Human Rights

Our Vision 2030:

Using our buying power to respect human rights.

Our Approach

We are committed to respecting human rights and improving living and working conditions throughout our supply chains. Our commitment encompasses any adverse impact on human rights that we might cause, contribute to or are directly linked to.

In order to make a real difference, we have established a wide range of partnerships with organisations including suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, governments, and NGOs. Together we can improve the lives of workers and their families in many different ways; these include promoting better working and living conditions for workers and their families, paying fair wages, empowering women, clamping down on child labour and increasing the transparency in our supply chains.

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Our Actions

Responsibility to respect human rights

The ALDI SOUTH Group respects all internationally recognised human rights. Certain human rights aspects are of increased relevance to us as a food and non-food retailer, these include non-discrimination, health and safety, freedom of association, fair remuneration, working hours, prohibition of child labour and forced labour. We work with external experts and utilise the knowledge of our internal teams to review our human rights impact.

Human rights violations are a global problem affecting every economy, industry and sector. We have an important role to play in raising awareness of human rights and working collaboratively with our business partners and other external parties, such as governments and trade unions, to prevent or mitigate the adverse impact of our business or remediate where necessary. Our approach is based upon understanding the complexities of the issues and continually improving the processes that we have in place to prevent negative impacts.

We understand that weak, or lack of, existing legislation and lack of compliance and minimum standards in some countries are not conducive to achieving just and favourable conditions of work and wages, for example forced or child labour. Therefore, we adopt more stringent standards to mitigate the specific risks of rights violations that workers in some sourcing countries face, for example in Bangladesh and Myanmar. We acknowledge the positive role of trade unions in protecting workers’ rights, and that labour rights violations can occur when trade unions are absent or weak. We understand the potential negative impact if trade union activity is restricted.

Human Rights Policy

We have developed an approach that will help us to fulfil our responsibility to respect human rights. In addition to our existing policies, processes and measures, we want to use our influence more effectively in the future in areas where our negative impact on human rights is particularly severe. We have already identified raw materials and products in our food and non-food supply chains that pose a high risk of adverse human rights impacts. In the future, we intend to increase our focus on preventing, mitigating and remedying negative impacts on human rights for those raw materials and products, which we classified as high priority.

The measures we are already implementing in the food and non-food area include the formulation of minimum standards for production, traceability and supply chain mapping, social auditing and certification, integration of CR criteria into the buying process, participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives, beyond audit approaches such as capacity building and projects on the ground.

We consider the access to remedy to be an important part of our responsibility to respect human rights. Grievance mechanisms provide a suitable means of identifying adverse impacts at an early stage. For this reason, we have created grievance mechanism processes for our own employees and business partners. We acknowledge that effective grievance mechanisms are complex to establish and we aim to collaborate, where possible, with other stakeholders to create the most effective process for collating and remediating grievances.

We commit to ensuring that workers in at least three high-priority supply chains have access to a grievance mechanism and remedy as per the UN Guiding Principles definition. We will work to implement a pilot in one of our high-priority supply chains and will use the lessons learned to scale up the access to grievance mechanism and remedy to three commodity groups over the coming years. We will link remediation activities to the grievances identified and will work with our suppliers on corrective actions.

We expect our business partners to comply with our human rights and environmental standards and policies. Many human rights issues are of systemic nature and therefore we collaborate with other stakeholders to increase our leverage and align approaches on human rights due diligence.

Human Rights Policy Statement

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Child Labour Policy

We are committed to contributing to the prevention, identification and remediation of child labour in all areas of our operations, including our supply chains. We do not tolerate children being exposed to any risks in productions sites used for our products.

Our 'Child Labour Policy' explains our understanding of child labour in accordance with international standards. The policy states ALDI’s expectations of our business partners to ensure that child labour does not occur at production sites used for our products. It describes the process of what ALDI, together with local expert organisations and our business partners, will do, if a child is found at a production site.

If child labour is found at a production site producing for ALDI, together with local expert organisations and our business partners, we will seek a solution, which is in the best interests of the child and their family. If a child is found to be involved in work in a production facility in Asia, the child is transferred to a remediation programme. Since 2017, we partner with the ‘Center for Child Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility (CCR CSR)’.

ALDI Child Labour Policy

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Living wage commitment

Working towards the payment of a living income and wage are an important part of a sustainable supply chain. They contribute towards the fight against poverty and child labour and the realisation of other human rights. We recognise that legal minimum wages are sometimes not sufficient to allow supply chain workers and their families a decent standard of living. We also understand that collective bargaining plays a valuable role in allowing sufficient wages to be determined and wage gaps to be closed, and support the adoption of measures by governments to promote collective bargaining between workers and employers.

