We are committed to assessing the wages across our operations and supply chain to ensure they are in line with recognised living wage benchmarks. In the UK, 97% of our product is made by workers who are paid at least the Living Wage Foundation’s hourly rate. Further to this, around 70% of the finished goods facilities we source from are covered by National and/or Industrial Collective Bargaining Agreements and many have established union representation enabling workers to remain informed and involved in discussions about their rights. We believe that these strong supplier relationships are key to ensuring continuous improvement in supply chain working conditions and help us to minimise supplier turnover, where possible. We have visibility of all finished goods manufacturing suppliers, their subcontractors and supporting facilities, as well as mills, tanneries and trim suppliers. Our approach to the payment of living wages in the supply chain is to promote and encourage our suppliers to become accredited as l iving Wage employers, where applicable. In 2019, our strategic supplier of cashmere scarves, Johnstons of Elgin, became accredited as Living Wage Employer and was chosen as the winner of the Anchor Institution Award by Living Wage Scotland because of the significant impact accreditation has had on their staff.
We are a Principal Partner of the Foundation and in 2016 joined the steering group of the Global Living Wage Initiative, to help harness the increasing interest in the Living Wage and address in-work poverty across all sectors and multiple geographies as part of a unified, global approach with multi-stakeholder participation. We believe that all workers have the right to a living wage and continue to promote this standard throughout our supply chain.