Nothing to Lose But…

In trying to simplify the overwhelming question of how to address forced labor in building supply chains, Pins Brown, chair of the UK-based Food Network for Ethical Trade, leans on two things: the Jerry Maguire catchphrase “Show me the money!” and Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism. “Looking at who benefits and where the money is going is usually a good place to start,” she told the crowd that had gathered for the concluding event of the AIA NY Center for Architecture’s three-part series on the subject.

Brown’s materialism was matched by Billie Faircloth’s candor about the “labor exploitation risk calculation methodology” she and her colleagues at the Built Buildings Lab developed to “empower designers to use socially sustainable materials.” The project she presented—conducted by a team of academics, architectural and engineering practitioners, and computer scientists—found that the method was unlikely to prevent or reduce labor exploitation. On the bright side, it did reveal the shortcomings of such a data-centric approach. “The nature of the problem is actually pow…