Sedex Expanded Supply Chain Risk Mapping Tools
The firm updated its risk assessment platform to help businesses track labor standards beyond their direct vendors.
Updated on Sept. 30, 2026 in Employment
Live Poll
Should companies be legally required to monitor labor standards at all levels of their supply chain?
Sedex has expanded its supply chain mapping and risk assessment tools to include data from hundreds of thousands of worksites worldwide. The platform now allows companies to identify and mitigate labor risks among suppliers located further upstream.
Why it matters
Procurement teams are increasingly seeking granular visibility into their entire sourcing networks to manage potential labor violations. Upstream visibility remains limited, as only a small fraction of firms currently possess data on their Tier 2 suppliers.
The updated platform covers 15 topics across 120,000 worksites, drawing on an audit dataset that includes 115,000 sites across 106 countries. Wage risk calculations are derived from a pool of 70,000 SMETA audits.
The players
Sedex
Sedex is a global organization that provides data-driven tools and services to help companies manage and improve their supply chain sustainability and labor standards.
The details
The updated risk assessment tool utilizes data from 250,000 SMETA 7.0 audits to provide deeper insights into labor conditions. Corporate users can filter worksites by tier and require upstream suppliers to approve connections before monitoring them.
Timeline
September 30, 2026: Sedex announced the supply chain mapping updates.
Macro View
The expansion follows the industry shift toward the SMETA 7.0 audit methodology, which standardizes how global businesses track and report labor compliance across complex supply chains. This evolution reflects a broader trend of companies moving from reactive audits to proactive, data-driven mapping of tier-two and tier-three suppliers.
Businesses using these tools may face increased scrutiny regarding their supply chains, potentially leading to higher transparency and better labor conditions for workers. However, companies must reconcile the 15 percent of worksites that currently lack measures to ensure subcontractors meet labor standards.
The takeaway
Visibility into deeper supply chain tiers remains a significant challenge, with a vast majority of firms still struggling to move beyond direct vendors. Achieving comprehensive compliance requires consistent data monitoring and a willingness to address labor risks as they are identified.
Further reading
For more on how companies manage global labor standards, visit Employment.
Source note: This article includes information reported by WWD.
Live Poll
Should companies be legally required to monitor labor standards at all levels of their supply chain?
