ALDI is partnering with the non-profit organization Issara Institute to provide support to both workers and businesses in our supply chain. We will be working together to provide access to grievance mechanisms and remediation actions in ALDI’s Thai food supply chains. The partnership will strengthen current processes and empower workers to speak up if they have concerns about their working environment.

It also helps ALDI to generate learnings on addressing potential barriers in accessing grievance mechanisms and remedy that different categories of workers are facing. For example, Issara supports gender-specific mechanisms by having trained male and female helpline operators and ensuring worker confidentiality and safety in reporting all issues such as harassment. Potential barriers are being addressed through remediating worker raised issues in collaboration with their employer and support of ALDI and its suppliers, for instance through building capacity to look into grievances, talking safely with workers or through other specific training by Issara Institute.

© Issara Institute

As an international retailer, we trade considerable quantities of meat, dairy, and other animal-based food and non-food products. Irrespective of the high complexity resulting from the variety of products we sell and the markets we operate in, we strive to continuously improve animal welfare standards throughout our supply chains.

Our approach to animal welfare is guided by the globally recognised 'Five Freedoms' proposed by the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC).

Our International Position Statement serves as the foundation for our commitment and efforts in the area of animal welfare, and demonstrates the extent to which the individual countries of the ALDI SOUTH Group have aligned their measures within this area.

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.

© Forum Nachhaltiger Kakao

Last year, the ALDI SOUTH Group, Fairtrade and the Fairtrade cocoa cooperative ECAMOM started a monitoring report to improve the working conditions and livelihoods of local cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. Now the first impact report “Building Trust. Creating Impact.” has been published.

The first impact report serves as a baseline to provide insights into the work of the cooperative and the farmers, and identifies the challenges they are facing. We aim to provide a picture of what cocoa farming looks like today, and highlight potential areas of opportunities that can enable a long-term partnership between the stakeholders involved in the supply chain. 

Read the report: Building trust. Creating impact. First Year Impact Report

© Fairtrade Deutschland

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’. Within the first year, the following activities were conducted:

• Financial inclusion: 76 ‘Village Saving and Loans Associations (VSLAs)’ were formed to empower women and young people to invest in enterprises and households.
  A VSLA provides access to finance in a safe, convenient, and flexible way by pooling together savings and raising resources in a group. It is a low-cost financial service, designed for farmers with irregular income, for example due to the cocoa season, in order to enable continuous solvency and business investments and to improve their family’s livelihoods or to fund household needs.
  1008 farmers have benefited from the VSLA training activities so far. By the end of the two-year project, 77 VSLAs will have been founded.
• Rejuvenation of cocoa farms: Community nursery projects have started, with the seedlings ready to be planted in the upcoming rainy season. Approximately 80 households will benefit from the rejuvenation of 41 hectares of old cocoa farms.
• Land ownership: Approximately 500 farmers will be provided with official land titles to secure ownership and allow long-term investments on farms by the end of the project. 310 farmers have already signed up.  In the first project year, engagement with authorities and government agencies has been achieved.
• Income diversification: Around 110 households were supported in setting up alternative income sources via poultry farming. A second wave of 300 farmers are being currently trained and equipped for poultry farming. Poultry farming is a great alternative as it is less laborious, quick, and a sustainable means to generate income and to bridge the purchasing parity gap, especially when cocoa is out of season.
• Cooking stoves: 580 cooking stoves were distributed to families. The stoves significantly reduce the amount of wood needed to cook, leading families to need less time to cook and a reduced risk for deforestation. The total target is to distribute 500 cooking stoves.

The project is implemented by the Cocoa Horizons Foundation, an independent, non-profit organisation with the purpose to drive cocoa farmer prosperity by creating self-sustaining communities that protect children and nature. Via Barry Callebaut, ALDI is sourcing cocoa from farmers, which benefit from the Cocoa Horizons programme.  ALDI customers can enjoy this sustainable product, the Belgian Seashells, during the Christmas season and contribute to a brighter future for cocoa farming communities in Ghana. We are committed to promote and offer products to our customers that are sourced from supply chains supporting a living income and have a decent standard of living for farmers.

