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UGS 303: Modern Day Slavery - Prof. Melton

Step 3: Explore the Product and Company on the Web and in the News

Google your product and company

1.Sometimes the company's website will have a supply chain statement on it, especially if laws require it (such as in California and the UK). Useful links on a company website include "about" and "investor information" or areas about corporate responsibility or social impact.

ProTip: Did you know you can use Google to search a website? Try this and see more tips under How do I...Google Better.

 use the syntax site:website to search a specific website. This example is supply chain site:loreal.com

2.  Is your company a subsidiary? For example, CeraVe is a subsidiary of L'oreal so you'd also want to look on the L'oreal site.

3.  Look at the ingredients. They may be where forced labor happens, rather than at the product level. For example, mica is an ingredient of a lot of makeup so you'll want to Google that ingredient.

4. Don't just look on the company website. See what else you can find about the company's practices on the web. Look for news stories and reports from non-profits.

5. Be sure to evaluate the information before you use it. 

Dig deeper using Libraries news databases

Search for news and magazine articles about the company, product or ingredient to see what you can find.

PANDEMIC NOTE! RIght now there are a lot of supply chain issues you'll find in the news that are related to disruptions because of Covid. Try adding words like transparency or labor issues or forced labor to filter out some of these results.

SEARCH TIPS FOR LIBRARY DATABSES:

  • use AND to require both terms to appear in your results
    • example: nike AND supply chain
  • use OR to require either term to appear in your results
    • example: nike AND supply chain OR human rights = (nike AND human rights) OR (nike AND supply chain)

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