Networks are everywhere.
We move across them every day without ever thinking about it.
There’s your family network. Your friend network. Your work network. Your ‘work-out’ network. Your social network. These networks are virtually invisible and yet our lives would not function properly without them. We started FRDM with the belief that networks of buyers and sellers would join our platform and make our shared vision of a world where people were not forced to work into a reality. We thought if we could get enough company’s to leverage their collective buying power to encourage their suppliers to adopt ethical principles and practices.
That vision is becoming a reality…and its cooler than we could have ever imagined.
The Australian University Procurement Network (AUPN) is a 38 member organization of universities across Australia and New Zealand. They work together to improve procurement practices of their members. Essentially AUPN is a network, each member running its own supply chain, but with the benefits of collaboration across the network.
FRDM was selected to support 32 participating AUPN universities to build improved supply chain risk transparency across the over 140,000 suppliers. FRDM will algorithmically identify modern slavery risks throughout the universities’ global supply chains, enabling each university or the sector collectively to make informed decisions and take action to address modern slavery risk in their supply chains. AUPN released a statement saying, “Our modern slavery sector approach aims to remove duplication and inefficiencies and achieve improved outcomes from our coordinated actions.” This university network that most people have never heard wields buying power bigger than most global brands. The AUPN university members are poised to make historic impact by driving ethical sourcing practices across its massive network of global suppliers.
On Jun 1, 2022 AUPN won Modern Slavery Project for the 2022 Sustainability Project of the Year at The Faculty awards.
This is how you change the market and change the world at scale. This is how to use market forces to save time, save money, and save people. When groups of buyers commit to buy better together, they marshal their collective buying power consolidating pressure on suppliers align with their values on human rights. Movements designed to reshape the marketplace are not new. Organic produce, gluten free foods, and animal cruelty free cosmetics were all movements driven to scale by networks.
Ethical and transparent supply chains is the movement FRDM was built for, and AUPN is the first big network to hitch its buying power up to it. We are just getting started but can’t wait to share more about how this network is building a better world through better buying.