© Barry Callebaut

A sweet taste, a delicious smell and a little bit(e) of happiness: We are excited to launch our new, responsibly sourced chocolate bar: Choceur CHOCO CHANGER. Our customers’ choice is empowering cocoa farmers in West Africa. Together, we can amplify our positive impact on cocoa farmers and change the norm in the cocoa industry by working on ending poverty, illegal child labour, and deforestation.

As the first international discount retailer to join Tony’s Open Chain in December 2020, ALDI is committed to support Tony’s Open Chain’s ambitious mission to change the norm in the cocoa industry by improving the working conditions along the supply chains and by collaborating in the transparent sourcing of cocoa beans. The cocoa beans for the Choceur CHOCO CHANGER are sourced via Tony’s Open Chain and its 5 Sourcing Principles.

The ALDI SOUTH Group has been sourcing Fairtrade-certified coffee from Honduras since 2014. Coffee is the most important agricultural export product from Honduras with over 100,000 families growing coffee and over one million people employed by the sector during harvest. Coffee farmers in Honduras face strong challenges resulting from a volatile political situation, high poverty rates, and fluctuation in price on the world market, and the growing effects of climate change.

Since 2016, ALDI SOUTH has funded a project initiated by Fairtrade to support coffee cooperatives in Honduras. The project aims to

1. improve the administrative and organisational capacities of smallholder producers,
2. increase the amount of sustainable coffee production by smallholders and their resilience to climate change,
3. increase coffee quality, sales and marketing capacities of cooperatives, and
4. integrate vulnerable groups (women, youth, children, workers, indigenous people) more strongly into development and decision-making processes, the implementation of policies and advocacy initiatives at community level.  

The Fairtrade premium which is paid to cooperatives for each Fairtrade certified product as well as ALDI’s additional project funds, enable solutions to be found for the above-mentioned challenges, and ensure the long-term sustainability of smallholder coffee production in Honduras. Through these efforts, farmers will become more resilient and prosperous so that a daily cup of coffee purchased from ALDI remains sustainable for all. 

Copyright: Fairtrade Germany

The ALDI SOUTH Group is partnering with Olam Food Ingredients’ (“OFI”) coffee business on a four-year project in Honduras, which aims to narrow the living income gap by improving market access and coffee quality.

The new joint project aims to create a transparent and traceable coffee supply chain all the way to farm level, and narrow the living income gap of 1,000 coffee producers in Honduras by helping them to increase yields, improve coffee quality and achieve Rainforest Alliance certification. Local representatives and farmers will be trained with an innovative smartphone app that enables them to make informed decisions and directly trade their coffee with Olam. Over four years, each farmer will receive tailored trainings, agricultural inputs and tools to help narrow the living income gap.

Tracking the project’s progress will ensure we are not only meeting our shared goals but learning how to make our impact scalable in a way that lifts farmers out of poverty, and that offers a more promising future for generations to come.

© Olam

Following the development of the Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) action plan, ALDI is partnering with the non-profit civil society organisation Verité on a pilot project on “Promoting Ethical Recruitment in the Coffee Sector of Minas Gerais, Brazil” within Verité’s U.S. Department of Labor-funded Cooperation On Fair, Free, Equitable Employment (COFFEE) Project.

After conducting an HRIA on coffee in Brazil in 2021, ALDI is excited to be able to take immediate action through participating in Verité’s project in Brazil. The aim of this pilot is to better understand and respond to recruitment and labour risks in the Brazilian coffee sector.

The effort is part of Verité’s “COFFEE” Project, which includes pilot projects in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, along with the development of an open-source Socially Sustainable Sourcing Toolkit (S3T) and online training modules focused on promoting decent labour conditions and fair recruitment in the coffee sector. The tools will be piloted by ALDI and its supply chain actors, such as coffee roasters, traders, and farms.

From 2018-2021, ALDI SOUTH Germany supported the Fairtrade cottonseed project in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The project aimed to empower smallholder farmers and to improve the quality and supply of non-GMO cotton from Central Asia.

To reach the project goal the following measures were implemented:

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

© Fairtrade / Didier Gentilhomme

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.

© Cotton made in Africa

The project aims to sustainably improve fishery management in order to ensure fishing practices, which comply with the MSC criteria in the long term. In 2014, the ALDI SOUTH Group initiated this project concerning the active improvement of the sustainability of sardine fishing in Morocco.