Internationales Standpunktpapier zu existenzsichernden Löhnen und Einkommen

International Position Statement on Living Wages and Living Incomes

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Food and agriculture supply chains

German Initiative for International Cooperation (GIZ)

As a participant of the “Working Group on Living Income and Living Wages” established by the German Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit - GIZ), we want to support and promote the establishment of an income and wage standard that meets the cost of living in the global agricultural supply chains. By joining forces and aligning our approach with others, we aim to increase leverage to maximise our impact and ensure that farmers and workers in global supply chains have a decent standard of living.

The voluntary commitment that we have developed with other representatives from the retail industry plays an important role in this. We are working towards a step-by-step implementation of the living income and wage in selected supply chains, beginning with the implementation of pilot projects. The agreed areas for action include identifying where the gaps are for the living income and wage and implementing sustainable procurement practices with buyers and suppliers. We plan to report annually on our progress in the areas of living wage and living income.

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Commitment on Living Income and Wages

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Sustainable Trade Initiative IDH

The Sustainable Trade Initiative ‘IDH’ created a 'Living Wage Steering Committee' together with the ALDI SOUTH Group, and many other businesses. The participating companies in the committee will monitor the implementation of the IDH Roadmap, including the development of tools to measure the living wage gap and approaches to close it.

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FAO World Banana Forum’s Living Wage Advocacy Initiative (LIWIN)

We support the FAO World Banana Forum’s Living Wage Advocacy Initiative (LIWIN), which works towards the establishment of living income and wage benchmarks in several banana exporting countries and living income/wage advocacy activities with government, private sector and civil society actors in major European importing countries.

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Textiles supply chain

German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles

In the context of our membership in the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, we actively work on the topic of living wages by being a member of the Partnership Initiative on living wages since 2019. Within this initiative, we are working on the improvement of our purchasing practices as these can have an immense impact on the working conditions and wage payments in production facilities used for ALDI production.

As a first step, we conducted a purchasing practices self-assessment, involving our international buying, design and quality departments. Based on this gap analysis, we have developed a comprehensive roadmap together with our buying colleagues with concrete measures aiming at responsible purchasing practices. Together with other brands we have now established a peer learning group to find solutions for challenges and share best practices.

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Support for mandatory human rights due diligence legislation

We want to go one step further to successfully address systemic challenges throughout complex supply chains. Our longstanding commitment and cooperation with various interest groups have shown that the best way to improve working conditions within supply chains is through joint initiatives and partnerships. We support sustainable solutions that require all relevant political, economic and social stakeholders to work together. Therefore, we - alongside 25 other companies, organisations and multi-stakeholder initiatives - signed the statement by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, which supports legislation on human rights and environmental due diligence at European level. The statement can be found here.

In September 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group and ALDI Nord published their “International Position Statement on Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence Legislation” in order to contribute to realising human rights of all workers along supply chains. ALDI calls for an open dialogue about a mandatory human right due diligence legislation and commits to support the development of future legislation.

Internationales Standpunktpapier zur gesetzlichen Regulierung der menschenrechtlichen Sorgfaltspflicht von Unternehmen

International Position Statement on Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence

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Forced Labour Policy

Forced labour affects around 24.9 million people globally, which makes it a central concern for internationally operating businesses. As international companies with global supply chains, the ALDI SOUTH Group and the ALDI Nord Group are aware of their responsibility to respect human rights, and both Groups have implemented requirements and policies to address forced labour and modern slavery in their supply chains. In order to publicly communicate and formalise their commitment to ending forced labour, the ALDI Groups have now jointly published their ‘International Policy on Forced Labour’. The ‘International Policy on Forced Labour’ expands on ALDI’s existing commitments to human rights and underlines ALDI’s stance that any forms of servitude or slavery, or forced, bonded, indentured, trafficked, or non-voluntary labour are unacceptable throughout ALDI’s supply chains. This concerns all relevant stakeholders including all suppliers, production facilities, service providers and contractors.

“At ALDI we recognise our responsibility to respect the human rights of all workers in our business operations and along our supply chains. With this joint policy, we reaffirm our zero-tolerance stance on forced labour and modern slavery, and lay out a detailed commitment to fair and equitable supply chains.“

Anke Ehlers, Managing Director of Corporate Responsibility International at the ALDI SOUTH Group

International Policy on Forced Labour

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Identification of risks

The ALDI SOUTH Group strives to reduce any adverse impact on human rights that our business operations could have. We use activities such as risk assessments, audits, and supplier assessments to identify the actual and potential risks in our food and non-food supply chains.

Non-food supply chains

We have conducted a risk analysis in all our non-food supply chains to obtain an overview of potential human rights risks. Various sources, including the results of the ALDI Social Assessments (ASAs), third-party audits, assessments of our business partners, media screenings and the BSCI risk matrix, were used to identify the commodity groups that are most at risk of human rights violations. Additionally, we actively participate in a number of multi-stakeholder initiatives and other organisations, which allows us to gather further information. We repeat this analysis every two years to account for changes in economic, social and political conditions in production countries.

