Responsible Sourcing

We pride ourselves on our reputation for acting fairly and ethically wherever we do business. Our reputation is built on our values as a company, the values of our colleagues and our collective commitment to acting with integrity throughout our organisation. Our Responsible Sourcing Policy demonstrates this commitment.

Standards for Suppliers

Our Standards for Suppliers are the corner stone of our Responsible Sourcing programme and are operated by Asda Stores Limited, including its subsidaries. The Supplier Standards apply to anyone supplying Asda with Goods For Resale (GFR) and Goods Not For Resale (GNFR including services).

Protecting the human rights of all who contribute to our business, from our employees to those in our supply chain is right thing to do and is essential to our future success. We look to partner with our suppliers to mitigate risks, drive remediation and improve standards for workers.

At Asda, it is vital our Suppliers know and understand the risks within their own operations and supply chains.

As a Supplier to Asda, you are expected to actively work to identify and understand the risks associated within your supply chain. This includes complying with these standards and any applicable laws, regulations and agreements whilst maintaining licenses and permits as required and appropriate for your industry, geography and facility.

Transparency Policy

Supplier transparency is a corner stone of our programme and collaborating with you to uphold our Standards for Suppliers is key to this. This approach will allow us to assess supply chain risk, deploy resources to assist continuous improvement and monitor compliance within our global supply chain.

Please note, although we do not require you to provide transparency to all your in-scope locations at this time, our Standards for Suppliers apply to all tiers of your supply chain and it is the supplier’s responsibility to ensure compliance throughout their supply chain. This communication and the transparency requirements within it are the minimum requirements for Asda Responsible Sourcing. Other Asda departments may have additional requirements.

This policy represents the minimum standards that Asda expects for in-scope facilities. Asda reserves the rights to increase the requirements for business areas, commodities or geographies subject to completion of an initial risk assessment. This may include but is not limited to: additional Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) requirements for supply chain tiers, industry specific audits and additional Human Rights due diligence.

Supply Chain Monitoring Requirements and Guidance

We are focused on data to better understand risks throughout our supply chain. We aim to do this in a simplified, efficient, and impactful way to realise benefits for customers, workers, our suppliers and their facilities. We use Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQ) and third-party audits to help us evaluate our suppliers’ overall risk in the supply chain. Our programme uses the assessment criteria provided by SEDEX. Suppliers will fall into one of three categories:

• Low risk; An SAQ must be provided every six months to Asda via the SEDEX platform
• Medium risk; An SAQ must be provided every six months to Asda via the SEDEX platform AND tools will be provided to support suppliers to build capacity and drive demonstrable continuous improvement
• High risk; An SAQ must be provided every six months to Asda via the SEDEX platform AND the supplier is audited via a third party, audits then shared via the SEDEX platform, all noted non conformances must be closed within the specified time period.

All of these mechanisms help us to monitor, assess risk and evaluate our suppliers’ overall compliance with our Standards.

Any in-scope location that falls within our transparency requirements may be audited at any time. However, in the first instance Asda will utilise information from all suppliers to identify trends, areas of focus and anomalies for further engagement.

Frequentley Asked Questions