In 2016, ALDI UK became the first UK supermarket to team up with international development charity Farm Africa in a three-year partnership to support young farmers in Kenya. ALDI funds the Growing Futures project to educate and improve the lives of more than 450 young people in Kitale, Western Kenya.

The project trains young people how to grow high-quality crops, like green beans, tomatoes and kale, as well as how to run their farms as businesses. As well as assisting young farmers to improve the quality and amount of food they produce, the project will help ensure they are growing the most valuable crops, support them in finding the best contracts, and enable them to sell crops at higher value markets so they can find a lasting way out of poverty.

ALDI seeks to respect human rights and prevent violations in our Vietnamese cashew nut supply chain by supporting the Ethical Trade Norway’s Cashew project. The project strengthens labour standards while having a focus on women and vulnerable groups as well as improves environmental management.

Together with our cashew suppliers, ALDI encouraged processors in the Vietnamese cashew supply chain to participate in social dialogue training during September and November 2019. This training was designed to improve worker and management dialogue, grievance handling and knowledge of trade union rights. The project also trained farmers on labour standards, good agricultural and environmental practices. Additional sessions and supplementary trainings for further Vietnamese supply chain actors followed in July 2020. The project will continue to support farmers, workers and processors over the course of this year with further guidance and knowledge-sharing.

Between 2017-2021, the ALDI SOUTH Group, together with ALDI Nord, supported a smallholder project in Côte d'Ivoire in order to pave the way for sustainable cultivation of palm in the area. In close cooperation with our partner Solidaridad, we developed a project that focused on improving smallholder farmers’ knowledge on Best Environmental Practices and on agriculture that respects High Conservation Values (HCV) and natural forests.

Solidaridad offered training through Farmer Field Schools (FFS) for 2,611 palm oil smallholder farmers and helped restore approximately 250 hectares of forest land in the project area. The team cultivated 17,532 tree seedlings in nurseries that were then distributed to individual farmers, planted in schools and borders of sacred forests, and used to help restore natural reserve areas.

Various partners and stakeholders were involved in the project, including the Inter-professional Association of Oil-Palm Industry (AIPH). This institution has fully endorsed the project’s outcomes and is now installing tree nurseries in other palm oil-growing regions. Additionally the cooperatives engaged are were COOPALEN, UCCOPES, COOPTOSA from the Sud Comoe region, UCOOPALM from the Grand Ponts region, USCOPAHLD from Loh Djiboua and U3SC from San Pedro.

Despite the many challenges facing the project, including COVID-19 restrictions, and political tensions, 90% of the community participants, including community leaders and the youth, reported positive outcomes of the project in the area and increased knowledge from the trainings. 

© Solidaridad

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.

Running from 2013 to 2020, the AFA Project placed factory workers and managers at the centre of its activities to find sustainable solutions for improved workplaces. Its core principle was 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.

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. 

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on garment workers has been devastating. Women make up the majority of the garment sector workforce and  they have been affected the most. In 2020, CARE International and the ALDI SOUTH Group teamed up to protect the rights and needs of women in the garment sector in Bangladesh and Myanmar during the pandemic.

These efforts resulted in nearly 5,000 female workers receiving hygiene kits while 1,600 workers received household handwashing facilities in Bangladesh. In Myanmar, we were able to reach more than 76,000 factory workers with sanitising and disinfecting materials and provided face masks for more than 28,000 workers.

From 2019-2020, ALDI SOUTH Germany and HOFER S/E worked with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Namibia. The aim of the project was to increase the amount of sustainable and directly traded charcoal on the market, which benefits local farmers directly. After the successfully conclusion of trainings and audits, the farmers are certified according to the FSC Forest Management Standard.  

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.

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.

As the first discount retailer, ALDI has joined Tony’s Open Chain. Tony’s Open Chain is an initiative by Tony’s Chocolonely, where they invite other chocolate brands to join Tony’s Open Chain and work together to change the norm in chocolate. By adopting the 5 Sourcing Principles for our new chocolate bar, ALDI has joined the mission to make chocolate 100% slave-free.

By establishing the Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa in 2018, ALDI SUISSE became a member of the association for the promotion of sustainable cocoa (“Verein zur Förderung von nachhaltigem Kakao”). The members of the multi-stakeholder initiative with actors from the Swiss cocoa and chocolate industry, the public sector, civil society and research institutions actively work together to improve the living conditions of cocoa farmers, to protect natural resources and to promote biodiversity in the cocoa-producing countries. They are committed to coordinate a dialogue with authorities and organizations in producer countries, and to promote the demand and procurement of cocoa-based products with sustainable origins.

