We are committed to respecting human rights across our value chain to ensure the people who make or grow our products are not being exploited or exposed to unsafe working conditions - and ensure our businesses’ transition to Net Zero is just and equitable for the communities we source from
At Sainsburys we are committed to championing human rights. We believe workers across our business and supply chain should be paid fairly and protected from exploitation, unsafe working conditions and human rights abuses. Exploitation of workers is a global issue. 50 million people around the world are living in modern slavery. It is crucial that we all do what we can to prevent exploitation.
We work to make sure everyone we collaborate with wherever they are in our operations or supply chains is treated with respect and paid fairly. To do this we are addressing human rights issues across our supply chains including, modern slavery, child labour, unfair pay and unsafe working conditions.
Our commitment
Minimum sourcing requirements and due diligence
Our human rights strategy is built on embedding effective due diligence across all business units, guided by a clear action plan, governance framework and KPIs. We set out our expectations through our Group-wide Ethical Sourcing Policy, which applies to all suppliers and is grounded in internationally recognised standards including the ETI Base Code, ILO core conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These standards are communicated to suppliers and monitored through self-assessments, independent audits, and direct engagement with workers and stakeholders.
We recognise the limitations of audits and the importance of putting people at the centre of solutions. That’s why we invest in human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) and worker voice programmes to hear directly from rightsholders and vulnerable groups. We collect gender-disaggregated and migrant worker data to ensure our strategies reflect the needs of those most at risk, and we’re strengthening access to effective grievance mechanisms and remediation to uphold workers’ rights.
We’re also integrating human rights into our Climate Transition Plan, conducting saliency assessments to identify risks in high-priority raw materials and countries, and implementing targeted management and remediation for high-risk issues.
Traceability and transparency
We source thousands of products from the UK and around the world, and having visibility across our supply chain from raw materials to manufacturing and transport is essential to identifying and addressing risks to people and the planet. We are mapping beyond our tier 1 suppliers, prioritising areas with the greatest risk, informed by social and environmental risk analysis of key raw materials.
We collect detailed data on supplier site locations, workforce size, gender and migrant worker representation, and the presence of worker representation mechanisms such as trade unions or worker committees. This helps us better understand where vulnerabilities exist and how to respond effectively.
Transparency is central to our commitment to being the most trusted retailer. We are open about where we source from, the challenges we face, and the actions we take to prevent harm. Publishing our sourcing sites also empowers workers to advocate for their rights and alert us to issues, enabling us to work with peers and civil society to deliver remedy. To further strengthen transparency, we are refreshing our site lists across all business areas.
Responsible purchasing practices
We are embedding human rights into the way we buy, source and manage supplier relationships. This includes integrating our human rights standards into all high-risk tenders and value chain assessments, and supporting the Supply Chain Resilience strategy across commercial categories. We deliver targeted training for commercial teams—particularly in high-risk sectors and are implementing findings from the UK Produce EPP feasibility study to strengthen our approach.
We are committed to building long-term, stable and fair relationships with our suppliers. This is essential not only for delivering high-quality products to customers, but also for meeting our human rights responsibilities and supporting suppliers to do the same. We recognise that purchasing practices such as how we select suppliers, negotiate terms, and manage ongoing relationships can directly influence working conditions and wages. That’s why we prioritise fair payment terms, accurate volume forecasting, and adequate lead times.
We pride ourselves on strong supplier relationships and a collaborative approach to addressing concerns. We support suppliers to improve their practices and seek to reward those who demonstrate leadership in protecting people. To ensure we’re continuously improving, we gather anonymous feedback through the annual Advantage Survey, helping us understand how our practices are experienced and where we can do better.
On the ground activities to address important risks
We support targeted, on-the-ground programmes to address salient human rights risks in high-priority supply chains. This includes resilience-building initiatives with Fairtrade in tea, coffee and bananas, the delivery of human rights commitments, and the implementation of grievance mechanisms and targeted interventions across Tier 1 sites, UK produce, and garment supply chains.
