Social Responsibility
Our business is about people and it’s our most fundamental responsibility to respect human rights, promote inclusion and champion diversity throughout our supply chain.
Although we do not employ the garment workers who make our clothes, it is our responsibility to ensure people involved in our supply chain have safe, healthy and sustainable working conditions.
We have a strong local presence in our sourcing markets through our production offices, which means we can have genuine partnerships with our suppliers and meet them on a regular basis.
Our ambition is to advance the following questions:
Healthy workplaces: Besides providing an income, employment enables people involved in our supply chain, and potentially also their families and communities, to flourish. Providing a safe and healthy workplace, guaranteeing rights at work, paying fair wages that meet workers’ basic needs and promoting social dialogue are essentials for sustainable economic growth.
Purchasing practices: As a buyer, we are responsible for fair purchasing practices and creating an environment in which human rights can be properly respected and implemented. For example, if a buyer pays for products ordered on time, it helps suppliers to pay their workers on time.
Partner support: We choose partners who share our respect for people and the environment and want to work with us to improve practices. We regularly assess performance against our Sustainability Commitment and support our partners in making improvements. Non-governmental organisations, experts, stakeholders and local governments help us gain insight into the challenges involved and an understanding of how to drive improvements locally.
Health and safety
People are our most important asset, and everyone working at Weekday or in our supply chain should have good working conditions. We consider it our responsibility to provide and maintain healthy, safe and sustainable working environments throughout our operations. We strive to build a strong health and safety culture by taking preventative measures to minimize exposures to risks and accidents.
Human rights
Respecting and upholding human rights is a fundamental part of our responsibility as a business. We always strive to act ethically, transparently and responsibly and we expect our business partners to do the same. The H&M Group’s Human Rights Policy, which was updated in 2020, describes our commitment.
Some of the things we do to ensure the fair and equal treatment of all the workers involved in our supply chain:
As a part of H&M group we participate in the Fair Living Wages Program.
We support freedom of association and offer trainings on labour law.
We do not accept child labour.
We have a strict global non-discrimination policy.
Fair living wages
All workers have the right to wages that meet their needs. Weekday or H&M Group doesn’t own any factories, which means we don’t pay garment workers’ salaries. However, there are numerous things we can do to influence wage development, including developing our purchasing practices, educating workers on their rights, helping suppliers implement fair wage management systems.
We attempt to drive change in this field by:
Setting clear standards and expectations for every supplier that makes our products, as well as using consequences if the standards are not met.
Helping suppliers improve working conditions and implement effective wage management systems that move away from paying the same wage to all workers and classify jobs according to skill level, so workers are paid according to their competence.
- Providing education, services and frameworks that empower workers to negotiate their own wages and conditions.
- Ensuring that our purchasing practices – the way we place our orders and the prices we pay – enable the payment of correct wages.
.Working with partners, peers, experts and governments to improve wages at both industry and country level.
Monitoring the level of wages paid in our factories through our Sustainability Index.
How can workers’ wages be fair our clothes are so cheap?
A major reason why our garments can be produced in a responsible way and sold for affordable prices is because we are a part of the H&M Group, with shared resources. It means that we, as a group, can order in large quantities, without intermediaries. The workers in the supplier factories earn the same whether they produce a €20 or €200 garment. This is also one of the reasons why it’s so important to collaborate with other brands in the industry and encourage everyone to take responsibility.
Child labour policy
We do not accept child labour. This is clearly stated in our Sustainability Commitment for business partners, as well as in our Child labour policy, which also outlines our expectations for business partners in this regard. We continually monitor compliance and investigate and remediate any suspected cases of child labour.