In 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group became a member of the Sustainable Coffee Challenge (SCC). In the SCC, we collaborate with other retailers, traders, governments, NGOs, and research institutions on improving living and working conditions in the global coffee sector.

Since 2017, ALDI partners with Better Cotton to improve cotton farming globally. Better Cotton seeks to reduce the negative impacts of cotton production on people and the planet. The basic principles of Better Cotton 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.

To enhance the transparency of our supply chain, ALDI uses Better Cotton’s  online tracking and tracing system, called Better Cotton Platform (BCP). ALDI verifies the amount of cotton sourced as Better Cotton using this platform, which covers the supply chain from the ginner all the way to ALDI.

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.

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

Working together

In the context of ALDI’s membership, we are actively working on the topic of living wages by being a member of the “Partnership Initiative on Living Wages”.  Since 2019, we have been working on the improvement of our purchasing practices as these can have a large impact on the working conditions and wage payments in production facilities used for ALDI production.

In September 2021, ALDI joined the “Living Wage Lab” of the “Partnership Initiative on Living Wages” to strengthen its work towards fairer wages for workers in the garment textile supply chain.

In the context of our membership in the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, we are actively working on the topic of living wages and we have been a member of the Partnership Initiative on Living Wages since 2019. Within this initiative, we have been 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 also established a peer learning group to find solutions for challenges and share best practices.

While we are continuously working on improvements, we have conducted another survey on ALDI’s purchasing practices with our direct and indirect business partners. The results of this survey help us to tailor our buying processes even more effectively to the needs of actors in our supply chains.

Credible certification schemes like GLOBALG.A.P. are important tools to drive improvements and bolster our consumers’ trust. GLOBALG.A.P. sets standards for good agricultural and aquaculture practices (G.A.P.) and in May 2020, we followed the invitation to join the Aquaculture Technical Committee, which will enable us to promote improvements through a well-established dialogue with all relevant industry stakeholders.

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.

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.

ALDI UK/IE, ALDI Australia and ALDI US joined the Ocean Disclosure Project (ODP) to voluntarily disclose sourcing information on their wild caught seafood products. The ODP is a global platform and reporting framework dedicated to increasing transparency in global seafood supply chains. These ALDI countries will disclose a list of all the fisheries, catch method and environmental impact of its wild caught seafood.

Since 2017, the ALDI SOUTH Group is a member of the Seafood Task Force, a multi-stakeholder initiative seeking to address illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in an effort to address human rights issues and marine conservational problems, which are believed to be closely interlinked.

The Seafood Task Force uses the combined knowledge and experience of its membership to address complex supply chain issues that cannot be solved individually. The aim is to achieve clean seafood supply chains from vessel to retailer through driving oversight and continuous improvement across people, product, process, and policy.

Since 2012, we have worked in collaboration with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), a leading non-governmental organisation.  Their focus is to improve the sustainability of wild fisheries as well as aquaculture. The SFP acts as our independent adviser on fish sustainability and rates the sustainability of the fish and seafood used in our own label products and provide recommendations to drive continuous improvement of fisheries. Through our partnership, we can gain better insight into how to source more sustainable seafood products.

Since 2010, we are collaborating with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the field of sustainable fishing and aquaculture farming. The WWF acts as an independent adviser on fish sustainability and rates the sustainability of the fish and seafood used in our private label products. The WWF also provides us with recommendations to drive continuous improvement of fisheries and aquacultures.

In line with our responsible sourcing strategy to prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts of our business activity, the ALDI SOUTH Group has been an active member of the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) Italian Produce Working Group since 2018. ETI is a global alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs that promotes respect for workers' rights and the Italian Produce Working Group aims to create a trusting, collaborative space, within which open dialogue can be held to share and discuss challenges and practical solutions for human rights issues with the Italian produce sector.

ALDI SOUTH Germany is systematically introducing its own producer assessments for its range of fresh produce. The products and countries of origin in which ALDI SOUTH conducts the producer assessments are selected based on a risk analysis. Besides tropical fruits from Central and South America, assessments of the quality of fresh produce have also already been conducted in Southern Europe.

