COP REPORT 2019/2020 2 Contents Page 3 CEO commitment Page 4 The Very Group at a glance Page 5 UNGC 10 principles Page 6 - 12 Labour, human rights and due diligence Page 13 - 15 People and colleague culture Page 16 Charity Page 17 - 19 Environment and travel Page 20 Anti-corruption Page 21 - 22 Data, security and privacy Page 23 - 24 Financial services Page 25 Action plan 3 CEO commitment Sustainability at The Very Group to the pandemic: continuing to The foundations that we have laid in operate and serving our customers the last 12 months will provide the and adapting to new ways of working. catalyst for us to deliver on our We also deployed initiatives to support ambitious strategy and work the NHS and our local communities. towards achieving our 2025 goals. Unfortunately, the impacts of COVID are likely to be here for some time To further support our sustainability and we will continue to support our programme, we remain active colleagues, our customers, and our participants of the UN Global Compact wider communities. and it’s working groups. This year we are pleased to join the global target Despite the significant challenges of gender equality group, we believe COVID, our full year results reported this will further support our work on a strong financial performance: a gender, both within the business and testament to the hard work of our across our supply chains. Alongside As the UK’s largest integrated pureplay colleagues. We also launched our new this, we are also active members of the digital retailer and financial services fulfilment centre, Skygate, located in newly formed group on child labour provider, we frame our purpose as the East Midlands. With 850,000sq and continue our participation in the “making good things easily accessible ft of automated warehousing space, SDG and modern slavery groups. to more people”. With our multi- Skygate allows us to better serve our category range of leading brands and customers with later cut-offs for next unique financial services products, day delivery, faster processing and which offer customers flexible ways reimbursement for returns and the to pay, we are well placed to deliver potential for same day deliveries. on that promise. It also gives us the opportunity for I continue to be proud of our a significant increase in scale, with work on sustainability and In our hundred years of history, best-in-class automated technology. the progress we are making we’ve gone from a catalogue and I am confident that retailer with high street stores to Over the last 12 months, we have we will make even greater becoming a fully digital retailer. refocused our sustainability agenda. strides over the next Over the past 12 months, we have In June 2019, we centralised our 12 months. continued that transformation CSR activities and agreed on a with our official rebrand to The Very business wide sustainability strategy. Group in January 2020. The rebrand The strategy is based on three brings the Group’s name and identity key pillars; our people, our planet Our report on progress for the 2019/20 in line with our flagship consumer and our communities. And despite calendar year provides an overview of brand, Very.co.uk. the challenges we have faced, we are key activities undertaken across our already making fantastic progress. business during this period. Less than three months after the We have joined both Stonewall’s rebrand, the COVID pandemic Diversity Champions programme We hope you find it useful. resulted in a set of unprecedented and signed up to the UN Women’s challenges, which impacted our Empowerment Principles. We are people, our supply chains and our also providing health and wellbeing customers. I am incredibly proud of training to over ten thousand factory Henry Birch the way our business has responded workers and their families. Group CEO The Very Group 4 at a glance The Very Group is the UK’s largest integrated online retailer and integrated financial services provider and has a history that stretches back over 100 years. Three customer facing brands sit under the umbrella of The Very Group which are Very.co.uk, Littlewoods.com and LittlewoodsIreland.ie. Headquartered in Liverpool, we also have an office in London and warehouses both in the East Midlands and North West. The benefits of being an integrated retailer and financial services provider mean we can provide our customer with flexible payment options to buy the things they need, thereby fulfilling our purpose to make good things easily accessible to more people. 