Today we have published our Pentland Brands Modern Slavery report, outlining our actions during 2020 to protect the people working in our supply chain.  

As a Positive Business, we have standards for working ethically, transparently and sustainably, which we share with all our suppliers, retailers and partners. Here’s how we progressed our work in 2020.  

Supporting communities in crisis 

We recognise that COVID-19 has posed unprecedented challenges to those already at risk of modern slavery. To mitigate this in our own supply chain, we committed to paying for goods produced for Pentland Brands throughout the pandemic. In some cases, our suppliers switched to producing personal protective equipment for frontline workers. Speedo waived its exclusivity conditions for its goggle supplier in China, so it could manufacture PPE visors and protective goggles.  

In May 2021, we donated 750 food parcels to people working at one of our suppliers in India, to support those with limited access to essentials during the crisis.  

Finding new ways to protect our workers 

We work hard to protect rights and improve working conditions for everyone in our supply chain. In 2020, we introduced a new service to encourage our people to speak up about any issues of concern within our business, including those related to ethical trade. The service allows any employee internationally to raise an issue either by phone or online.  

We continue to share advice and learnings from our ongoing work with Homeworkers Worldwide. We supported the development of a homeworking toolkit, which provides practical guidance and examples of good practice for protecting homeworkers in global supply chains. 

Increasing transparency  

We disclose information about our policies, practices and supply chain to help us protect human rights and reduce the risk of modern slavery. In 2020, we published key documents including our Corporate Responsibility charter and Responsible Exit policy, as well as updating existing policies supporting vulnerable workers which we will publish this year. We also shared data for our tier 1 and nominated 2 suppliers on gender balance and will look to further increase our transparency in 2021.  

Our focus now is to improve gender equality in our supply chain through policies, education and industry collaboration.

For more information, view our Modern Slavery report 2020.