In supply chains where risks are more acute or specific challenges have been identified, we invest in programmes that tackle root causes. We are a founding member of ACT, a ground-breaking agreement between global brands, retailers and trade unions working to achieve living wages in the garment sector. We’ve also co-developed a collaborative action plan to address gender-based violence in our East African tea supply chain, and we co-fund the Seasonal Workers Scheme taskforce to help protect temporary workers in the UK.
Putting people at the centre of solutions
We believe that effective worker representation and access to remedy are essential to building resilient supply chains and protecting rights. We support freedom of association and promote the role of trade unions and democratically elected worker committees in improving workplace conditions. These structures help prevent risks such as health and safety violations and enable progress on issues like living wages through collective bargaining.
As a founding member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), we work with trade unions, NGOs and industry peers to engage directly with impacted stakeholders. Since 2014, we’ve participated in key ETI working groups to advance social dialogue and worker voice. Recognising the limitations of audits, we are investing in worker voice programmes to hear directly from workers about the challenges they face. We also prioritise the inclusion of vulnerable groups such as women and migrant workers so that solutions are informed by those most affected.
Playing a leading role in collaboration across industry to drive change
As a leading retailer, we use our voice to advocate for stronger human rights protections across the industry. We champion the adoption and implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and call for more workers to be covered by core international labour conventions. We support the introduction and enforcement of regulation that enables meaningful change and share our learnings to help raise standards across the sector and supply chains.
We comply with the UK Modern Slavery Act, reporting annually on the steps we take to identify, prevent and remediate modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and supply chains. Our due diligence programme encourages transparency and includes mechanisms for suppliers to raise concerns directly. When issues are identified, we work with colleagues, suppliers, workers and independent experts to investigate and deliver lasting solutions.
We also provide training, guidance and support to colleagues and suppliers to raise awareness of human rights risks and build capability to identify and address them. Our approach is grounded in international best practice and informed by ongoing engagement with stakeholders.
We know that lasting change requires collaboration across industry and government, and with NGOs and trade unions We work with the trade union confederations IndustriALL and International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), and are advancing strategic partnerships with organisations including Fairtrade, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), the Seasonal Workers Scheme Taskforce (SWSTF), the Global Commission on Modern Slavery, and FNET. Together, we aim to influence industry standards and address the most pressing risks to people in global supply chains.
Our most salient issues
Guided by the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), our strategy is centred on our most salient human rights risks. This means that our business prioritises and focuses efforts on where we can have the most positive impact on the people who support our business.
Everyone has the right to be treated equally, regardless of who they are, where they are from, or what they believe in. Discrimination prevents people from enjoying human rights and other legal rights on an equal basis. In the workplace it can influence who gets hired and promoted, how much people earn and how people get treated.
We are building on our work to promote gender equality to tackle discrimination more broadly in our value chain. As part of our commitment, we will:
- Require all tier 1 suppliers to have an approach to tackle all forms of discrimination, and to reward suppliers that have an effective approach and share best practice.
- Take action to improve the position of the most vulnerable groups in priority value chains and;
- Address how the vulnerable are disproportionately impacted across our salient issues.
By working with our suppliers and paying particular attention to groups that are more vulnerable to discrimination, we will help protect people from discriminatory practices and create more inclusive working environments.
Gender discrimination in garment factories
It is reported that over 80 per cent of female garment workers in Bangladesh have seen or directly experienced sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace, revealing the extent of discrimination and the need for action.
Bangladesh is a key sourcing country for our General Merchandise division, and we work with other retailers, suppliers, and not-for-profit organisations as part of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Gender Sensitive Workplace Programme. This programme aims to contribute to a gender sensitive workplace where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, promote healthy industrial relations and support improved productivity and growth. This is achieved by teaching women about their rights and building and promoting ways to identify and protect women against gender-based violence and harassment. 4,387 workers have been trained since the start of the project.
