At APG & Co we are proud of the strong ethical sourcing program we have built to increase the visibility over our supply chains and ordering. Over many years we have continued to strengthen our sourcing strategy and relationships with our suppliers ensure both the best employment opportunities for workers, and the highest quality products.
High Level of Transparency
We are dedicated to partnering with the best suppliers, to ensure that we can source our high-quality products with the best ethical outcomes for the factory workers. We are proud that we have traced and audited all our tier one garment suppliers. We utilise a mix of trained internal auditors and global third-party auditing standards to achieve this. We have teams on the ground China and Vietnam who regularly visit our factories and our internal auditors provide additional training on supplier’s processes. This ensures that suppliers are providing the best possible outcomes for the workers in our tier one.
Our distinctive sourcing program allows us to purchase high quality fabrics from around the world to use in our garments. This program not only provides us with the highest quality fabrics but offers us a highly transparent view of our supply chain. We have full visibility over the tier 2 of approximately 50% of our products, through long standing relationships with our fabric mills. Again, we utilise a mix of trained internal auditor visits and globally recognised auditing programs to ensure that these suppliers align with our values.
However, recognise that our visibility can still be higher. We have a strategy in place to dig deeper into our supply chain to provide us with a stronger understanding of where all our products are produced. This supply chain tracing is a key component of our overarching human rights strategy.
We support compliance programs throughout our business as a set of minimum standards which we can guarantee the human rights of the workers in our supply chain. However, we believe that compliance to global ethical auditing programs is only one part of our strategy, so we also conduct in depth ethical audits ourselves and have our trained auditor provide feedback and training to our suppliers. In addition to this, we practice Beyond Compliance in a range of ways throughout our tier 1 and parts of our tier 2. This program is led by our trained ethical auditor and our teams on the ground who regularly visit our factories. These teams are our front line of checking and visit our factories unannounced.
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been wide-reaching. However, some people have been impacted more than others. Through the peak of the crisis in 2020, APG & Co worked closely with our suppliers to ensure that we as a business could survive, whilst also providing support to our suppliers. We offered to pay deposits on some garment styles or make payments earlier than as specified in our terms, in order to help some suppliers with their cashflow issues. In turn, our suppliers have supported APG & Co by providing discounts or extended payment terms. We will continue to do what we can to support our greatly valued suppliers, and to assist them during this tough time.
In addition to the above actions, APG & Co is a signatory to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Call to Action ‘COVID-19: Action in the Global Garment Industry’. The Call to Action is a global initiative which brings together a collective of fashion brands to take joint action on providing support to suppliers during the Pandemic. APG & Co is working together with global brands, trade unions, international organisations, governments, and other key stakeholders to develop processes to ensure support is provided to the apparel manufacturing industry and their workers through the pandemic.
Please visit ILO website to see the brands which are supporting the ILO Call To Action