Based on our analysis we have identified the following risks at production facility level as the most severe:

Child labour
Forced labour
Threat to workers’ life or limb
Payment issues
Financial bribery
Observed coercion or harassment of workers
Unauthorised disposal and illegal dumping of chemicals, wastewater, or sludge

Based on the risks in our production countries, we have classified Bangladesh and Myanmar as high-risk countries. For these countries, ALDI has implemented additional minimum requirements that our business partners must adhere to.

Food supply chains

A human rights risk assessment was conducted to examine the human rights risks within our food and agriculture supply chains. The aim of these assessments is to identify any adverse impacts our company may have on human rights, gain insights into our actual impacts and understand where our greatest level of influence is throughout the global supply chains of the entire ALDI SOUTH Group. We understand that the greatest risk of severe human rights impacts lies at the raw material stage but our greatest influence is often at final assembly stage. National ALDI countries provided input on their national priorities where human rights violations are mostly likely to occur. This was combined with our risk assessment findings to determine our final list of priorities. In addition to the assessment by the third-party service provider, we identified fish and seafood and Spanish and Italian produce at raw material level as further high priorities. This was based on internal expertise and dialogue with expert stakeholders.

The raw materials and product groups which present a high risk of adverse impacts on the enjoyment of human rights and are considered most important to the ALDI SOUTH Group in terms of leverage are:

Raw material level	Cocoa Coffee Fish and seafood Nuts Spanish and Italian produce Tropical fruit
Production facility level	Canned and frozen fruit and vegetables Dressings, oils, sauces, herbs and spices Fish and seafood

Indicators for assessment

Social risks

Workers' rights:	negative impacts on workers' rights, including; exceeding the permissible working hours, low wages, health and safety risks, workplace bullying, harassment and abuse, discrimination or restricted freedom of association.
Gender-based discrimination:	assessment of unequal treatment between men and women and the risk of possible gender-specific discrimination, for example, through gender-based abuse or discrimination with regard to wages and working conditions.
Child labour:	the risk that children undertake work that has an adverse impact on their health and development and the risk of work by children of mandatory school age.
Forced/bonded labour:	refers to modern forms of slavery and human trafficking, for example, by exerting pressure, withholding wages, or other forms of coercion.

Environmental risks

Water scarcity:	the risk that a country's demand for water exceeds its availability. This is accompanied by limited access to a water supply - for personal consumption and/or as a source of income.
Climate vulnerability:	assessment of the current and future risk that a certain country is exposed to extreme weather events. In addition, the willingness of the private and public sectors to invest in the necessary modifications was also assessed.
Deforestation/land conversion:	the likelihood that products are cultivated on land which was recently a forest area with high conservation value, which may mean that forests were destroyed and land rights violated.
Industrial pollution:	pollution caused by the manufacturing of products, which then leads to air and water contamination, (chemical) waste and noise pollution.

Detailed results of risk assessment

Mitigation and prevention of impacts

We will focus on the high-priority raw materials and products determined to be of highest risk of severe human rights impacts in the countries of origin, which are most relevant for the ALDI SOUTH Group. We are developing specific measures for preventing and mitigating these impacts. We have already implemented a variety of different measures to mitigate and prevent adverse impacts on human rights within our food and non-food supply chains, these include:

Employee and business partner training
Consideration of auditing and certification schemes when making buying decisions and the definition of goals
Assessment and, if required, exclusion of business partners or growers/producers as a last resort
Adjustment of our buying processes: human rights-related aspects are already considered during the tender process
Development of goals and KPIs together with our buying department in order to monitor progress and to identify further actions
Integration of high-priority products into our Social Monitoring Programme (SMP)
Implementation of projects in origin countries
Promotion of human rights within the scope of our ALDI Factory Advancement (AFA) Project
Review of the effectiveness of the measures taken within the scope of our origin countries and supply chain-related projects

Commitment to smallholder farmers

We work with many different types of business partners, from small, family-run businesses to larger global companies. We understand that there are numerous specific challenges faced by smallholder farmers. Due to many factors beyond farmers’ control such as climate change, unpredictable weather conditions, international energy prices affecting farm inputs, and lack of access to market, it can be a challenge to produce a stable quantity of crops. Farmers often are not able to earn a living income and we recognise that we have an important role to play in facilitating this. We are currently involved in a number of projects and initiatives, which help smallholder farmers and we plan to increase dialogue with and support to them for our high priority raw materials.

Commitment to gender equality

The ALDI SOUTH Group believes that all workers should be treated fairly. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and commit to achieve gender equality across our own business and supply chains. We acknowledge our responsibility to fulfil the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) number 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls across our own business and supply chains.

