Ethical & Responsible supply chain

The Group is committed to sourcing responsibly and having an ethical and sustainable supply chain.

In addition to the Group itself, each of the Group’s Tier 1 suppliers are members of the Sedex register and signatories to the Ethical Trading Initiative base code (the "ETI Base code"), which has enabled the Group to ensure that it has oversight of its supply chain, is able to identify potential higher risk suppliers and require third party suppliers to undertake independent social ethical audits.

The Group has historically reviewed its third party suppliers on a regular basis and has been proactive in assisting any third party suppliers who have encountered particular issues in relation to their respective social ethical audits.

The Group has taken, and will continue to take, a firm approach to ensuring that it has an ethical supply chain and during 2020, appointed a Technical Supervisor to oversee the Company’s supply chain compliance and ethical sourcing policies. Whilst no third party suppliers have been terminated for reasons related to working practices, the Group has, in recent years, terminated relationships with third party suppliers who were unable to comply with the independent social ethical audits.

Prior to the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Group regularly visited its third party suppliers and factories including in China and the Group expects to continue with this policy, once the global travel restrictions as a result of COVID-19 are lifted.

The Board is committed to a programme of continuous improvement in this area and commissioned an independent review into its supply chain and sourcing practices and procedures from two leading ESG consultants.