Forced labour is one of the most serious violations of fundamental human rights. It is intrinsically connected to other forms of exploitation, such as excessive overtime, abusive working and living conditions and is strongly linked to intimidation, coercion, and threats. We know that vulnerable and marginalised people, in particular migrants and certain ethnic groups, are disproportionately affected by forced labour.
As a business, we understand the need to continually assess for indicators of forced labour and identify where it might occur in our value chain, especially as exploiters become more sophisticated.
We have committed to seeking out and addressing all instances of forced labour by:
- Scaling action to detect current and emerging indicators of forced labour.
- Supporting access to remedy for those abused.
- Supporting suppliers with inadequate practices to improve and provide incentives for suppliers with effective, proactive approaches.
This means we will be better prepared to prevent forced labour from occurring, and support victims when it does occur. Our suppliers will be supported to improve and rewarded for doing the right thing to protect workers.
Tomato gangmasters in Italy
A media exposé in 2017 revealed that migrant workers in Italy, where we source a large proportion of our tomatoes, were being forced to work by illegal recruiters. Every aspect of workers’ lives were being controlled by a ‘Caporalto’ gangmaster. They lived in dirty and unpleasant accommodation, worked excessive hours for below minimum wage and had limited access to medical care. The workers had no contractual protection from the Caporali, who charged them high fees for ‘recruitment services’.
To better understand the risks that workers face in this sector and what we and our suppliers need to do to tackle them, we helped set up the Ethical Trading Initiative’s Italy fresh produce working group. A grower level risk assessment and strategy were developed to ensure that growers continuously improve practices and that resources are focused on areas of highest risk.
We work hard with our suppliers to make sure that they provide safe and fair working conditions. An important part of this is making sure that workers and affected communities can speak up if they feel things are not as they should be, so that concerns can be resolved, and future violations prevented.
We are building on our long standing efforts to listen to workers to understand their challenges and concerns and commit to:
Ensuring access to effective and trusted grievance mechanisms across all tier 1 suppliers, measuring effectiveness through worker voice mechanisms.
Doing deeper dives in high priority value chains to better enable the earlier identification of concerns of workers beyond tier 1.
Supporting access to remedy/addressing issues raised by workers and to use these findings to prevent future violations.
This means there will be clearly established procedures in place for affected people to raise and escalate concerns so that these can be resolved and remediated and future abuses prevented.
Issara Institute for Thai-based suppliers
To address the risks in the Thai fishing, aquaculture and food manufacturing sectors, we have partnered with the Issara Institute, a specialist worker voice organisation based in Southeast Asia. Over 33,000 workers based across our Thai supplier sites have access to the Issara Institute’s independent worker voice channels, helping to improve our suppliers’ capacity to effectively address workers’ grievances and hear directly from workers. Workers can use their mobile phones to complete worker voice surveys and access the Issara hotline. We monitor the data collected so we can be aware of and address any concerns
We have a responsibility to ensure workers in our value chains are protected against hazards and risks in the workplace. Unsafe workplaces can have severe and irreversible effects on workers’ health and wellbeing — including injury, sickness and even death.
The most hazardous forms of work often occur further down the value chain, such as at the raw material stage, where it is more difficult for us to have visibility of working conditions. Some sectors are inherently more dangerous due to the processes or materials used. We also know that the risk landscape is changing rapidly as climate change threatens to create more dangerous working environments. As the nature of risk changes, we must continue to assess its impacts and adapt our strategies to ensure workers’ health and wellbeing are protected.
This is why we have committed to:
- Undertake a deeper dive in priority value chains to tackle the most salient health and safety risks, including those beyond tier 1.
- Take action to identify and prevent evolving health and safety risks, including those associated with climate change.
This means we will have a more proactive approach to preventing the most serious risks to workers’ health and safety and will support suppliers to adopt practices to protect peoples’ rights to a safe and healthy working environment.
