Ethical trading
At the heart of our values is our belief that we should treat people as we like to be treated.
Our position
Our core values are 'no-one tries harder for customers' and 'treat people how we like to be treated'. As a mass-merchandise retailer, providing unbeatable value for customers means sourcing the best value products from around the world - at the best prices. This helps families stretch their budgets further, brings more products within the reach of ordinary people, and helps to drive economic growth and our own growth.
Achieving this involves sourcing from many different countries around the world - some highly developed and some less developed, with differing standards of regulation and enforcement. Some critics argue that our presence in developing countries worsens conditions for workers because we put pressure on our suppliers to cut costs.
We believe that, in general, trading with these countries brings benefits to them and to the people who work in them - as China's extraordinary 20 years of export-led growth and poverty reduction have shown.
But treating people how we like to be treated means ensuring as best we can that our values and our standards apply wherever we source. So we require our suppliers to meet strict criteria on labour standards, and have an ethical trading policy that commits us to working hard to address and make progress on the challenges we face, both in the UK and overseas.
The policy applies to primary suppliers of our own-brand products, as well as all loose, unlabelled produce. In 2007 we also began the process of extending our ethical trade programme to Corporate Purchasing, which buys all our goods not-for-resale.
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)
As a founder member of the ETI, we expect all our suppliers to follow the ETI Base Code and guarantee their workers the rights set out within it.
The ETI Base Code
- Employment is freely chosen
- Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are respected
- Working conditions are safe and hygienic
- Child labour shall not be used
- Living wages are paid
- Working hours are not excessive
- No discrimination is practised
- Regular employment is provided
- No harsh or inhumane treatment is allowed
www.ethicaltrade.org
Our approach
There are five stages to helping ensure decent labour standards throughout our supply chain:
- finding good suppliers that share our values;
- monitoring performance to identify issues;
- addressing problems where they arise;
- building capability to avoid issues before they happen; and
- working with others to tackle complex and systemic problems that we cannot tackle on our own.
