As part of its sustainability goals, department store John Lewis wanted to extend the first principle of its partnership model – the happiness of all members – beyond its employees to its supply chain. Milly Cunningham, senior sustainability manager, and Nadia Youds, social impact manager, at John Lewis, told Drapers Sustainable Fashion 2020 how they are doing this.
“Transparency is a precondition to sustainability,” said Cunningham. “In order to be sustainable, you need to understand your supply chain and prove your claims.”
However, John Lewis wanted to apply the principles of its partnership to this transparency, moving beyond an audit of a supplier and instead replacing it with a more in depth survey of their workers.
Last year, it launched the Better Jobs programme, offering suppliers a chance to survey their workers in a way that moved beyond typical audits to workers’ satisfaction. A total of 800 workers took part across 25 suppliers.
“Some suppliers were reticent,” said Youds. “We were asking them to be really open with how they do business – asking for figures around what they don’t normally share, and asking for feedback on how employees feel about their benefits packages
On the back of the research, they told the conference, one supplier was prompted to change their benefits package. They had previously offered childcare vouchers, but most of their workers were men without children.
“Just by understanding that, it allowed them to offer more flexibility and better rewards for the employee base,” said Youds.
However, she cautioned that one of the biggest questions they faced was whether they felt comfortable not auditing factories.
“The one thing that is holding retailers and brands back in this area is taking the leap not to audit and try something different,” said Youds. “But we’d rather try than not know the impact this new way could have on our supply chain.”
