#whomademyclothes: Aldi talks
After Tesco’s comprehensive answer to N4Mummy‘s question about who makes their school uniforms #whomademyclothes – Tesco Talks we asked whether Aldi would respond with information about who makes their £4 school uniforms, apparently the cheapest available in the UK.
Zoe Hitchen just got in touch to say that she had tweeted Aldi to ask #whomademyclothes and has just received a response.
Good afternoon Zoe
I am writing to you in response to your recent contact with our Social Media team.
As part of ALDI’s Supplier Standards, suppliers are required to tell us which production facilities are making our products. We promote workplace practices and conditions that are safe, fair and legal for all those involved in making our products and we closely monitor production facilities to ensure compliance. We continue to work with our suppliers to uphold ethical standards and seek improvements if ever required.
As a responsible business, ALDI are committed to ensuring the human rights of workers in our supply chains are respected. We work with our business partners to adhere to International Labour Organisation (ILO) and United Nations (UN) Conventions and/ or by national law, whichever is most stringent.
All suppliers of our ‘Back to School’ range comply with ALDI’s Supplier Standards. These are included as part of our contractual Terms and Conditions, which all suppliers are required to sign prior to entering into business with us. Our Supplier Standards reflect our commitment to human rights and fair labour standards and are based upon the following:
- The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
- The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
- The ILO Conventions
- The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
We hope this reassures you that we are committed to ethical sourcing throughout our supply chain.
Kind regards
Oliver Way
Aldi Customer Services
UK 0800 042 0800
customer.service@aldi.co.uk
www.aldi.co.uk
Fashion Revolution’s response:
The question Who Made My Clothes? means that we want to see the people in Aldi’s supply chain, the faces of the people making your school uniform. Policy and commitment is a good start, but it doesn’t answer Zoe’s question. Answering the question #whomademyclothes requires transparency, and this implies honesty, openness, communication and accountability. We want to know that you are committed to transparency in practice, not just in principle.
What would we like Aldi to do?
Tesco have shown us the people who make their school uniforms; can Aldi do the same?
On our Brands page, there is a download pack detailing all of the ways in which brands and retailers can be more transparent. These include
To find out more about transparency in the fashion supply chain and why it is so important, please read the Transparency page on our website.
If you are shopping for school uniform over the coming weeks you can also check the Ethical Consumer’s school uniform ranking guide
Images: Aldi
