Allied Domecq - Ethical Trading Programme

In 2004 Allied Domecq plc began a programme to embed their Ethical Trading Policy into the Supply Chain. The Ethical Trading Policy was based on the following international standards:

• The Draft UN Norms of Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises
• The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The Fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

The Ethical Trading Programme and policy were developed to be incorporated with the organization's overall Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme. Ethical Trading responsibilities were integrated into procurement standard methods of working. This was achieved by identifying and training global ethical trading champions, who were responsible for managing the programme locally. The next step was to identify any issues the suppliers may have with complying with the policy through communicating and working with the supplier.  Allied Domecq also undertook a risk assessment of their Supply Chain in conjunction with external consultants. The risk assessment included countries of manufacture, sectors and levels of spend with suppliers globally. The result was a scoring system which ranked suppliers risk level and enabled the organisation to prioritise higher risk suppliers.

Key learning from the programme included:

• The benefit of a top-down approach to ensure senior level buy-in to the programme from the start
• The value of including independent audits to inform the process and ensure external credibility

The programme achieved external recognition with Best in Class ratings on the two procurement sections of the Dow Jones sustainability index. (Allied Domecq was acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2005 and part of the business sold to Fortune Brands).