The Spain Ethical Trade Forum was launched in 2012 with the aim of creating a safe space where growers and packers of the agri-food sector could share experiences and discuss the challenges related to working conditions in the sector. The purpose is to jointly seek new ideas and share good practices to be implemented by the participating companies working as a team to improve labour conditions in the sector.

Since 2018, the ALDI SOUTH Group is a member of the Spain Ethical Trade Forum to actively support improvements of the living and working conditions in the Spanish agricultural sector.

Since 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group is an active member of the Sustainable Nut Initiative (SNI). SNI is a pre-competitive collaboration platform that brings together key players of global nut supply chains, from processors to roasters to retailers. Through its active involvement, ALDI has developed a risk-based approach to tackle current and future sustainability issues on a sector level, as well as to develop scalable approaches for improving traceability and sustainable farming practices.

SNI Activities

As a first step, SNI is focusing on improving global cashew supply chains, based on a recently published sector-wide risk analysis (conducted in November 2020). Producing, processing and sourcing cashew nuts continues to come with inherent sustainability challenges associated with the conditions of farming communities that produce them, workers that process them, and environmental impacts from the involved production steps and transportation. Alongside other industry actors, ALDI has developed an ambition plan with SNI to jointly address sustainability issues identified in the risk assessment report and define the sustainable path ahead.

By working together within SNI, we believe that we can make a positive impact on the challenges that cashew and other nut supply chains are facing. In a joint effort, we want to drive progress in the whole sector towards better agricultural practices, improved social standards and ultimately more sustainable products.

The ALDI SOUTH Group joined the Rainforest Alliance Hazelnut Programme (formerly called UTZ) in 2017. The RA Hazelnut Programme brings together a coalition of over a hundred market players worldwide to tackle sustainability challenges such as child labour and poor conditions for migrant workers in predominantly Turkish hazelnut supply chains. The RA programme is the first independent, third-party certification programme in the hazelnut sector and over 7,600 hazelnut farmers in Türkiye now apply the RA standards for sustainable farming.

We are founding member of the Palm Oil Transparency Coalition (POTC). POTC is a group of businesses working together in a pre-competitive coalition to remove deforestation and exploitation from the palm oil sector. We engage and review the major international importers of palm oil to determine their progress towards tackling deforestation and exploitation in their palm oil supply chains. Our approach aims to promote transparency and encourage progress beyond certification.

The ALDI SOUTH Group has been a member of the Retailers' Palm Oil Group (RPOG) since 2012. RPOG is a non-competitive coalition of retailers who have the common aim of making the use of sustainable palm oil the norm across all relevant supply chains.

In 2011, the ALDI SOUTH Group became a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a not-for-profit organisation that unites stakeholders from the palm oil industry to develop and implement global standards for sustainable palm oil. The RSPO has more than 4,800 members worldwide who represent all links along the palm oil supply chain. They have committed to produce, source and/or use sustainable palm oil certified by the RSPO.

Working together

Since 2019, the ALDI SOUTH Group is the only retail representative of the RSPO Smallholder Standing Committee (SHSC). The SHSC’s responsibilities include overseeing the execution of the RSPO Smallholder Strategy and decision making throughout the implementation of the RSPO Smallholder Strategy.

In 2020, the ALDI SOUTH Group signed the Statement of Support (SoS) for the Cerrado Manifesto.  We are working in the SoS Group together with other companies to engage local and international stakeholders to protect the native vegetation in the Cerrado, Brazil.

The Brazilian Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse savannah and after the Amazon rainforest it is the second largest biome in South America. Protection is urgently necessary, as rates of deforestation and land conversion in the Cerrado are even higher than in the Amazon: The Cerrado region has already lost 50% of its original area mainly due to soy production and cattle ranching. 

Since 2018, we participate in the Collective Soy Reporting together with a group of other retailers to:

• quantify the amount of soymeal present in animal feed used in 2018;
• identify where the soy was produced; and
• determine whether any of the soymeal carried a recognised deforestation free production certification

Overall, more than 230 livestock producers, packers, and manufacturing suppliers fed into the report. Based on the results, we engage with relevant stakeholders and develop appropriate measures to increase the share of deforestation-free soy in our supply chain.

