MANSFIELD, Massachusetts — When people think about global poverty reduction, they often think of nonprofits, or international aid, but a growing number of popular brands with ethical sourcing are putting real resources behind worker rights, fair wages, and ethical supply chains. Here are three popular brands with ethical sourcing that are taking concrete steps to protect workers and reduce poverty around the world.
LEGO
LEGO’s 2024 assessment and verification processes found no forms of modern slavery, forced labor or child labor in either the company’s own operations or its supply chain. LEGO arranges regular third-party audits of supplier performance, conducting them annually in high-risk countries, bi-annually in medium-risk countries, and periodically in low-risk ones.
Beyond auditing, LEGO is the primary funder behind an initiative that goes further than compliance. The Family-Friendly Factory (FFF) program, run through the Ethical Supply Chain Program, helped more than 8,000 workers in 2024, and is operating in factories across China, Vietnam and Mexico. The program addresses a painful reality for many manufacturing workers in developing countries: workers very often have to leave their children behind with grandparents or other family members in their hometown to start a job in a faraway city, or quit their jobs altogether when they start a family, because of childcare expenses or unavailability.
This program matters for poverty because factory workers in developing nations who can keep their families together are better positioned to invest in education, healthcare, and stability for their children.
Ben & Jerry’s
Ben & Jerry’s sources five core ingredients on Fairtrade terms: sugar, cocoa, vanilla, coffee and bananas. It was the first ice cream maker in the world to use Fairtrade Certified ingredients, beginning in 2005, and by 2014 had fully committed across all flavors sold in the United States.
The impact on farming communities has been substantial. Between 2014 and 2023, cocoa farmers earned more than $15 million in Fairtrade Premium from Ben & Jerry’s cocoa purchases alone. Two of Ben & Jerry’s long-term partner cocoa cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire have grown from 1,539 members in 2014 to 5,000 members in 2024.
Ben & Jerry’s pays at least the Fairtrade Minimum Price for cocoa, which is a floor price that covers the costs of production and acts as a safety net when market prices fall, while also allowing farmers to benefit when prices rise.
In 2020, Ben & Jerry’s became the first ice cream company to pay a Living Income Reference Price for cocoa. This is a price higher than the floor market price, and lifts nearly all cocoa farmer households out of extreme poverty when paired with higher harvest yields.
Best Buy
Many electronics come from factories across Asia where labor abuses are common. Best Buy, one of the most popular brands with ethical sourcing in the technology industry, has put a rigorous system in place to police its own supply chain.
Best Buy conducts third-party audits at 100% of its potential supplier factories before any business is conducted, with audits that include environmental and human rights screening criteria. Any non-conformance violation requires immediate addressing, and suppliers unwilling or unable to resolve priority violations receive rejection. Audits include management and worker interviews, document review, and visits to all structures on the factory premises.
Best Buy also partnered with an NGO to create a Student Worker Management Toolkit for factories in China, helping identify and prevent forced labor conditions among student workers, with alerts sent to suppliers during summer and winter holidays when student worker hiring is most common.
Best Buy’s contracts with vendors require suppliers to maintain records certifying compliance with laws regarding slavery and human trafficking in the countries where they operate. The company removes suppliers who fail to meet standards.
Why Corporate Accountability Matters for Poverty Reduction
These three popular brands with ethical sourcing represent different industries, different approaches and different scales of impact, but they share important values of treating their supply chains as a site of responsibility.
Regulation alone will not close living wage gaps, end child labor or keep migrant worker families together. Brands can go beyond minimum compliance through building childcare spaces in factories, paying living income premiums, and rejecting suppliers who won’t meet human rights standards.
These three popular brands with ethical sourcing are working to make sure the people at the beginning of that chain are treated with the dignity that working people everywhere deserve.
– Gia Sen
Gia is based in Mansfield, MA, USA and focuses on Business and Politics for The Borgen Project.
Photo: Flickr