Today, the ALDI SOUTH Group and the ALDI Nord Group launched their jointly developed “International Policy on Gender Equality in ALDI’s Supply Chains” and “Gender Equality Action Plan”. The Policy and Action Plan set our ambition to further strengthen women’s rights and contribute to improved working conditions for women across our global supply chains.
The Policy outlines ALDI’s understanding of gender equality and the approach we will take to prioritise our activities. It focuses on the following principles:
To bring the Policy and the principles to life, we have developed a “Gender Equality Action Plan”, measures include assessing potential negative impacts, increasing supply chain transparency, building partnerships, raising awareness, as well as monitoring and reporting.
“We are aware that all over the world, women and girls are affected by human rights violations and are still experiencing discrimination, economic disadvantages, social exclusion and sexual violence. The way we do business has always been grounded on a deep sense of responsibility: That is why we want to do our part to create gender equality within our supply chains and work with others to address the root causes for gender inequality”
Denise Hochreiter-Hamberger (Managing Director Global Sourcing of the ALDI SOUTH Group)
We recognise that many root causes of gender inequality are difficult to address as a single company. We will strengthen our collaboration with other stakeholders and increase our dialogue with business partners, producers, trade unions, women’s rights organisations and political stakeholders.
We are encouraging our business partners to identify and address gender-based risks in their supply chains and to implement appropriate preventative and supportive activities. With an E-learning training for food and non-food suppliers, we are providing relevant guidance on this topic. As part of this training, we also encourage our suppliers to sign the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles. We aim to provide further guidance to support our business partners in strengthening gender equality in our supply chains.