We recognise that the majority of workers in many of our food and non-food supply chains are female and that they may be disproportionately impacted by adverse human rights impacts for a number of complex reasons, some of which are country- or sector-specific. As per our recent human rights risk assessment, some of the problems include

unequal treatment
sexual harassment
risk of gender-specific discrimination regarding wages and working conditions
disproportionate share of unpaid or ‘invisible’ labour
work at a lower hierarchy level and with low remuneration
separation from children
limited access to land, education and/or personal bank accounts.

Identifying raw materials and products with a high risk of gender-based discrimination was a key part of our human rights risk assessment in food supply chains. Our human rights impact assessments will also seek to understand the impact of our operations on women.

In our textiles supply chains, we have identified that many workers are reliant on factory-based childcare services due to financial constraints and a lack of alternative care options. Through our ALDI Factory Advancement (AFA) Project PLUS, we support improving internal childcare offers.

Remediation of impacts

We not only aim to ensure that the negative impact on affected rights-holders is prevented and mitigated, but that it is also remediated. A corrective action plan is defined together with our business partners; this includes an action plan with individualised timelines for improvement and remediation of issues. The type of remedial action will be determined on a case-by-case basis and under consideration of the severity of the incident.

ALDI will closely monitor the implementation of the corrective action plan in order to support our business partners, to ensure the appropriate level of remediation and to allow us to provide feedback on their remediation efforts. The ALDI SOUTH Group may impose consequences, such as warning letters and temporary or permanent termination of business relationships, when business partners are unwilling to take improvement and remediation measures.

We consider child labour to be a particularly severe risk. Thus, the ALDI SOUTH Group has set up a rapid response system in order to be able to react immediately and appropriately if child labour is found in our supply chains. We are partnering with The Centre for the implementation of the process.

The ALDI SOUTH Group recognises the need for workers to have access to grievance mechanisms compliant with the UN Guiding Principles. An essential part of the Bangladesh Accord is an accessible, rights-based and confidential grievance mechanism. In the case of grievances raised by workers through the Accord grievance mechanism, ALDI actively supports the investigation and remediation of findings.

Based on the experiences gained in the successful Accord grievance mechanisms, we are currently taking steps to build up grievance mechanisms in our high-priority supply chains. For that, we are partnering with civil society and industry stakeholders like amfori and the FairWearFoundation.

Human rights impact assessments

We are developing specific measures to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts identified during our risk assessment in 2018. We are carrying out detailed human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) for three high priority raw materials - Brazil nuts, coffee and avocado - to identify, understand and assess the potential and actual adverse effects of our business activities on workers and other affected rights-holders such as community members, smallholder farmers and women. They will be based on background research and engagement with rights-holders in the field. Despite the persisting challenges due to the global pandemic, we plan to publish our results by the end of 2021.

Working together with key stakeholders

We believe that a collaborative approach is the best way to ensure human rights are respected. Therefore, we seek dialogue with rights holders and duty bearers, through our key partnerships and memberships.

Working together with our business partners

We understand that our commitment to respect human rights needs to be reflected in our purchasing practices. We work with our business partners to resolve issues and to drive continuous improvement along our entire supply chains. We understand that, due to the complexity and sensitivity of human rights issues, they may take time to resolve and it is not our approach to cease business with business partners upon identification of such issues. If risks or problems arise, the type of follow-up action implemented will depend on severity of the issue and the willingness of the business partner to enact or assist with prevention, mitigation or remediation.

We commit to maintain dialogue with our business partners, working together to share the responsibility to respect human rights in our supply chains. We will continue to adjust our buying practices to address adverse impacts on human rights. These are already considered during our buying tender process and we actively intensify collaboration with business partners who have demonstrated a good sustainability performance.

Since 2010, the ALDI Social Standards in Production are our definitive standard for cooperation with business partners for our food and non-food products. These standards are contractually binding and prohibit human rights infringements, such as forced labour and child labour as well as discrimination in any form. They also underpin workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. We expect our partners to communicate and implement these requirements, in addition to all legal requirements, at production facilities and implement appropriate remediation measures.

ALDI Social Standards in Production

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'Beyond audit' approach

We consider third party social audits to be an important first step in gathering information about the human rights situation in our production sites and initiating improvement. We are also aware that they may not always provide a true picture of working conditions and may fail to identify hidden issues such as forced labour, discrimination or harassment.

We therefore commit to adopt an approach to ethical trade that goes beyond compliance and does not rely solely on social audits, complementing our audit approach with additional activity such as our own on-site visits, communication to and training for business partners, production facilities and producers, participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives, capacity building and projects on the ground.

Transparency of supply chains

We attach great importance to sustainable production conditions in the manufacturing of food and non-food products. Supply chain transparency is the foundation for all our sustainability measures. Without the knowledge where our products come from, we cannot ensure compliance with our requirements, analyse risks, monitor or implement projects. We work with our business partners to increase the transparency of our supply chains so that we have a better understanding concerning the origin of every product we sell and the raw materials we use for our products.

