Supply Chain Disclosure
Effective as of: May 11 2017
At Decathlon, responsibility is one of our core values.
It’s a key driver in promoting sustainable development and human rights throughout our activities on a daily basis.
Therefore, in the factories of our suppliers and subcontractors, we are committed to observing and ensuring the application of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights developed by the United Nations under its “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework. This goal is reflected in our Social Charter.
Our Social Charter was created in 2003. It is based on ILO Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Social Charter is a contractual document signed by our suppliers prior to any business relationship and setting out our requirements on safety and human rights in such categories as child labor, working hours and discrimination.
We consider any direct or indirect form of forced labor as a critical issue. If our partners engage in this practice, we suspend our production and shipment with them.
Indeed, our global risk mapping, social charter, and procedures and tools related to our due diligence in the supply chain are evolving regularly due to the update of various internal and external factors.
For more information on our approach and initiatives, please visit our SD Website: sustainability.decathlon.com.
Verification of Supply Chain
Before beginning a relationship with a supplier, we ensure the supplier’s production site meets our basic social requirements.
Within their manufacturing and supply agreement, the supplier commits to producing only in declared and verified sites and territories. Any undeclared subcontracting is absolutely forbidden.
Once the supplier is active, our local teams accompany them to ensure compliance with social, safety and HR matters, as well as with standards related to quality, supply, production, etc. We seek to build a long-term relationship.
Since 2014, we have developed a partnership strategy with suppliers who share our vision and values. Together, we define transparent, demanding and sustainable objectives and interests.
To evaluate how these suppliers and partners meet requirements and standards, we perform regular assessments of their sites and organizations. These assessments are conducted by our internal social auditors or by external parties, and the frequency is related to a country's level of risk.
Even though the frequency of assessments is different from one country to another, the Assessment Grid is the same for all. It's based on our Social Charter and manages safety themes, such as fire and chemical safety, and human rights issues, such as child labor, forced labor and wages.
In each assessment, assessors ensure that the supplier is compliant with local law. If Decathlon's requirements are more demanding, we ensure compliance with those, as well. Any unconformities detected are reported to our locally based production teams, who ensure the construction of an action plan with suppliers and ensure its efficiency and implementation.
Auditing/Internal Accountability
Each supplier assessment conducted since the opening of the relationship is given a rating from E to A. E is unacceptable, while A is exemplary.
If a site is awarded an “E”, we require the supplier to:
• Undertake immediate action to eliminate the risk on the day it is observed
• Analyze the problem in order to identify its root cause and draw up a corrective action that brings a sustainable solution. This action plan will be approved by an internally validated assessor no more than 3 months after the assessment. If the situation can’t be resolved that same day, we suspend production and block any further shipments of our product.
The historical data and follow-up of assessments and action plans are recorded in an internal supplier database that is accessible to all teammates.
From this supplier database, we make sure of regular reporting on the ABC level of our supplier panel to monitor and achieve our target of 80% ABC Level.
Find further explanation in our SD Report.
Supplier Certification of Materials
We require our direct suppliers to verify the compliance of sourced materials within their supply chain according to our restricted substances list and social charter requirements and guidelines.
Training
As soon as new teammates join our company, they are given a personal training plan (PTP) relevant to their area of activity that aims to make them operational as quickly as possible.
Thus, our Decathlon teammates in charge of managing a factory receive training that explains all of our social charter requirements, including those pertaining to forced labor.
Our production teams, which are involved in managing the supplier, also receive training on how to schedule and prepare assessments, co-build corrective action plans (CAP) with their suppliers and monitor CAP implementation in the field.
As per our continuous improvement approach, we decided to hold a 2-day training sessions with Verité on forced labor in January of 2017. The objective of the training was to reinforce the skills of our sustainable development managers in charge of supplier assessments, and to update our risk mapping and draw a clear new roadmap for the next 5 years.
Vérité is a global, independent nonprofit organization that conducts research, advocacy, consulting, training and assessments with the goal of ensuring safer, fairer and legally compliant working conditions for people worldwide. The Vérité team has recognized expertise on forced labor and human trafficking.
