ASOS has announced the company has set up new commitments required for the third party brand partners that manufacture in the UK.
The announcement comes after the online retailing giant removed products by boohoo after the company faced allegations of poor pay and working conditions at their Leicester factory last month.
Nick Beighton, ASOS CEO, commented on the announcement: “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 in sight, 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 now 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 has asked brands to commit to taking the following steps by the end of the year:
- Signing the Transparency Pledge, joining ASOS, H&M, Inditex, Next,
Pentland Brands, and numerous others in regularly and publicly disclosing a
list of manufacturing sites in their supply chain; - Mapping and having visibility on all parts of their UK garment manufacturing
supply chain, and providing evidence of visibility to ASOS; - Identifying risks within their supply base and strategies to mitigate this risk and,
if necessary, sharing this information with ASOS so it can support the partner
with addressing these issues; - Joining the Fast Forward auditing programme and committing to tackle any
issues identified through this process.
These four commitments will bring the UK production policies of ASOS’ brand partners
in line with those implemented by ASOS for the manufacture of ASOS Design products
in the UK.
The country is an initial focus area for ASOS as part of its third-party brand
engagement programme, with further international plans to be rolled out over the
coming months.
In the last financial year, third-party brands accounted for approximately 60% of the
products sold on ASOS. More information on ASOS’ third-party brands programme is
available here
