Modern Slavery Statement
The human rights of all people working directly or indirectly for Joe Browns is of the utmost importance to us. Any human rights abuses have no place in our business or in the world in which we live.
Joe Browns has a zero-tolerance approach to addressing Modern Slavery and Human Rights abuses within our company and our supply chains.
We will be tracking a number of key performance indicators to ensure that we continue to conduct appropriate supply chain due diligence and I look forward to reporting our progress against these year on year.
Working with suppliers to maintain
- Compliance.
- Monitoring and reporting.
- Resolving issues of non-compliance.
We will focus on procurement, staff training and having an appropriate and effective corporate governance structure.
JOE BROWNS
August 2022
Joe Browns source clothing, footwear and accessories from 108 suppliers across approximately 15 countries reflecting the unique nature of the product and quality.
We believe in forming strong relationships with our suppliers over long periods of time and this allows us to work closely with mutual trust and reliability, given an excellent platform for addressing any concerns with regard to Modern Slavery and Human trafficking.
We have derived our definition of Modern Slavery from the UN guiding principles on human rights and as such, for Joe Browns,
‘Modern Slavery involves one person depriving another of their liberty in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain.’
We recognise that human rights abuses have the potential to exist within global garment supply chains and as a responsible retailer we have the duty to understand and address these issues, working together with key partners and stakeholders in order to create sustainable change.
Throughout the past year we analysed our supply chains and identified that our product supply chain is the area of the business which is most at risk from exposure to human rights abuses.
Garment supply chains are long and complex, with a large number of parties involved between the production of the raw material through to the product arriving with us.
The large majority of these stages are out of our direct control, particularly from the 2nd tier of our supply chain downward. As a result, we have identified this as an area of potential risk.
In order to fully understand our exposure to human right abuses within our supply chain we have mapped our core product supply chain against country specific risks highlighted by the Global Slavery Index. As a result of this, India represents the first-tier sourcing country with the highest likelihood of modern slavery risk. India represents many different stages of garment sourcing, including cotton production, spinning and garment manufacturing and challenges such as forced labour represent a risk.
We also recognise that human rights abuses can exist within our non-product supply chains. We have identified recruitment and the utilisation of contract labour within our own business as an area of potential risk and have policies in place accordingly to mitigate these risks.
- Supplier manual
- Through 6 monthly questionnaires
- Independent spot checks
- Buyers and QC factory visits
We analyse human rights abuses and non-compliance against our code of conduct through the implementation of Joe Browns audit and assessment process. This information is shared with the strategic leadership team and reported as part of our governance structure to the group board of directors.
We have developed a dedicated email address zero.tolerance@joebrowns.co.uk for suppliers to communicate concerns they may have about human rights abuses in our supply chain.
All Joe Browns core product procurement staff undergo training outlining the principles of our code of conduct and the implications that human rights abuses can have upon our supply chain operations and the people within them.