BESTSELLER strives to uphold human rights across our value chain. While we strive to uphold high standards, we understand that challenges persist and that our efforts must continuously evolve.
We adopt a consistent and holistic approach to supply chain management – and adhere to the International Bill of Human Rights, ILO core conventions, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
Risks evolve. So does our work
Improving factory conditions is not a one-time exercise. Risks evolve, and so must our response. At BESTSELLER, we continuously update our policies and assessment tools to reflect emerging issues, shifting risk profiles, and lessons learned from the ground.
We collaborate with suppliers and factory managers to support continuous improvement and engage with local and international stakeholders, including unions, NGOs, and subject-matter experts, to ensure we are monitoring the right issues and addressing the concerns that matter most to workers.
By keeping our systems responsive and grounded in real-world insights, we aim to uphold human rights not just on paper, but in practice.
A few highlights
We engage in industry initiatives to make a social impact in our supply chain. We also enroll suppliers in a range of workplace programmes. These programmes target industry-specific challenges, such as women empowerment, workers' rights and workplace health and safety.
Here are a few highlighted initiatives:
We wish to have a supply chain that safeguards the welfare of those working in the factories. To achieve this, we have our Factory Standards Programme, which monitors, assesses and mitigates various risks, alongside other initiatives that raise awareness of occupational health and safety (OHS) standards and equip suppliers to address risks as well as elevate industry-wide practices.
To advance these efforts, BESTSELLER is a signatory to the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry, a legally binding agreement between global brands, IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union. As a signatory, BESTSELLER supports the continuation of the health and safety programme in Bangladesh through the RSC, responsible for inspections, remediation, and workplace programmes since June 2021. In January 2023, we signed the Pakistan Accord, having worked alongside other stakeholders to establish this country-specific programme.
All BESTSELLER factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and their employees, are covered by this agreement. Factories undergo regular inspections by engineers, who issue Corrective Action Plans (CAPs) when concerns are identified. BESTSELLER monitors factory progress and informs the Accord Secretariat upon completion. Suppliers that do not agree to Accord monitoring and training are not onboarded into our supply chain.
In Bangladesh, BESTSELLER also supports the ILO’s Pilot on the Employment Injury Scheme (EIS), which provides social protection for garment workers facing workplace death or permanent disability. The aim is for the Bangladeshi government to adopt a law by 2026, ensuring long-term financing for worker protections.
We believe that workers should have meaningful opportunities to share their experiences, raise concerns and contribute to improvements in their workplace. Listening directly to workers helps us better understand working conditions across our supply chain, identify potential risks and concerns, and take action where improvements are needed.
We are committed to strengthening worker voices through both direct worker engagement and effective grievance mechanisms. BESTSELLER supports digital grievance reporting and handling tools to provide workers with safe, accessible, and confidential channels to raise concerns, such as Ulula Grievance Mechanism in Myanmar, Hamary Awaz (Our Voice) in Pakistan, MUDEM’s grievance reporting platform in Türkiye and Accord grievance mechanism in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
We also seek to complement these mechanisms with direct worker feedback, enabling us to better understand workers’ experiences. For example, we use Ulula’s digital worker voice survey to gather anonymous feedback directly from workers on their experiences and working conditions. By providing workers with a direct channel to share their experiences, the surveys help us identify concerns that may not always be visible through traditional audits or other monitoring approaches.
We recognise that our sourcing countries have different cultural contexts and perspectives on various topics. Nonetheless, we are committed to achieving equal opportunities and responsibilities at our suppliers, regardless of gender and where they are in the world.
Since 2012, BESTSELLER has been working with HERproject, now RISE: Reimagining Industry to Support Equality - an initiative run by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to support collaborative industry action at scale to advance gender equality in global garment, footwear and home textiles supply chains. The initiative develops tailor-made workplace education programmes that increase the well-being, confidence, and economic potential of women working in global supply chains. RISE programmes take place in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and China.
BESTSELLER has signed a grant agreement with the Initiative for Women’s Empowerment Association (IFWE) in Türkiye to support the implementation of the Unions for Equality: Advancing Gender Equality Through Capacity Building and Collective Action project.
Read more about gender equity here.
Migrant workers - both internal and international - face heightened risks of abuse and discrimination in the global apparel supply chain. This discrimination can take many forms, such as pay disparities, excessive wage deductions, poor working conditions, and forced labour.
Our Migrant Labour policy establishes specific measures to support and protect migrant workers in vulnerable or higher-risk employment situations.
In 2024, we partnered with local organisation Upfront to pilot a two-phase project at five factories in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, India. The project focused on improving awareness of social protection schemes and prevention of sexual harassment, while strengthening workplace systems to better support migrant workers. Through the initiative, nearly 400 workers received support in applying for social protection schemes.
To support long-term effects beyond the pilot phase, participating factories developed action plans to maintain multilingual worker support mechanisms, improve access to workplace information, and strengthen migrant worker representation.
Through our annual Human Rights Risk Identification process, we assess and identify salient human and labour rights risks in our supply chain, such as forced labour, occupational health and safety, gender-based violence, discrimination, and others.
Read more in our annual report and our due diligence report.
Through our policies, we seek to uphold the principles of good governance and social and environmental stewardship and convey such corporate culture to all our stakeholders.