Transparency: Non-Food

In order to offer greater transparency to our customers, we are publishing the addresses and number of employees of all our main production facilities used for the manufacturing of garment textiles and shoes bought by the International Buying department. Production facilities are classified by product groups or country and the information will be updated bi-annually.

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Transparency: Food

We commit to publish information on all relevant tiers for six of our high priority supply chains. We will start with one supply chain and will scale our transparency to six of our high priority supply chains over the coming years. We further commit to start publishing the names and addresses of our direct business partners (tier 1 suppliers) for our food high-priority supply chains in 2021. We will subsequently publish these details for all of our food high-priority supply chains by the end of 2022.

In order to offer their customers a higher transparency for products, ALDI SOUTH Germany and HOFER have established traceability platforms. With the help of a QR code or a tracking code on the packaging, the respective product can be traced back to its origin.

ALDI SOUTH Germany: Traceability platform for fish, meat, or eggs
HOFER: Check your product platform for fish, meat, soy, organic or fruit

Visits & Assessments

Engagement with affected stakeholders is key for identifying potential human rights risks and adverse impacts. As part of our engagement, we regularly visit and assess production sites together with our business partners in our food and non-food supply chains. During our audits, we regularly engage with workers by conducting worker interviews.

Working together with key partners

Supporting Global Goals

The ALDI SOUTH Group believes that the best impacts can be created via collaboration. We support partnerships and collaborate to improve the livelihoods and working conditions along our supply chains.

Sustainable Development Goals

The ALDI SOUTH Group is aware of our responsibility as one of the world‘s most successful retailers. Our international structure, our market position, our decades of experience, and the daily commitment shown by our employees provide us with the potential to make important contributions in increasing sustainability across our markets and within our supply chains.

We consider the UN Sustainable Development Goals within the scope of defining our goals and have incorporated them within our selection of sustainability-related topics. We promote the achievement of these global goals by participating in initiatives and implementing a range of sustainability policies.

Sustainable Supply Chains

Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI)

In line with our responsible sourcing strategy to mitigate adverse human rights impacts of our business activity, the ALDI SOUTH Group was accepted as a Foundation stage member of the ETI in 2019. ETI is a global alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers' rights. Our Social Standards in Production are aligned with the ETI Base Code.

Sustainable Textiles

German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles

ALDI SOUTH Germany became a member of the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (German: Bündnis für nachhaltige Textilien) in 2015. This multi-stakeholder partnership is committed to improving social and environmental conditions in the global textile production.

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Green Button initiative

The ‘Green Button’ (German: Grüner Knopf) is a voluntary label established by the German government that identifies textiles that are produced in a sustainable way. Labelled products meet 26 minimum requirements for social and environmental standards in textile production. Since 2019, ALDI SOUTH Germany and ALDI North have used the ‘Green Button’ to label textiles that have been produced in a socially and environmentally friendly way. With our participation in this initiative, we emphasise our commitment to promoting sustainable textile production to our customers.

Our Roadmap & CR Performance

Roadmap

We have defined long-term commitments and specific actions, which guide the day-to-day implementation of our international CR strategy and contribute to our overall vision of making sustainability affordable to our customers by 2030.

CR Performance

By measuring our corporate responsibility performance on a regular basis, we are continuously validating the effectiveness of our actions, highlighting the areas where we are already making progress and identifying areas where further action is still required.

Roadmap to Vision 2030

CR Performance

Our Projects

General

Anke Ehlers cutting cake on the opening of the Bangladesh CR office

International organisation

ALDI CR offices in Asia

Each of the ALDI SOUTH Group’s national organisations sources products from Asia. To minimise the risks relating to working conditions and ensure compliance with our high standards, the ALDI SOUTH Group, together with ALDI Nord, has been operating its own CR office in Hong Kong since 2012 and established a second CR office in Bangladesh in 2017.

The focus of these CR offices is to monitor our business partner’ production facilities and the performance of our business partners with regard to social compliance. For this purpose, the CR offices conduct ALDI Social Assessments in the production facilities on behalf of the ALDI SOUTH Group and provide support to business partners on how to implement them.

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Male and female people sitting around in circle

Project in Bangladesh

ALDI Factory Advancement (AFA) Project

ALDI is committed to promoting human rights in the garment industry. With the ALDI Factory Advancement (AFA) Project, the ALDI SOUTH Group, together with ALDI Nord, has introduced a programme which delivers change in factories that produce our garments in Bangladesh.

Launched in 2013, the AFA Project places factory workers and managers at the centre of its activities to find sustainable solutions for improved workplaces. Its core principle is the promotion of dialogue and cooperation between workers and managers. To date, approximately 85,000 workers and their managers of 40 participating factories have benefitted from the project and experienced positive changes in their day-to-day working environment.

