At Munro Footwear Group, we believe everyone deserves to live and work with the highest standards of dignity, fairness, and respect. Central to this is partnering with suppliers who share our values, respect their workers’ rights and freedoms and are willing to deliver on this.
Following the last reporting period, which heavily focused on benchmarking and measuring our effectiveness, in this reporting period, we focused on applying our learnings and encouraging a culture of openness and accountability. Supporting this shift also required a review of how we partner with our suppliers because we know sustainable outcomes in this space ultimately come down to a culture of collaboration and shared accountability.
Understanding the importance of our relationships, which has been integral to our success, we conducted an exhaustive review of our supply partners. The review considered the alignment in values and importance our supply partners placed on upholding human rights and mitigating modern slavery along with broader social responsibility areas. After extensive consultation with our supply partners, a small portion of suppliers were identified as not being aligned, nor willing to be aligned. As such, we prioritised supplier partners who demonstrated alignment and shared our objectives in upholding human rights and eliminating modern slavery. This has resulted in supplier consolidation in some instances.
Further to our efforts with our manufacturing suppliers, non-stock due diligence has continued to be a focus area. Working proactively to mitigate engagement with suppliers who do not share our commitment to respect the rights of their workforce, our supplier onboarding process is critical to reducing the risk of modern slavery in our supply chain and operations. Evidence that our matured supplier onboarding process is fully embedded in our ways of working with 100% of new suppliers captured through our screening process.
We are pleased with our progress over the reporting period and have great confidence that with the foundational work now in place, we are in an excellent position to deliver more robust and effective measures for our next statement.
In the meantime, we trust that this statement demonstrates the significant work undertaken in this reporting period and highlights our ongoing commitment to mitigating the risks of modern slavery in both our supply chains and operations.
Jay Munro and Marcus Bartlett
Munro Footwear Group
Co-Chief Executive Officers
Read the FY23 Modern Slavery Statement Here
Author: Munro Footwear Group