Why is it important for Next to trade ethically?
Next sources the products it sells from many countries around the world. We recognise the responsibility we have to work closely with our global suppliers, and are committed to seeking to ensure that our products are made in a clean and safe environment, in accordance with all relevant local and national laws and legislation, and by workers who are treated with respect and paid fairly for the work they do.
The challenge of ethical trading is one many stakeholders, including consumers, investors and campaign organisations continue to engage with Next about as they expect us to manage our suppliers responsibly. The Next Code of Practice (COP), our code of conduct, was developed, adopted and implemented in 1998, and it forms the basis of our efforts to support our supply chain to not only become more sustainable, but also to deliver benefits for workers across the globe and act as a means by which Next can fulfil its responsibility to uphold international labour standards with its suppliers.
Our priorities are to:
- Communicate our ethical standards to our suppliers
- Promote good work places through our factory monitoring programme
- Support our suppliers through a programme of continuous improvement
- Build capacity within our international supply chain
- Work in collaboration with others to pursue solutions for some of the more complex and systemic problems we cannot solve alone
Our Approach
Our approach is to use our influence to promote good practice and raise awareness, both with our suppliers and their employees as well as others along our value chain. We believe that working together in partnership is the best way we can make a positive difference.
Our COP applies to every country we source from, including the UK, and has ten key principles which set out the minimum standards we expect our suppliers to comply with in relation to workers’ rights and conditions of work including working hours, minimum age of employment, health, safety, welfare and environmental impacts. Click here to find out more about our COP
Our Challenges and Targets
- For Next, ethical trade means addressing key business-related social and ethical impacts. Continuous improvement lies at the heart of our business, and we are constantly looking at ways to ensure we run our business in a responsible way by acting in an ethical manner and developing positive relationships with our suppliers, to raise standards of working conditions in the factories where our products are made.
- The learning from Project Autopilot, with its focus on HR management systems and worker-management dialogue has provided a foundation for the expansion of our factory development programme for suppliers. Operational efficiency through improving productivity and environmental management systems complete the sustainability framework necessary to maintain our supply base and meet our ethical aspirations.
The full section Our Suppliers is available here.