More: AFA Project

Picture drawn from a child showing the scene from a child care service

Project in Bangladesh

AFA Project Plus for child care services

From 2016 until 2019, the AFA Project PLUS addressed the critical need for quality childcare for the children of working parents in factories that produce our textile goods in Bangladesh. ALDI supported selected factories participating in the AFA Project in improving their internal day-care services.

Many workers are reliant on these services due to financial constraints and a lack of alternative care options. Together with local non-governmental organisations, we trained caregivers, childcare centre supervisors, nurses and parents working at the factory.

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Food

Projects in Côte d’Ivoire, membership & working group

Cocoa

PRO PLANTEURS project in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2015, as a member of the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) we have worked in partnership with the German government and the government of Côte d'Ivoire in a joint project. PRO-PLANTEURS works together with 25,000 cocoa farmers, including female farmers, their families, and their cooperatives. Successes of the first project phase were

Professionalisation of cooperatives
Increase in farmers’ cocoa yields
Farmer training in Good Agricultural Practices and professional business management
Diversification of agricultural production and nutrition.

In the PRO-PLANTEURS project, women are specifically trained on good nutrition and the cultivation of food crops for their own use. This allows women to be more financially independent by selling and consuming the harvest of food crops.

In June 2020 PRO-PLANTEURS started its second project phase with a focus on contributing to better living and working conditions of about 30,000 cocoa farmers.

Fairtrade cocoa project in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group and Fairtrade have been collaborating on a project in Côte d’Ivoire to improve working conditions and livelihoods for local cocoa farmers. The project analyses the impact of ALDI’s business operations on the community and environment, increases traceability of our cocoa products and provides a basis for further projects together with Fairtrade. As part of the project, ALDI’s business partner will source cocoa beans which are 100% traceable from the selected cooperative for our cocoa-based products.

Closing the living income gap for cocoa farmers

In 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group has joined forces with the chocolate producer Barry Callebaut and the Cocoa Horizons Foundation to support Ghanaian cocoa farmers to generate alternative income sources to cocoa. The two-year project is co-funded by the Belgian initiative ‘Beyond Chocolate’, which is funded by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and coordinated by IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative.

The project is intended to support achieving the living income target of ‘Beyond Chocolate’. The following activities are included in the project:

Approximately 80 households will benefit from the rejuvenation of 40 hectares of old cocoa farms.
77 ‘Village Saving and Loans Associations (VSLAs)’ will be formed empowering women and young people to invest in enterprises and households.
Approximately 1,000 farmers will be provided with official land titles to secure ownership and allow long-term investments on farms.
Between 400 - 500 households will be supported in setting up alternative income sources via poultry farming and energy efficient cook stoves.

German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO)

ALDI has been an active member of the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) since 2015 and works with other members to achieve the initiative’s objectives. This multi-stakeholder initiative aims to improve the livelihood of cocoa farmers and their families, to contribute to a secure living, to conserve and protect natural resources and biodiversity in cocoa producing countries, as well as to increase cultivation and commercialisation of sustainably produced cocoa. ALDI is actively engaged in the sustainability and PRO-PLANTEURS working groups, which focus on the implementation of GISCO’s goals and monitoring the PRO-PLANTEURS project.

Retailer Cocoa Collaboration

In September 2019, the ALDI SOUTH Group joined the newly-formed Retailer Cocoa Collaboration (RCC) which commits to support the Cocoa and Forests Initiative. This initiative will drive change by protecting and restoring forests in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Colombia. The RCC will also map collective cocoa supply chains to gain a greater understanding of the social and environmental risks found in production countries. The trader assessment conducted by RCC will also provide us with greater transparency and insight into lower supply chain tiers.

Non-Food

International goal & projects in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mozambique

Cotton

International goal

Together with our business partners, we are committed to standards that achieve long-term sustainable improvements in the cultivation of cotton. We will ensure to use 100% sustainable cotton for our ALDI-exclusive garments and household textiles by 2025.

We prohibit our business partners from using cotton sourced from countries where cultivation and harvesting are systematically associated with human rights violations, such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Fairtrade project on cottonseed

Since 2018, ALDI SOUTH Germany has been supporting the Fairtrade project in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The project aims to empower smallholder farmers and to improve the quality and supply of cotton from Central Asia.

To reach the project goal the following measures are implemented:

Training for farmers on seed production and multiplication
Actions to combat GMO-contamination
Enlargement of cultivable acreage for organic cotton and yield
Knowledge management and sharing

Cotton made in Africa recycling project

In 2019, Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) and the local cotton company SAN-JFS developed a recycling project in Mozambique. This project supports women from local farming communities who operate eco-collection points. Over 72,000 empty pesticide containers were collected and sent for recycling in the first year and benefitted up to 20,000 farmers. With the exclusive support of ALDI, the project is able to continue into a second phase and benefit even more farmers.

Our Memberships & Partnerships

We believe the best way to protect the people and the planet is through joint initiatives and partnerships. For this reason, we engage in various multi-stakeholder initiatives.