4m £2bn 4,700 active annual engaged customers revenue colleagues 1,900 1.5m 79% famous daily of online brands website sales from visits mobile 5 UN Ten Principles Human Labour rights Principle 3 Businesses should uphold the freedom Principle 1 of association and the effective recognition Businesses should support and respect of the right to collective bargaining; the protection of internationally-proclaimed human rights; and Principle 4 The elimination of all forms of forced Principle 2 and compulsory labour; Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses. Principle 5 The effective abolition of child labour; and Principle 6 The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Environment Anti-corruption Principle 7 Principle 10 Businesses should support a precautionary Businesses should work against approach to environmental challenges; all forms of corruption, including extortion and bribery. Principle 8 Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and Principle 9 Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally-friendly technologies. The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is the world’s largest voluntary corporate citizenship initiative. The UNGC issues Ten Principles on Human Rights, Labour Standards, the Environment and Corruption. Membership of the UNGC requires companies to issue a ‘Communication on Progress’ report annually. This report is our tenth COP and outlines The Very Group’s activities in support of these ten principles. Labour, Human Rights 6 and Due Diligence APPROACH The Very Group are signatories to the an annual ethical audit whether this Supply Chain Transparency Pledge, be SMETA, Fast Forward, or BSCI. It is a priority at The Very Group that and we continue to give visibility of These audits are carried out by our we are protecting and respecting our manufacturing site by publishing three global audit partners and are human rights throughout our a full list of our first-tier factories conducted on an unannounced/semi organisation and in our supply chain. on our corporate website. This list announced basis, enabling us to gain We are committed to tackling labour is updated every six months and is an insight into working conditions. and human rights risks and our also included in our Modern Slavery Our local team offer ongoing support fundamental approach is to ensure Statement. Over the past twelve to our suppliers to remedy issues we are upholding the principles in months, we continued to work on which are found during audit and the Universal Declaration of Human gaining visibility of our tier 2 sites follow up audits are requested Rights and the International Labour which we aim to complete by June to close high risk issues needing Organisation’s Declaration on 2021. By publishing our supply chain, independent verification. Fundamental Principles and Rights at we encourage accountability both Work. for us and our supply chain partners Alongside our audit as well as driving collaboration to programme, our strategy achieve maximum impact with other POLICIES focusses on better organisations sharing facilities in our supporting our factories At The Very Group, we have clear supply chain. policies and processes in place and their workers through to support our commitment to SUPPLY CHAIN training and project conducting business responsibly. MONITORING work, looking at tackling These policies are reviewed and key risk areas within our updated regularly as we learn from At The Very Group, we have a broad supply chain and building our experiences, supply chain risk and varied supply chain. We source regional infrastructure assessments and industry best both own brand fashion, home practice. They are designed to ensure and living products from 520 tier 1 and capability to ensure that people are treated with dignity factories in 30 countries worldwide, sustained improvements and respect in all areas of business including China, India, Bangladesh, for workers. and supply chain and are based Malaysia, Poland and Turkey, where on the principles laid out in the we have in-country sourcing offices. International Labour Organisation’s Our in-country sourcing teams work Declaration on Fundamental in collaboration with head office Principles and Rights at Work. Buying and CSR teams to identify, on- board and develop suppliers which The Very Group policies include: align to our labour and human rights • Very Group Code of Conduct approach. All manufacturers of Very • Modern Slavery and Human product are required to commit to Rights Policy work under the terms of our code of • Homeworker Guidelines conduct and business policies [see • Child Labour Remediation and section ‘POLICIES’] Young Workers Policy • Migrant and Contract Worker In order to conduct due diligence Policy against our policies within our own • Syrian Refugee Remediation Policy brand supply chain all tier one • Access to Remedy Policy factories are required to undertake Labour, Human Rights 7 and Due Diligence OUR PROJECTS were set up as a method of grievance result of the training programmes and redressal where necessary. wider awareness building initiatives. 15 local agents have agreed to adhere to India Labour Agents best practice recruitment guidelines. The mills we source from in Southern At the Labour Agent level, we looked We have also managed to conduct India are one of the few sources of at ensuring fair recruitment practices grievance redressal and life skills employment for young women in are adopted throughout the process training with over 1000 workers.