Asda has landed bottom in Oxfam’s latest ranking of six major supermarkets on their policies for protecting human rights in the supply chain.
As well as dropping down the table, the supermarket is the only one of the six whose score has fallen since Oxfam last carried out the exercise, in 2020.
Oxfam’s fourth ‘Behind the Barcodes’ scorecard – the final one planned by the charity – gives Asda 9% overall, down from 29% last time.
The scorecard, which is usually annual but skipped a year in 2021 thanks to disruption to Oxfam’s operations during the pandemic, arrives at each supermarket’s overall percentage based on separate scores for their policies covering four areas: workers, women, small-scale farmers and transparency.
Asda did particularly poorly on small-scale farmers, scoring 4%, compared with 21% last time. It did little better where women’s rights were concerned, scoring 5%, compared with 33% in 2020.
Asda was also a long way behind the rest of the pack, with a full 33 percentage points separating it overall from second-to-last Morrisons.
Oxfam said the lower score reflected the fact Asda had separated from Walmart, from which much of the supermarket’s human rights policy framework had derived. The charity is treating Asda’s 2020 and 2022 scores as incomparable following the supermarket’s takeover last year by EG Group owners Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private equity firm TDR Capital.
Oxfam, which bases its scores on supermarkets’ published policies, had found Asda had “extremely basic” supplier standards in place following the takeover, said the charity’s private sector senior advisor Radhika Sarin.
“We’ve been saying to Asda you actually need to come out now with a proper labour rights policy,” she said.
Since the last Oxfam scorecard, Morrisons has also been snapped up by private equity, in a £7.1bn swoop by US firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice in October last year.
However, Morrisons had done better at retaining its human rights policy framework through the sale, Sarin said.
“They got the commitment from the new owners that they’re not going to lose their ethical trading framework, so it’s embedded in the new governance system,” she said.
An Asda spokesman said: “Asda was part of Walmart’s responsible sourcing programme for over 20-years and is in the process of establishing its own standalone programme following a change in ownership in June 2021.
“Our ranking in this year’s survey is due to the transition between these two programmes and is not a reflection of our ongoing commitment to protecting the rights and treatment of the people who work within our supply chain.
“We have spoken regularly with Oxfam in recent months to update them on our plans and we are grateful for their feedback, which is helping shape our responsible sourcing programme.”
Having been “laggards” in earlier scorecards, discounters Lidl and Aldi had taken significant steps to improve their approach to managing human rights by publishing new policies and commitments, said Sarin. As a result, Lidl comes second in this year’s scorecard, with 59%, while Aldi is third on 56%.
Tesco has come top in each of the four years Oxfam has produced the scorecard, this time earning 61%.
“Tesco has invested very meaningfully and a lot of what they’ve chosen to do has real substance to it,” said Sarin. The steps had included publishing a human rights impact assessment of its shrimp supply chain in Vietnam and committing to working with suppliers to tackle gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the workplace, Sarin said.
Tesco commercial director Stephanie Wood said: “We’re really pleased to have maintained our leading position in Oxfam’s supermarket scorecard on human rights in supply chains.
“With the support of open and collaborative discussions with Oxfam, the campaign has helped us drive our agenda on human rights, including working with our direct suppliers towards the ambition for at least 30% of supervisory and management roles to be occupied by women by the end of 2025, and launching a new strategic partnership with the global federation of trade unions, IUF.
“We know there is more to do and we remain committed to being transparent about our progress, and challenging ourselves on where we can do more.”
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