General

Logo of amfori BSCI

Since 2008

amfori Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI)

For over 40 years, amfori has been the leading global business association for open and sustainable trade. Its mission is to support each of its members to enhance human rights, use natural resources responsibly, and drive open trade globally. It brings together over 2,000 retailers, importers, brands and associations. The ALDI SOUTH Group became a member of the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) in 2008.

Working together

amfori is run by Board of Directors representing the member’s interests from different countries and businesses. In June 2019, Anke Ehlers, Managing Director for Corporate Responsibility International of the ALDI SOUTH Group, was elected to the Board of Directors of amfori to represent ALDI SOUTH and ALDI Nord internationally. This shows the continuing dedication of ALDI to enhance sustainable development in our global supply chains.

The ALDI SOUTH Group is also an active member of the amfori Project Group ‘Social Issues in Food’, which unites retailer and producer members of amfori to tackle shared social and environmental issues in the food sector. A representative from ALDI SOUTH chairs the group.

The ALDI SOUTH Group and ALDI Nord Group of companies have joined UN Women, amfori and other leading companies from across Europe to increase their positive impact on gender diversity and inclusion. This is through the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Activator programme. The programme will contribute to closing the gender gap in the private sector while building business value. Its aim is to secure business leadership buy-in for gender equality as a foundation for companies and their global supply chains.

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Since 2020

Consumer Goods Forum (CGF)

In 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group joined the Consumer Goods Forum (“CGF”), a global industry network that is driven by its members to encourage the global adoption of practices and standards that serves the consumer goods industry worldwide. It brings together the CEOs and senior management of some 400 retailers, manufacturers, service providers, and other stakeholders across 70 countries, and it reflects the diversity of the industry in geography, size, product category, and format.

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Since 2019

Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI)

In line with our responsible sourcing strategy to mitigate adverse human rights impacts of our business activities, the ALDI SOUTH Group was accepted as a Foundation stage member of the ETI in 2019. ETI is a global alliance of companies, trade unions, and NGOs that promotes respect for workers' rights. Our Social Standards in Production are aligned with the ETI Base Code.

Working together

Since joining ETI, the ALDI SOUTH Group has become a member in several working groups:

Italian Agriculture Working Group to establish an Italian Ethical Trade Forum in order to address social and environmental challenges facing Italian agriculture particularly related to the cultivation of produce.
Peruvian Horticulture Working Group to engage with key stakeholders both local and international - and including workers - to identify and implement collaborative action plans, which address poor working conditions and improve the lives of vulnerable workers.

Over the next five years, the ALDI SOUTH Group intends to address issues within its high priority supply chains via a number of measures.

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Working Group

German Retailer Working Group on Living Income and Living Wages (GIZ)

As a participant in the ‘German Retailer Working Group on Living Income and Living Wages’ established by the German Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit - GIZ), we want to support and promote the establishment of an income and wage standard that meets the cost of living in global agricultural supply chains. By joining forces in 2019 and aligning our approach with others, we aim to increase leverage to maximise our impact and ensure that farmers and workers in global agricultural supply chains have a decent standard of living.

The ‘German Retailer Working Group on Living Income and Living Wages’ has set itself the objective of coordinating and implementing joint activities in order to work towards the realisation of living wages and living income in global agricultural supply chains. A particular focus is on assessing living wage and living income gaps and piloting approaches to close identified gaps.

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Since 2019

IDH - The Sustainable Trade Initiative

IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, brings governments, companies, CSOs and financiers together in action driven coalitions. The IDH orchestrates the powers of law, of entrepreneurship and investments to work together to create solutions for global sustainability issues at scale.

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Since 2017

Sedex - Members Ethical Trade Audit

Sedex is one of the world’s leading ethical trade service providers, striving to improve working conditions in global supply chains. Sedex provides practical tools, services and a community network to help companies improve their responsible and sustainable business practices, and source sustainably. ALDI became a member in 2017. ALDI UK is also part of the Sedex Board.

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Since 2017

UN Global Compact (UNGC)

In August 2017, the ALDI SOUTH Group was the first discount food retailer to join the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). By joining this initiative, we have committed to implementing the UN Global Compact's ten principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption as part of our corporate strategy and within the scope of our daily business operations.

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ALDI GB/IE

UN Women’s Empowerment Principles

By signing the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles in 2021, ALDI GB/IE has sent out an important signal showing its commitment to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Created by the UN Global Compact and UN Women, the Women’s Empowerment Principles are shaped by international labour and human rights standards. Its principles provide guidance to private sector organisations in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Women’s Empowerment Principles link to our position that all businesses have a responsibility for gender equality and women’s empowerment and for addressing any form of discrimination.

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Food

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Since 2015

German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO)

ALDI has been an active member of the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) since 2015 and works with other members to achieve the initiative’s objectives. This multi-stakeholder initiative aims to improve the livelihood of cocoa farmers and their families, to contribute to a secure living, to conserve and protect natural resources and biodiversity in cocoa producing countries, as well as to increase cultivation and commercialisation of sustainably produced cocoa.

