights risks across the Thai fish supply chain from seafood processing sites down to the vessel level:

• Consolidating our supply chain and shifting our procurement model where feasible to ensure that we are sourcing sustainable fish to mitigate both environmental and social risks.  
• Activating our Next Generation Supplier Program in a phased approach, with plans to reach all our Tier 1 fish suppliers — a longer-term engagement model that is a strategic shift away from auditing to more dedicated coaching, facilitating, and partnering, to ensure long-lasting changes to social management systems.  Through these programs our suppliers have worked to enhance their human rights management systems, invested in improved health and safety trainings, strengthened internal grievance mechanisms and have improved overall communication with workers.  
• Building supplier-capability on Responsible Recruitment setting an initial target of “Worker-fee free" T1 – supply chains in fish (and other Wet Animal Proteins) by 2030. We’re supporting virtual and in-person trainings on what good practice looks like in responsible recruitment, equipping suppliers to strengthen their management approach to this important issue. Together with industry partners through AIM-progress, we’re sponsoring sector-wide convenings to share good practice, case studies and challenges.
• Concluded the multi-year collaboration program with the world’s largest tuna trader to effectively implement improve social management systems to monitor, address, and prevent human rights risks for international fishing vessels and lessons-learnt from the program will be shared with the Seafood Taskforce as part of oversight and continuous improvement in tuna supply chains.  
• More targeted advocacy, continued leadership in the Seafood Taskforce as a Board Member, supporting tangible action to promote robust plans for responsible recruitment — including providing more detailed expectations to relevant suppliers and engaging with governments to strengthen national approaches to human rights.

Businesses at every level of the supply chain must take responsibility to ensure rights are respected in their workforce — conducting human rights due diligence and strengthening their own systems to identify, address and prevent human rights risks.  While we cannot solve these issues alone, we are committed to driving improvements by partnering with industry partners and others — working toward a Thai fish supply chain where human rights are respected at every level.