Modern Slavery Statement
As part of our continued commitment to ensuring ethical working conditions in our supply chain and operations, we fully support the legislation put in place for the prevention of modern slavery and human trafficking.
To manage the complexity of our garment and accessories supply chain, we work closely with suppliers, building long-term relationships where we can, to maintain our focus on traceability of production, working conditions, and quality. Our sourcing strategy has always been to maintain long term relationships with suppliers.
We acknowledge the complexity of modern slavery but remain dedicated to enhancing our practices to combat it, fostering stakeholder and industry collaboration towards its eradication. With travel restrictions lifted in our key sourcing countries, it has allowed our Production/Sourcing team to visit suppliers and factories in these countries. These visits are crucial for establishing trust in our supply chain and conducting in-person factory inspections, to ensure that our health and safety and ethical standards are being adhered to.
Brandand fully supports the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and the ETI base code forms the basis of our responsible sourcing commitment, which includes provisions on forced labour and human trafficking. Suppliers must commit to “meet and endeavour to exceed” Brandand’s relevant policies during the onboarding process. Compliance is ensured through the signing of Appendix 8 of our Supplier Manual. This states that we expect our suppliers to ensure that they have taken action to comply with the requirements of the 2015 UK Modern Slavery Act, the Code of Conduct for the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI). This also sets out that they understand that by signing this Appendix they are compliant for the facilities and suppliers operating under their instruction.
Brandand has a requirement for all suppliers to provide full and open access to all facilities within the product supply chain. This must be granted both to Brandand staff and any third-party representative that we have engaged to work on our behalf. Suppliers should also conduct and submit third-party ethical audits using the SMETA ethical auditing protocol where possible, however other audit methodologies will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to help reduce audit fatigue.