Introduction and Policy Statement
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is designed to combat modern slavery in the UK. This Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking statement is a response to Section 54(1), Part 6 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and relates to actions and activities for the financial year ending 31/12/2023.
Modern slavery includes the use of persons for slavery, servitude, forced, compulsory, or bonded labour, child labour, and human trafficking. Human trafficking is where a person arranges or facilitates the travel of another person with a view to that person being exploited. Modern slavery and human trafficking are crimes and violations of fundamental human rights.
One Retail Group is committed to preventing slavery and human trafficking violations in its own operations, its supply chain, and its products. We have a zero-tolerance policy towards slavery and require our supply chain to comply with our values. This policy applies to all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, including but not limited to employees at all levels, directors, agency workers, seconded workers, agents, contractors, and suppliers. We expect that our suppliers will hold their own suppliers to the same high standards.
Organizational Structure
We are a multi-product and multi-channel eCommerce business with an infrastructure that ensures fast delivery across the United Kingdom (UK), Europe, the United States of America (USA), Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the UAE. The nature of our supply chain involves sourcing and manufacturing products in the United Kingdom, Europe, China, Pakistan, and Morocco. Find out more about One Retail Group here. We consider that we operate in a high-risk environment due to the multitude of sourcing and sale regions we operate in, as well as the number of stakeholders involved throughout our supply chain.
Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Policies
We have implemented several internal policies to ensure that we are conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner. We expect our entire supply chain, which includes all persons working for us or on our behalf in any capacity, to uphold the measures and commitments we have put in place to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking. These include, but are not limited to:
- We have a zero-tolerance policy towards slavery and human trafficking and require our supply chain to comply with our values.
- Our entire supply chain is responsible for the prevention, exposure, and reporting of modern slavery. All persons must not engage in, facilitate, or fail to report any activity that might lead to, or suggest a breach of this policy.
- We are actively committed to engaging with our suppliers and stakeholders to address the risk of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chain. We make sure our suppliers and stakeholders are aware of our policies, adhere to the same standards, and hold their own supply chain to the same high standards.
Due Diligence
Our due diligence procedures aim to identify, monitor, and reduce the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our business and supply chain. As part of our efforts to achieve this, we have adopted the following due diligence procedures:
- We take a risk-based approach when selecting our suppliers and keep them under regular review. We require our suppliers to comply with well-recognised quality management systems and annual factory audits. In addition to this, we require our suppliers to comply with our Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking policies, which set out the minimum standards required to combat modern slavery and human trafficking.
- We may require employment and recruitment agencies and other third parties supplying workers to our organisation to confirm their compliance with our Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking policies.
- We carry out risk assessments across our supply chain and reserve the right to carry out an unannounced visit or audit if we suspect there is any breach of our Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking policies.
- We do not tolerate slavery and human trafficking in our supply chain. Where there is evidence of failure to comply with our policies and procedures by persons, businesses, or stakeholders within our supply chain, we will ensure that we take appropriate action. This can include working toward the breach of policy being remediated or in severe circumstances, termination of all contracts and relationships.
We regularly evaluate the nature and extent of our exposure to the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our supply chain. We continue to develop our risk assessment procedures to ensure we reduce the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our business and supply chain.
This statement has been approved by Joshua Stevens, CEO of One Retail Group.
1RG Modern Slavery Statement 2022-2023