ETI is launching a new approach aimed at driving widespread, sustainable change for poor and vulnerable workers in global supply chains.

Said ETI Director Peter Mcallister: "We've made great strides in pushing ethical trade up the corporate agenda over the past decade, with clear progress in some areas. Yet too many workers around the world continue to be denied their rights.

"It's time all those involved in ethical trade focused less on how many training courses have been delivered, or how many audits have been completed, and more on whether we are actually making a positive, sustained difference to the lives of the workers we are all trying to help.

"There's no point training factory workers about their rights if they're prevented by their employers from joining unions, or if the buying practices of the factory's customers make it difficult for them to keep hours down to reasonable levels, or to pay their workers a decent wage.

Said McAllister: "Our new approach will focus on tackling the root causes, rather than the symptoms, of workers' rights abuses.

"Taking a series of key supply chains right down to raw material production, we will seek to understand and then tackle the factors that contribute to exploitation. These may include company purchasing practices, unhelpful government policies or prevailing attitudes towards trade unions. "

ETI's new grant from the Department for International Development (DFID) of £1.2m over next three years will provide vital funds to help resource the approach.

Says McAllister: "We are delighted to receive this new core funding from DFID, which will provide us with a solid foundation to increase our efforts to achieve concrete improvements to the lives of the world's poorest workers. We share its belief in the vital role that the private sector can play in reducing poverty."

The new strategy will also be boosted by a staff team that includes new Head of Fundraising and Communications Ruth Baker. Ruth joins ETI from Plan International, where she generated over 3.5 million in income and £8 million worth of gifts in kind in the last financial year.

Debbie Coulter will also be joining us on 5 September to head up our Programme Team. Debbie began her career working in the textile and clothing industry and has over twenty years' experience of working with the trade union movement, including a period as Deputy General Secretary of the GMB.

Collaborative work has already started among ETI's member companies, trade unions and NGOs to collectively identify and map key supply chains in each of three broad product category groups: Food and Farming, Hard Goods and Household and Apparel and Garments.

Programmes of work within each product category will be initiated from December onwards.