Ethical Trading through the Covid-19 Pandemic

BBS has full and widely recognised ethical trading relationships with its supply chains around the world, from Europe across to the Far East, with worker safety at the forefront of how we procure through or supply chains.

During the Covid-19 Pandemic our regular scheduled visits to our supply chains have been curtailed, and our ongoing and developing ethical trading practices changed to virtual meetings and long distanced telephone calls.

We have been working with our supply chains to understand how the different countries and continents have approached worker safety through these deeply challenging times.

Due to having our Chinese supply chains trained directly by the Ethical Trading Initiative in 2019, we have been able to have good and open access to onsite checks carried out by our trained teams, and have been receiving regular updates and information on how the factories and offices are tackling Covid-19 and its affects on day to day life at work.

The approaches vary with individual countries being guided in various ways by their own Governments, but the overwhelming similarity is the huge efforts being taken by all of our supply chains to not only adhere to Government guidelines, but make small but practical additions to the requirements at a local level. The other common theme we are seeing is a culture of openness to be able to talk about fears or issues without reprisal. BBS has championed elected representation on may levels, and it is these workers who are able to take collective concerns to the management knowing they will be heard and listened too.

BBS has made a financial impact to the requirements throughout our supply chains, with hand sanitiser and associated PPE being purchased for factory workers.