For status and progress on all Fashion FWD goals, please see our sustainability reporting.
Workers and management in all factories in our Productivity & Social Dialogue programme will engage in social dialogue driving productivity improvements and greater shared social value.
We will support 100,000 women in tier 1 factories to achieve workplace empowerment and improved life skills.
We will have improved work and life skills for female workers in key sourcing communities through industry collaboration, partnering with HERprojectTM, and in accordance with the UNGC’s women’s empowerment principles.
We will support all tier 1 factories in implementing digital payment of wages.
Through industry collaboration, we will implement mechanisms to promote fair living wages.
All suppliers will have invested in fire, electrical and building safety and show continuous improvement.
RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS OUR VALUE CHAINS
BESTSELLER is committed to respect and promote human rights across its multiple value chains. This commitment is one of the core pillars of our Fashion FWD strategy.
BESTSELLER commits to respect all human rights as defined in the International Bill of Human Rights and ILO’s core conventions. We commit to the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises as the authoritative frameworks for our efforts to respect and promote human rights.
In practical terms, our pledge to respect and promote human rights covers all dealings by our more than 17.000 people working for BESTSELLER in more than 100 countries as well as those of our business partners around the world. Where our influence on business partners and other stake-holders are limited, we seek to increase our leverage by engaging in initiatives that aim to develop and implement joint sustainable solutions.
While we consider human rights as being equal and non-discriminatory, universal and inalienable as well as indivisible and interdependent, we pay special attention to specific human rights issues where the risk for adverse impact is highest. This counts for BESTSELLERs own operations as well as for those of our business partners. To this end we work with partners, peers, experts, rights holders, their representatives and other relevant parties to continuously assess and address actual and potential human rights impacts in our value chain.
We trust that this approach delivers the best results in terms of respecting and promoting human rights, and we need to be vigilant and flexible in our approach when met by unforeseeable events such as global diseases or political turmoil in and between nations.
Unavoidably, operating extensive and complex value chains will lead to situations where people’s rights are either violated or are perceived to be violated. In such instances BESTSELLER commits to enter into dialogue with rights holders or their representatives to provide remedy commensurable with BESTSELLER’s responsibility.
Our supply chain is where we have the largest human rights risks, but also the biggest opportunity to make an impact. Learn more in detail about how we work to safeguard human rights, product safety and promote environmental stewardship among our supply chain partners.
Our supply chain is divided into multiple tiers. Tier 0 are the suppliers who we place orders and have direct contractual relations with. Tier 1 refers to the production unit (factories) where the products are assembled and finished. Tiers 2-4 are various types of sub-suppliers with whom we have an indirect relation and therefore limited influence on.
Our primary tool for holding suppliers and factories accountable to our social and labour, environmental and chemical requirements – aligned with the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector – is our Factory Standards Programme.
We’ve introduced a Social and Labour Supplier Rating that measures our suppliers’ human rights performance. This rating incentivises suppliers to improve their social and labour performance across the indicators and helps our brands make informed purchasing decisions. The rating is key to meeting our goal of 75 percent of all product orders made with suppliers that are highly rated in our sustainability evaluation by 2025. Learn more here.
BESTSELLER works with numerous stakeholders to collaborate on managing work related to human rights, environmental and chemical risks in our BESTSELLER's supply chain. For example, we are a signatory to the International Accord and we are a member of Ethical Trade Denmark. We engage in industry initiatives, such as the International Accord and Ethical trade Denmark, and we also enrol suppliers in a range of workplace programmes, such as BSR’s HERprojects, ACEV and LABs. Find the stakeholders and collaborations overview here.
After achieving our Fashion FWD Goal of empowering 100,000 women in our supply chain in 2021, we have expanded the target to support women to better understand their rights and advocate for their own concerns. The updated target says that all women employed with our strategic suppliers are provided with and have access to the resources to make their own informed decisions about health and professional development. In general, a strong social dialogue is a key mechanism for empowering workers to address a wider range of human and labour rights risk, such as discrimination, occupational health and safety, sexual harassment and gender-based violence. Learn more here.
It’s important to us to have an inclusive environment with a diverse workforce in our supply chain. To succeed with our ambition, we strive to link our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives to our business strategy. Our work in this area is defined and guided by our Diversity & Inclusion Policy and our Code of Ethics. Learn more and download our policies here.
