At Vivienne Westwood, one of our main goals is building a strong and transparent supply chain. This includes assessing and monitoring for the working conditions under which our products are manufactured in order to guarantee the safety and wellbeing of the people working with us and our products, directly and indirectly. A direct supplier is a supplier who provides goods or services directly to us, without any middlemen. An indirect supplier can be a middle-man or a supplier of a supplier (sub-supplier), such as for example a material supplier who sources raw materials like cotton for garment production. By looking at every level of our supply chain, not just the factories we work with directly, we can better protect the wellbeing of everyone involved in making our products.
Since bringing the management of our manufacturing and sourcing decisions back in-house in 2019, we have endeavored year on year to strengthen our supply chain monitoring program.
We have a dedicated team both in London, UK and Milan, Italy monitoring the management of our supply chains and relevant documental procedures.
Our auditing program, initiated in 2019 by our Milan hub and extended to our UK-managed supply chain in 2022, aims at measuring and monitoring the risk of, amongst others, modern slavery, employment standards and environmental risks in our supply chain.
Our auditing program currently focuses on key direct manufacturing suppliers. These include all the key supply chain partners we directly conduct business with. We define ‘key’ to mean suppliers with highest order quantities, in locations of high risk and those we have a long-standing relationship with.
The announced audits assess, among others, workplace conditions of the factories, and they are conducted by external second-party auditors. Apart from working with auditors, we are able to consider and evaluate previous audit reports provided by our suppliers, in line with the main social and environmental international audit standards (like SEDEX SMETA etc.). Where possible, our teams visit suppliers and assist during audits.
Our supply chain is managed by our two main offices: currently 25% of our direct manufacturing supply chain consist of suppliers managed through the London headquarters - Vivienne Westwood LTD, while the remaining 75% is managed by our Milan-based offices - Vivienne Westwood SRL.
We have 100% visibility of those direct manufacturing suppliers (Tier 1) of both Italy-managed and UK-managed supply chains.
In 2024, 51% of our direct manufacturing suppliers, those who we have a direct relationship with through our Milan hub, have been audited by a nominated external party. The majority of our key direct manufacturing suppliers managed through our Italian arm are located in Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Tunisia and Kenya.
The majority of UK-managed key suppliers are located in Thailand and the UK, with one manufacturer located in Hong Kong. In 2024, we have audited 53% of these key direct manufacturing suppliers.
Non-compliances assessed been addressed through corrective action plans, which we monitor seasonally and follow-up audits have been conducted where necessary. Severe non-compliances require verification audits onsite, and repeated audit failures can result in the termination of our partnership with suppliers. Willingness to receive audits and remediate non-compliances is part of our contractual agreement with suppliers.
With every season, our audit program is expanding to include more tiers within our supply chain. We have a documented procedure to collect information regarding sub-suppliers involved in the manufacturing of our products. Our direct manufacturing suppliers are requested to share the complete list of sub-suppliers they are collaborating with, and update this list with each new season. To formalise and further commit to supply chain traceability, we developed a sub-supplier procedure, which has been implemented starting from 2023 by both our Milan hub and the London headquarters. This document will help us increase transparency regarding direct manufacturing suppliers that sub-contract any or part of their services, relative to the production activities they have externalised and to provide improved visibility on sub-suppliers within our supply chain.
Modern Slavery is defined as exploitation of an individual by others, for personal or commercial gain. This means a person loses their freedom, whether they are tricked, coerced, or forced. This includes but is not limited to human trafficking, forced labour and debt bondage.
Our Modern Slavery suite of documents, includes a Modern Slavery Policy, our Code of Labour Practice and Business Conduct, Whistleblowing Policy and Tool, and a Due Diligence Questionnaire.
All direct suppliers are required to formally comply with the above mentioned standards.
Our annual Modern Slavery Statement, in compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, which you can find here, has also been drafted in line with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 (SB 657).
In 2019 VW SRL joined the UNECE’s Sustainability Pledge, which consists of a series of policy recommendations, guidelines and standards for traceability and transparency, that enable industry actors to authenticate their sustainability claims. Find out more here.
From 2019 to 2021, within the Sustainability Pledge’s framework, VW SRL participated in the ‘Traceability and Transparency pilot project for the Cotton Value Chain’, supporting in the validation and testing of the methodological standard for the supply chain data collection. The project was meant to trace in a transparent manner all the supply chain phases of the product from the distribution up until the upstream sourcing level of the cotton fibre. The pilot was centered on two of our garments, an organic cotton t-shirt and a pair of denim jeans made of blended recycled cotton yarn and virgin cotton.
In conclusion, this project allowed us to participate in an active pilot trialing methodological standards for data collection for traceability and transparency through a strategic collaboration with supply chain partners. We are currently testing different tools and methods to extend traceability across our supply chains and products, which include the implementation of LCAs (Life Cycle Assessments). Traceability is one of our main development areas and a key goal for the advancement of our sustainability strategy.
Read more here on the Sustainability Pledge.
Read more here about UNECE and their mission.
In order to guarantee the safety and wellbeing of the people working with us and our products, directly and indirectly, we have implemented a whistleblowing system that includes our supply chain. Specifically, we give the possibility to individuals forming part of our supply chain to report to us – in the past through an offline physical paper document - any potential wrongdoing, crime or unethical activity occurring within the supply chain.
In order to guide suppliers through the submission of this whistleblowing report, we provide them with a specific document containing instructions (including how we will respond to any concern or incident reported to us) and a list of examples of concerns or suspicion of wrongdoing, unethical practices or criminal acts that can be reported to us.
In 2022, Vivienne Westwood Srl has substituted this offline physical paper document with a new advanced online whistleblowing tool to modernise the process, which relevant suppliers now have access to through a QR code.
We are currently working to implement the same tool for Ltd and the relevant supply chains.
