Pentland Centre’s Amy Benstead joins Pentland to take action on modern slavery

Last week, Amy Benstead from Lancaster University’s Pentland Centre joined the corporate responsibility team at Pentland. Amy brings a mix of academic and industry experience and will be helping us develop a suite of anti-modern slavery tools.

Building on our progress in ethical trade

The toolkit will include policies, training modules and risk assessment tools – following The UK Modern Slavery Act, which commits every company with £36 million or more in turnover to report on how it combats modern slavery in its supply chains. This will build on the work we’ve been doing over the past 20 years to promote ethical trade and human rights. Find out more about this in our latest CR Review.

Combining academic and business know-how

With seven years’ experience in the apparel industry, most recently as a Senior Merchandise Manager at global sourcing company Li & Fung, based in Istanbul, Amy is now completing a PhD in Management Science. Her time with Pentland will contribute to her research in Socially Sustainable Supply Chain Management.

While in Istanbul, Amy got some hands on experience improving the ethical standards of factories. She also has experience of delivering against M&S’s ‘Plan A’ programme and has spoken on behalf of the Ethical Fashion Forum at a ‘Fashion Leaders Speak’ event, where she gave practical examples of how fashion professionals and businesses can address ethical trade challenges.

Amy said: “Pentland is in a sector where sustainability is a core business concern and needs to be addressed in all manner of decisions, including those on the locations of manufacturing and suppliers.

“Manufacturing and sourcing location decisions in the industry are already complex. The sustainability agenda is adding to this complexity, with different locations having different implications for transparency and the risk of social problems. So it’s great that companies like Pentland are factoring it in.”