Rana Plaza – building safety after tragedy
In 2013 a factory in Bangladesh supplying major retailers collapsed, killing over 1,100 workers and injuring a further 2,500. As Bangladesh is an important sourcing country for Sainsbury’s, and to prevent another tragedy like this occurring again, Sainsbury’s joined forces with other retailers, NGOs and trade unions. The Bangladesh Accord was signed by 220 companies who agreed practical steps to make sure that workers in ready-made garment and textile factories were safe and no worker needed to fear fires, building collapses, or other preventable accidents. The Accord was expanded and updated to become the International Accord in September 2021. Sainsbury’s is proud to remain a signatory and active member.
Everyone has the right to earn what is necessary to meet their basic needs and the needs of their family. However, we know that there is still more work to do to secure sustainable livelihoods for people at the heart of global value chains.
We are committing to securing real increases in wages and income for people who make or grow our products, so that they not only survive, but can be afforded a dignified and decent standard of living.
By 2030 we commit to having closed the gap and achieved living wages for workers or living income for smallholder farmers in priority value chains (equivalent to the volumes that we source).
We will work with our suppliers, producer groups, partners and industry, to make sure people receive a fair price, prioritising those who need it most.
Working in collaboration
The global challenges we face require collective action; we cannot solve these on our own.
We are committed to working with credible experts to better understand the risks people in our value chain face, and to determine how best these risks and impacts can be mitigated and remediated.
We know that labour and human rights risks are systemic and require collective action based on an understanding of root causes. To make progress on issues such as pay and working conditions, we need to collaborate and work pre-competitively with peers to raise standards and to use our collective leverage to advocate for change, including with governments, standards -setters and certification schemes.
We do much of our work to address labour rights issues in high-risk supply chains by working with other organisations in multi-stakeholder initiatives. We are a founding member of the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) and participate in many of its working groups alongside trade unions, non-governmental organisations and other consumer goods businesses.
We are founding members of the Modern Slavery Intelligence Network (MSIN), a non-profit collaboration of UK food and agriculture sectors. MSIN’s objective is to share intelligence to disrupt modern slavery across the food supply chain, generate new insights and protect those vulnerable to labour exploitation in the sector. We shared learnings on the BBC investigation on Slavery on the High Street and how MSIN could support the earlier detection of issues and remediation to victims. We will continue working with MSIN and look forward to taking an active role in intelligence sharing in the future.
Industry collaboration helps to align and streamline information and standards that businesses require from their supply chains. Such collaboration also helps by reducing duplication and sharing insight and intelligence on shared risks, which maximizes our collective efforts and resources.
Case study
Investing in wages for banana plantation workers
This year, we continued to collaborate with our partner Fairtrade, our banana supplier Fyffes and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) to improve workers' wages in our banana supply chains. Our action to commit to contributing to higher wages for banana plantation workers was made three years ahead of the industry’s commitment deadline of 2027. Sainsbury’s pays a premium above the cost of every box of bananas, which contributes to fairer wages for those who grow Fairtrade bananas to improve their livelihoods and financial security. The premium is also invested in sustainable farm practices. In addition, we have given suppliers added stability and financial security by moving to longer term contracts.
Case study
Working with Rights Lab on advocacy and a Just Transition
In 2023 we established a strategic research partnership with the University of Nottingham’s Rights Lab, the world’s largest group of modern slavery researchers, to work collaboratively to understand and address the human rights risks in our supply chains.
Our strategic plan focused on eight areas, including our human rights advocacy approach. Led by the former UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Dame Sara Thornton, we developed our advocacy strategy, identifying a number of priority advocacy topics such as the development of the Fair Work Agency (FWA) and the effective evolution of the UK Seasonal Worker Scheme (SWS). Since crystallising our strategy, we have attended a number of parliamentary events and engaged with key stakeholders to support the call for improved regulation and enforcement.
Additionally, we are working with the Rights Lab to analyse the impact of climate change and nature loss on UK food retail supply chains. The research will also look at how retailers’ climate transition plans could affect supply chain workers’ human rights and will produce recommendations on how to address these risks, using Just Transition principles. The report will be available to the public to support knowledge-sharing and collaboration.
