Nothing is more important than addressing the human rights of individuals who help create and sell our products and services as a purpose-driven corporation that aspires to put people and the earth before profit.

We set out our commitment to workers’ rights and our expectations of our suppliers regarding issues such as pay, working hours, and child labour. It is based on the Ethical Trading Initiative ETI base code. Clause one states employment must be freely chosen, with no forced, bonded or involuntary labour.

The first point in a journey of continuous improvement within our supply chains, and is supported by strong governance on how we are managing and mitigating the risk of modern slavery and other human rights issues within our supply chains. Embedding the strong governance of humans rights issues in our supply chains is critical to enabling us to meet and exceed our responsibilities as a retailer, and the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act.

Our Own Operations

Our small team is looked after by the human resources team to oversee our HR policies, processes and procedures. The majority of our people are based in our head office. We have a comprehensive set of HR policies to protect our people’s employment rights and support their learning, development and welfare. We have also a system where an employee can file a confidential and anonymous report via either the telephone or Internet, safe in the knowledge that they are protected when making a disclosure and will not suffer any detriment when doing so.

Goods and services not for resale

As a business, we work with third-party suppliers to provide goods and services that we use as opposed to those that we sell to our customers. This covers everything from agency staff who work with us in our offices and distribution centres to suppliers of our office equipment.

Our procurement team oversee the process by which we select the right suppliers to work with in terms of what they provide and how they will provide it. Ensuring they follow strong ethical standards and practices is an important part of this work and is incorporated into our contract terms.

We are continuing our mapping of high-risk suppliers and are incorporating them into our due diligence and auditing programme with our third-party auditing partners.