Ethical trade

We are committed to promoting safe, fair and decent working conditions across our business and supply chains and we expect our business and supply chain partners to abide by local laws and international labour and human rights standards in all countries that we and they operate.

Trading ethically is complex, and we recognise we can’t do this alone. Whistles is an established and active member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI): a leading alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers’ rights around the globe.

The ETI platform allows us to collaborate with many others within the industry on ethical trading issues affecting global supply chains, learning from leaders on best practices as well as pushing ourselves to do better by sharing our activities and progress year-on-year.

Whistles endorses a holistic approach to its risk assessment and has long established the use of the ETI Base Code, ETI Human Rights Due-Diligence Framework and the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. These frameworks guide our efforts to protect human rights in our supply chains and are centred on four key principles; risk assessment, identification and actions to be taken, risk mitigation and remediation, and on-going review and monitoring to improve.

We take continual steps to protect human rights risks in our supply chain including supply chain mapping to increase visibility of our labour landscape and foster a culture of transparency, assess our suppliers on their ethical credentials with regular visits and annual third-party audits, and participate in ETI country specific working groups and initiatives. We report annually about the risks we face and how we are working to address them in our Modern Slavery statement.

A primary focus for Whistles is to address and promote gender related human rights and labour standards at work, with the aim to encourage our supply chain partners to reflect the rich diversity of our extended workforce across regions. By adding a gender lens to our supply chain, we identify the demographic ratio of the workforce and put this in a geopolitical context. As we progress in our journey we will look at developing measurable programmes that create an enabling environment for women’s empowerment and opportunities.

“Whistles has embedded an appreciation, at all levels of the company, that ethical trade is good for business.

The company has engaged widely across the corporate social responsibility sector and made good use of outside networks and expertise to strengthen its position and visibility in the ethical trade arena.

Whistles is an active member of ETI, collaborating and sharing with other members across a range of programmes and work streams, including a review of their purchasing practices. The company has also played a significant role in our Mauritius Working Group, becoming one of the first brands to roll out the Employer Pays Principle in its supply chain.

Whistles has shown commendable leadership, mapping the lower tiers of their supply chain beyond Tier 1, and we look forward to working with Whistles to embed even greater transparency throughout their business.” – ETI