By Jennine Meyer

Jonathan Mead’s job as Director of Investigations at Transparentem, a nonprofit organization, has provided him with what he calls “a serendipitous opportunity” to meld his passion for environmental justice and labor rights—one that started when he became a child labor advocate at the young age of 15. For more than eight years, Jonathan has been instrumental in supporting Transparentem’s mission to prevent abuse in labor and environmental supply chains. He recently talked with Accountability Matters to explain the critical link between accountability and supply chains and the urgent need for accountability mechanisms to take more decisive action.

Tell us more about Transparentem. Where does it fit into the universe of civil society organizations working in accountability? 

Transparentem’s mission and vision is to transform industries by aligning with workers and communities to uncover abuses in supply chains and drive labor and environmental justice. Our work begins with holistic, evidence-based investigations of environmental and human rights abuses at work sites such as factories, tanneries, spinning mills, forestry sites, mines, and farms. We then take this evidence to corporations and other entities with the power to help bring about change and engage them in implementing durable solutions. We then go public—often through a partnership with a prominent media outlet—to tell both the story of the underlying abuses but also—and very critically—the successes or failures of key stakeholders in providing immediate remedy and in improving policy and practices to ensure better outcomes throughout their sphere of influence going forward.

Through this approach, we’ve been able to catalyze very concrete and meaningful redress. For example, we have helped more than 1,600 migrant workers get their passports back from employers who had confiscated them. We helped thousands of workers get more than USD 5 million reimbursed for exorbitant fees they shouldered during their recruitment process. Our work also directly led to the American Apparel & Footwear Association and Fair Labor Association's Apparel & Footwear Industry Commitment to Responsible Recruitment, which is currently adhered to by 101 major brands.

Our work over the last 10 years has primarily focused on spurring action to solve abuses by entities in the private sector that steward the relevant supply chains. We are very excited to now be expanding this approach to also bring findings to the grievance redress and accountability mechanisms of international financial institutions. We see grievance redress and accountability mechanisms as a critical player in helping to prevent and swiftly remedy environmental and labor abuses in supply chains.

Can you tell us about your professional journey so far? What attracted you to the job as Director of Investigations at Transparentem?

Before joining Transparentem, I worked in the private sector as an environmental geologist with an international engineering and scientific consulting firm that was investigating and remediating contaminated land and water resources in North America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. Parallel to that work, I became a passionate volunteer with Engineers Without Borders USA, leading water supply system assessment, design, and installation projects in India and Cameroon. Now, with 16 years of service with the organization, I’ve had the privilege of serving in several chapter, state, regional, and national leadership positions, which has been tremendously rewarding.

Beyond my work to solve environmental issues and address access to clean water and other infrastructure, I have also been a labor rights advocate since way back when I was a teenager. When I was 15, I helped found a chapter of an anti-child labor organization at my high school. I have remained keenly interested in labor rights ever since. So, my work at Transparentem over the past eight and a half years has provided a serendipitous opportunity to meld together my passion for environmental justice and my passion for labor rights. My responsibilities as Director of Investigations are to oversee Transparentem’s investigative portfolio, develop and execute programmatic strategy, manage our global team, and serve as a subject matter expert on the issues we cover, particularly environmental issues.

You spoke recently on a World Bank COP29 panel on accountability. How do you see the link between accountability and climate change?

There’s a tremendous need right now to mobilize funding to address climate change risks in order to protect vulnerable communities. What I feel is as critical, though, is that we match the urgency for speed and getting commitment funds out the door with the imperative to steward the funds responsibly so they don’t have significant unintended consequences for local communities and their workers. The ultimate aim in funding projects is to protect people and ecosystems. If we rush funds out the door and harm communities and workers during project implementation or thereafter, we fail to fully achieve the overarching goal, even if projects succeed by other metrics. Strong due diligence up front, careful controls, monitoring during and after project implementation, and comprehensive and effective grievance and redress mechanisms for unintended consequences are so important to get right. We believe it is vital that supply chain impacts be effectively included into due diligence processes and in grievance redress mechanisms.

How can independent accountability mechanisms address supply chain challenges arising within projects linked to climate finance?

While we typically think of impacted workers and communities at the site where an infrastructure or other type of climate-related project is being implemented, the supply chain of these projects can also be an area of significant risk and significant impact.

For example, take a solar project supported by an international financial institution. Yes, there are risks to the workers and to local communities at the project site. But there are critical risks for forced labor in solar supply chains as well, and these workers also deserve redress.

Workers and community impacts in supply chains are within the scope of the grievance redress mechanisms of some international financial institutions, but even when within scope for some institutions, there is a lack of clarity as to how broadly and deeply the supply chain is defined. For some institutions, the scope is restricted to key suppliers, and language is sometimes ambiguous as to whether or not abuses deep down in the supply chain at the raw material level are covered. That raw material level is often where the most significant worker and community impacts take place.

A very important step for independent accountability mechanisms to address supply chain challenges is to make sure that a commitment to providing remedy for cases anywhere in the supply chain, even at the raw material level, is clearly and very publicly articulated as being a part of their mandate. It’s also very important to insist on supply chain transparency for funded projects. Complicated and opaque supply chains mean most workers at deeper tiers cannot meaningly pursue redress because they’re not aware they can do so. It is also critical to build worker and community awareness and capacity to launch and sustain complaints to grievance mechanisms. Workers who have been harmed in the process of producing products used in climate projects will not otherwise secure remedy in meaningful numbers.

We are just beginning 2025. What are the issues you will focus on tackling this year?

Complementing our ongoing work focused on engaging companies and private investors to solve labor and environmental abuses in supply chains, we aim to soon launch a new initiative focused on advancing labor rights by utilizing the grievance redress and accountability mechanisms of development finance institutions. We are aiming to help push for positive change by identifying and highlighting areas for improvement in the existing supply chain labor safeguards and standards of these institutions. We plan to also test the effectiveness of their grievance redress and accountability mechanisms in addressing supply chain worker grievances by supporting impacted workers in filing complaints to seek redress. Where cases fail to achieve remedy, we will seek to hold development finance institutions accountable and push for systemic improvements. We are also eager to further explore opportunities to bring best practices from development finance institution grievance redress and accountability mechanisms to private sector investors. We see a significant opportunity there to expand access to remedy for workers and communities beyond the footprint of development finance institution investments.