OAASIS Research Officer and ISA PhD candidate, Vivienne Reiner, has conducted research into suitable metrics for the measurement of modern slavery occurrences across the global supply chain.

Her paper - Can global modern slavery be footprinted for corporate due diligence? A data review and analysis published by the Journal Of Industrial Ecology (2025), has concluded decisively that current universal, global data sets and data collection methodologies are inadequate to the task of providing reliable information on which to base corporate decision making. However, the research underscores the role of tailored footprints in areas where there is rich data.

The ongoing work of OAASIS is therefore focused on helping build up modern‐slavery databanks throughout the world. This will include work on integration of global supply chain data with local on-the-ground knowledge.

Alongside data issues OAASIS has identified a pressing need to develop hybrid input–output lifecycle assessment studies, adding to the global web of information to support ethical decision‐making. This work requires the solving of technical issues around data harmonizaton and insertion into the global trade framework.

A data visualisation tool, spaJS, has been developed by OAASIS team member, Dr Thorsten Tepper-Garcia,  to assist in tracing modern slavery through the global supply chain. The tool’s User Guide is linked to the tool’s interface and made freely available for non-commercial purposes. It can be found at: http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/spajs/

As more reliable metrics and better ways to solve technical issues become available it will become possible to develop spaJS into a tool to underpin ethical decision making.