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Resources

How to calculate the cost of living to determine the living wage gap?

Have a look at the overview of available studies of the Global Living Wage CoalitionWageIndicator or Asia Floor Wage to see if they studied the area in which you are active and published a figure. If there are no figures available you can also start calculating the living wage yourself. The Living Wages around the World Manual for Measurement describes in great detail how you could do that.

ALIGN

ALIGN is a guidance tool for agri-food companies aiming to reduce complexity around the topic of living wage and living income. ALIGN brings together the work of leading organisations and experts, and directs users to relevant resources, tools and partners.

Which steps can you take to realise living wages in your supply chain?

The United Nations Global Compact report provides guidelines on the steps companies can take to improve wages globally. It also highlights lessons learned and best practices from companies and organisations on tackling low pay in supply chains.

ETI’s Base Code Guidance on Living Wage gives insight into the practical steps companies can take to enable payment of living wages in their supply chains.

Living Wages in Global Supply Chains: a new agenda for business is a joint publication of the Joint Ethical Trading Initiatives (JETIs). It provides an analysis of low wages at multiple levels and recommendations on which direction companies can take.

Oxfam’s Issue Briefing Steps towards a living wage in global supply chains aims to help companies who source from developing countries to understand and tackle the issue and see what success looks like from an Oxfam perspective.

Fair Wear Foundation’s Explorer’s Notebook gives insight into the different routes that garment companies can take and are taking to overcome the obstacles towards living wages. Includes the description of several best-practices.

ASN’s publication Garment Companies and Living Wage: a practical implementation tool for companies describes a 4-stage corporate living wage due diligence process for garment companies, as a means to reach the end goal of living wages paid. Each phase starts with a description of criteria to meet and ends with a checklist.

 

Publications

  • Living wages in practice

    17/11/2018

    This study focuses on the case study of organic avocados from Kenya. Eosta partnered with one of their Kenyan exporters to map the supply chain and research current wages.

  • Towards a living wage in the agri-food sector

    24/11/2017

    The Dutch NGOs Hivos and Fairfood launched the Living Wage Lab in November 2015. The goal was to help companies and other stakeholders in the agri-food sector in finding solutions to achieve living wages in their supply chains. Two years later – after a series of sessions – it’s time for some reflection. In this publication we look back at the first two years of the Living Wage Lab. We speak with the involved stakeholders, discuss living wage projects and look towards the future.

  • Creating shared value in the rose supply chain

    24/03/2015

    The Dutch social enterprise True Price conducted a study to explore how to close the living wage gap involving the entire rose supply chain.