Working together

ALDI is actively engaged in the sustainability and PRO-PLANTEURS working groups, which focus on the implementation of GISCO’s goals and monitoring the PRO-PLANTEURS project.

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Since 2020

Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST)

In 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group proudly joined the ‘Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability’ (GDST). This is another important step towards improving traceability throughout the fish and seafood supply chain and to fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The GDST is an international, business-to-business platform established to advance a unified framework for seafood traceability practices. The initiative brings together a broad spectrum of seafood industry stakeholders from across different parts of the seafood supply chain and civil society experts.

ALDI’s goal is to source all of its seafood products from responsibly managed fisheries and farms, which have a minimal impact upon the wider marine environment. We believe the best way to protect the people and the planet is through joint initiatives and partnerships, like the GDST. We are committed to implement the ‘GDST 1.0 Standards and Guidelines for Interoperable Seafood Traceability Systems’ in our company and will work together with our suppliers for the implementation of the standard in our supply chain.

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Since 2021

Global Tuna Alliance (GTA)

In May 2021, the ALDI SOUTH and ALDI Nord Groups have become partners of the Global Tuna Alliance (GTA). This partnership will support the sustainable development of our supply chains and ensures that the tuna ultimately meets the highest standards of environmental performance and social responsibility.

The Global Tuna Alliance is an independent group of retailers and tuna supply chain companies, who are committed to

realising harvest strategies for tuna fisheries,
avoiding Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated product,
improving traceability as well as environmental sustainability
progressing work on human rights in tuna fisheries,
implementing the objectives laid out in World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Tuna 2020 Traceability Declaration.

Non-Food

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Since 2013

Accord on Fire and Building Safety

ALDI SOUTH was one of the first signatories of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh in 2013 and 2017. By signing this independent, legally binding agreement we have committed to improve the safety of the Ready-Made Garments (RMG) factories in our Bangladesh supply chain. All production facilities in Bangladesh that produce textile products for ALDI are regularly inspected by the Accord/RSC. Any findings regarding health and safety issues are subsequently remediated. Additionally, our engineers located in our Dhaka offices regularly visit all production facilities that manufacture for ALDI in Bangladesh in order to identify and remediate findings in the area of fire, building and boiler safety.

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Since 2017

Better Cotton Initiative (BCI)

In 2017, ALDI became a partner of The Better Cotton Initiative which seeks to improve cotton farming globally. The Better Cotton Initiative seeks to reduce the negative impacts of cotton production on people and the planet. The basic principles of the BCI include training farmers on the elimination of harmful pesticides and the efficient use of water, the preservation of soil fertility, as well as the compliance with minimum social criteria and the prohibition of child and forced/bonded labour. Better Cotton is sourced via a system of mass balance.

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Since 2016

Cotton made in Africa (CmiA)

Since 2016, ALDI has been a partner of Cotton made in Africa. Following the principle of 'helping others to help themselves', Cotton made in Africa provides smallholders with training in modern, efficient, and environmentally friendly cultivation methods. In addition to this, it also imparts basic knowledge of business and economics. Pre-financing measures, the protection of natural conservation areas, and the ban of genetically modified cottonseed are just as much a part of the CmiA standard as compliance with the ILO core labour standards and the promotion of women's equal rights.

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Since 2016

Leather Working Group (LWG)

The Leather Working Group (LWG) is a not-for-profit membership organisation for stakeholders across the leather supply chain. The LWG has developed audit protocols designed to certify leather manufacturers according to their environmental compliance and performance capabilities. The Group aims to promote sustainable business practices and create alignment on environmental priorities throughout membership and the industry as a whole. The ALDI SOUTH Group became a member in 2016.

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Since 2015

Partnership for Sustainable Textiles

ALDI SOUTH Germany became a member of the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (German: Bündnis für nachhaltige Textilien) in 2015. This multi-stakeholder partnership was founded to improve social and environmental conditions within global textile production.

Working together

In the context of our membership in the 'Partnership for Sustainable Textiles', we actively work on the topic of living wages by being a member of the Partnership Initiative on living wages since 2019. Within this initiative, we are working on the improvement of our purchasing practices as these can have an immense impact on the working conditions and wage payments in production facilities used for ALDI production.As a first step, we conducted a purchasing practices self-assessment, involving our international buying, design and quality departments. Based on this gap analysis, we have developed a comprehensive roadmap together with our buying colleagues with concrete measures aiming at responsible purchasing practices. Together with other brands we have now established a peer learning group to find solutions for challenges and share best practices.

In July 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group and 13 other members of the ‘Partnership for Sustainable Textiles’ joined the Partnership Initiative Wastewater with the aim to ensure sustainable wastewater management in the textile supply chain.

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