Canadian retailer Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) says it is actively exploring ways to include second-tier suppliers in its social compliance programme by assessing its existing supply chain.
Setting out the company’s achievements in its 2017 Sustainability Report, HBC said it applies its Supplier Code of Conduct to all tier-one suppliers through the group’s mandatory Social Compliance programme. It applies to suppliers producing private label merchandise, merchandise shipped by the retailer as the importer of record, and any non-merchandise items that have an HBC company logo.
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By GlobalDataGoing forward, the company says it is now looking at how it can include second-tier suppliers in the programme.
“HBC believes we have a responsibility to uphold fundamental human and labour rights, as well as to be mindful of our environmental impacts throughout our supply chain,” it said in its report.
In 2017, 1,765 audits were conducted in factories that produce private label and national-branded merchandise sold across HBC’s North American and European operations. Around 76% of the audited factories were located in a medium to high-risk countries, including China, Bangladesh, India and Vietnam; the remaining 24% were located in a low-risk country.
In 2017, the company focused on encouraging its suppliers to use the Amfori BSCI [formerly known as the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI)] social auditing methodology. Around 48% of factory audits were conducted using this audit methodology last year.
Factories with a performance rating below B were offered opportunities to participate in Amfori BSCI’s free online and in-person capacity building courses and workshops. HBC says it will continue to work closely with suppliers and factories to achieve an A to C rating by 2020.
Only 8% received an A (outstanding) rating, and 9% a B rating. The highest rating result was C at 72%.
HBC says over 1,100 merchants completed in-person and online social compliance training sessions in 2017.
In terms of sustainability, 2017 marked the third full year the retailer has worked with a single waste and recycling partner for all banners, for both Canadian and US operations. Through better analytics and improved best practices, the company says it has increased diversion from landfill by 17% over the past three years.
Plastics recycling was equivalent to a savings of 2,850m3 of landfill space and 2,742,644 kWh of energy. The company has set a target to divert 90% of waste from landfill by the end of 2018.
HBC has also been working toward a goal of reducing company-wide absolute GHG emissions by 10% by 2020, using a 2014 baseline. Its GHG emissions total for 2017 was 165,409 tonnes of CO2e, which was down 8% from 2016, and represents an 8% absolute reduction off its 2014 baseline. Additionally, water consumption decreased by 3.4% in 2017 in North America.
