Investors Against Slavery and Trafficking Asia Pacific (IAST APAC) is an investor-led multistakeholder initiative convened to promote effective action among companies in the Asia-Pacific region to ‘find, fix and prevent’ modern slavery, labour exploitation, and human trafficking in their value chains.

IAST APAC focuses on encouraging companies to address a simple question: what slavery risks have you addressed?

To answer that question, companies are encouraged to:

The initiative also aims to strengthen reporting under relevant disclosure regimes such as the Australian Modern Slavery Act. The aim is to ensure that companies report in a meaningful way, and take effective action to identify and address modern slavery, human trafficking and labour exploitation issues.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, IAST APAC participants will work together to foster good practice in investor engagement with companies exposed to modern slavery risks.

50 members

AU$12 trillion

There are 24 focus companies. Fifteen companies are listed on the Australian stock exchange, and nine companies are listed on Asian stock exchanges — two companies are listed in the Hong Kong exchange, and one company each is listed on the Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam stock exchanges.

Membership to the initiative is open to all asset owners and asset managers with an office in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Investor Advocacy Work stream initially focused on an investor statement on modern slavery, human trafficking and labour exploitation. This investor statement was published for the first time in 2020. The statement was distributed to the largest Australian-listed companies, informing them of these investors’ expectations. The statement described the material impacts of modern slavery and poor labour practices on companies and long-term value outcomes and invites companies to adopt certain best practices.  This work stream is also involved in policy advocacy.

Through the Collaborative Engagement Work stream, participating investors engage with focus companies in the Asia-Pacific region. Collaborative engagement aims to maximise leverage, generate efficiencies and build knowledge. Investors can join this work stream as either a lead or support investor, within small group collaborations engaging different focus companies.

This work stream initially focused on an investor statement on modern slavery, human trafficking and labour exploitation. This investor statement was published for the first time in 2020. The statement was distributed to the largest Australian-listed companies, informing them of these investors’ expectations. The statement described the material impacts of modern slavery and poor labour practices on companies and long-term value outcomes and invites companies to adopt certain best practices.  This work stream is now exploring policy advocacy.

The investor statement was published in July 2020. It was sent to the 200 largest companies listed on the ASX, and they were invited to respond. You can read the investor statement here: investor statement

Members can identify policy advocacy opportunities in relation to relevant laws and regulations such as transparency in supply chain, human rights due diligence and sustainability reporting, and discuss developing joint advocacy positions and strategies.

The focus of this work stream is collaborative engagement by investors with specific focus companies in the Asia-Pacific region. Collaborative engagement aims to maximise leverage, generate efficiencies and build knowledge. Investors can join this work stream as either a lead or support investor, within small group collaborations engaging different focus companies.

Participating investors have selected four initial focus sectors:

Extractives will be the next focus sector added, at a later date.

Participating investors were surveyed to identify companies they believed should be prioritised, based on potential risk exposure and investor holdings. Selection is not indicative of perceived poor performance. Rather, the list of focus companies includes companies with a variety of risk exposures and histories of response to this risk.

We note that the list of focus sectors and companies may expand as new investors are welcomed into IAST APAC.

There is no limit on the number of focus companies investors can lead or support engagement on, however we do encourage investors to think critically about their capacity to participate. We expect investors in all capacities to take an active approach to their participation in IAST APAC and contribute to all elements of the engagement.

Investors engage with companies in small groups, comprising a lead investor and up to five support investors. These small groups develop engagement plans and then work with the focus company to address the issues raised in the engagement plan. These are expected to be multi-year engagements.

Public reporting on our engagement activities and outcomes will be provided on a periodic basis through the IAST APAC website and annual report. Reporting will identify major trends, rather than details of engagement between investors and focus companies, which will remain commercial-in-confidence. Which participating investors engage which focus companies will also not be publicly disclosed.

IAST APAC is an investor-led initiative. It is convened by First Sentier Investors, and overseen by a steering committee:

The work streams are organised by the SteerCo, and chaired by its members:

Formal terms of reference, available to members of IAST APAC, govern each of these groups.

The Secretariat, provided by Walk Free, provides administrative support. Walk Free and FAST serve as a knowledge partners to IAST APAC members. This includes facilitating access by IAST APAC to relevant information, events and expertise to support effective engagement with companies in the region.

Please contact the Secretariat.

The initiative was launched in late 2020. Since then IAST APAC has been cited as a leading example of collaborative investor engagement by the Australian Human Rights Commission, Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative Roadmap, and policy processes in the US and UK. One third of the ASX100 has responded formally to the investor statement as of May 2021. Collaborative Engagements began in the third quarter of 2021. Additional information on impact will be made available in our annual report.