Fighting modern slavery

We believe that everyone is entitled to basic rights and freedoms, whoever they are and wherever they live. That’s why we’re against all forms of modern slavery, everywhere.

Human trafficking, slavery, child labour, servitude and forced or compulsory labour - these practices have no place in our operations. And that goes for those companies and people who work with us and on our behalf too, wherever they are in the world.

No one should be made to work against their will. No one should be deprived of their identity papers, nor have to pay to work with us. Yet an estimated 40 million people around the world are exploited and forced into work. They often suffer physical, psychological or sexual abuse in the process.

We only work with people who choose to work freely. We respect the right to equal opportunity, freedom of association and collective bargaining. This is set out in our Modern Slavery Statements, Being trusted: our code and human rights policy. We also live it every day through our supplier standard on working conditions, Sourcing with Human Dignity.

We want to make sure modern slavery isn’t taking place in our own business or supply chain.

The risk of modern slavery within our own operations is low, as around 80% of our people are based in the UK. They're highly skilled and we do most of our recruitment ourselves. But the risks of modern slavery are higher within our supply chains.

We use risk factors to determine the modern slavery risk for each of our direct suppliers. These include the type of product or service the supplier is providing, the country they’re providing it in, and the workers’ skill levels.

Our assessment team may visit the sites of higher risk suppliers to better understand the reality of working conditions. If needed, we’ll put in place an improvement plan and monitor it closely. If a supplier doesn’t improve it can, and sometimes does, mean we cancel our contract. 

You’ll find more detail on our work fighting modern slavery in our annual Modern Slavery Statement.