Asos calls on brands to make ethical manufacturing pledges

Asos is asking its brand partners with a UK manufacturing presence to strengthen their commitment to transparency and responsible action by pledging to make four new ethical manufacturing commitments as a condition to their products being sold on its website.

Third party brands will be asked to sign up to the Transparency Pledge, which requires businesses to publicly and regularly declare their manufacturing supply chain, joining other fashion companies including Asos, H&M, Inditex, Next, and Pentland Brands.

In addition, the brands will also have to map and have visibility on all parts of their UK garment manufacturing supply chain, and provide evidence of visibility to Asos, as well as identify risks within their supply base and strategies to mitigate this risk and, if necessary, share this information with Asos so it can support the partner with addressing these issues.

The final pledge will be to join Fast Forward, the UK-focussed supply chain labour standards auditing methodology that Asos co-founded with other retailers in 2014 in order to tackle issues facing UK garment manufacturing specifically.

Asos said in a statement that these four commitments will bring the UK production policies of its brand partners in line with those implemented by Asos for the manufacture of Asos Design products in the UK.

Asos looking to improve UK manufacturing by asking brand partners to sign up to Transparency Pledge

The online retailer added that while the UK is an initial focus for the business as part of its third-party brand engagement programme, it has plans to roll out similar initiatives internationally over the coming months.

To help its brand partners reach these commitments, Asos will host a collaborative workshop with the Fast Forward audit in September.

Asos chief executive, Nick Beighton, said: “When we launched our third-party brand engagement programme at the start of 2018, we set out Five Minimum Requirements that we wanted the brands we sold on-site to sign up to by 2020. We’ve been working hard to support our brand partners to achieve this aim, and with the target now insight, we want to be even more ambitious – and ask those brands that manufacture in the UK to bring their supply chains in line with our own, if they are not already.

“We believe the four commitments we have set out this week are critical enablers to improving sourcing standards across the UK. We hope that our brand partners will join us in striving to reach this goal, with the continued support of Asos, Fast Forward, and other leading lights in UK manufacturing.”

Asos’ Five Minimum Requirements, which have been in place since the start of 2018 are: to have an Ethical Trade Policy which is implemented across their supply chain; to have Transparency of ‘Tier 1’ (Cut Make Trim) factories, and be willing to share a factory list with Asos if required; to comply with all the relevant chemical regional regulations in the countries we retail in; to have an Animal Welfare Policy; and where applicable, for all brands operating in the UK to publish a Modern Slavery Statement.

In the last financial year, third-party brands accounted for approximately 60 percent of the products sold on Asos.

Image: courtesy of Asos