After founding member HOFER Austria, now the entire ALDI SOUTH Group became a member of Donau Soja. This is another step in our international approach to work with other ambitious stakeholders on industry-wide solutions for sustainable and deforestation-free soy production.

Donau Soja is a non-profit association with the aim of supporting the sustainable development of European agriculture and increasing European soy cultivation. This includes the cultivation of soy in line with EU agricultural regulations, additional sustainability criteria and the support of research and innovation activities in the field of European soy production. Donau Soja developed two certification schemes called Donau Soja (especially for the Danube region) and Europe Soya. Both standards ensure sustainably grown, regional and GM-free soy.

The ALDI SOUTH Group joined the Retail Soy Group (RSG) in 2017. The RSG is an independent group of international retailers collaborating pre-competitively to find industry-wide solutions for sustainable soy for their animal feed and food supply chains.

The ALDI SOUTH Group became a member of the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) in 2017. The RTRS is a global platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue to promote responsible production, processing and trading of soy on a global level. Its mission is to encourage soybean production to be verified by a certification standard and produced in a responsible manner. Its objective is to reduce the social and environmental impacts of soy while maintaining or improving the economic status for the producer.

We are a founding member of the Soy Transparency Coalition (STC), which was established in 2020. The STC is a pre-competitive coalition whose aim is to help deliver a sustainable soy production system. The STC does this by engaging with major international soy traders on tackling deforestation and transparency challenges in soy supply chains.

The World Banana Forum (WBF), coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, promotes the worldwide adoption of best practices for sustainable banana production and trade. They provide a space where retailers, importers, producers, exporters, consumer associations, governments, research institutions, trade unions, and civil society organizations can discuss the problems facing the banana sector and seek solutions. The ALDI SOUTH Group became a member in 2017.

As a member of the World Banana Forum, we are involved in the working group ‘Cost of Sustainable Production’. Its aim is to create transparency about living income and wages in the producing countries. On this basis, governments are supported in the assumption of their responsibility that minimum wages meet living wages and also their enforcement is controlled.

In this context, 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 organisations in major European importing countries.

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.

At the beginning of September 2021, the ALDI SOUTH Group were one of the first brands to sign the new legally-binding International Accord for Health and Safety in the Garment and Textile Industry that will continue to make garment factories in Bangladesh safer for workers. 

Following commitments under Articles 38 and 39 to expand the International Accord’s work to other countries beyond Bangladesh, the ALDI SOUTH Group becomes also one of the first signatories of the new Pakistan Accord in January 2023. The new Pakistan Accord covers not only all Ready-Made Garment (RMG) factories, but also home textiles factories and fabric mills. We are continuously committed to improving transparency in our supply chains and supporting our suppliers in meeting the highest safety standards.

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

Working together

In the context of ALDI’s membership, we are actively working on the topic of living wages by being a member of the “Partnership Initiative on Living Wages”.  Since 2019, we have been working on the improvement of our purchasing practices as these can have a large impact on the working conditions and wage payments in production facilities used for ALDI production.

In September 2021, ALDI joined the “Living Wage Lab” of the “Partnership Initiative on Living Wages” to strengthen its work towards fairer wages for workers in the garment textile supply chain.

In the context of our membership in the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, we are actively working on the topic of living wages and we have been a member of the Partnership Initiative on Living Wages since 2019. Within this initiative, we have been 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 also established a peer learning group to find solutions for challenges and share best practices.

While we are continuously working on improvements, we have conducted another survey on ALDI’s purchasing practices with our direct and indirect business partners. The results of this survey help us to tailor our buying processes even more effectively to the needs of actors in our supply chains.

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.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is a collaboration between Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It defines and promotes best practice in science-based target setting and independently assesses companies’ targets.

At the beginning of 2022, the ALDI SOUTH Group joined the “Global Logistics Emissions Council (GLEC)”. The membership will help ALDI navigate key business barriers by taking part in Council projects that will support the move towards a zero emissions global freight and logistics sector.

In the ALDI SOUTH Group, we understand that our business activities have a significant impact on climate and the environment. Our goal is to minimise the ecological footprint of our corporate activities. Efficient logistics are key to ensuring that customers have access to our full range and fresh items every day. After our store operations, transport logistics is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and that’s why the ALDI SOUTH Group has become the first grocery retailer to join the Smart Freight Centres “Global Logistics Emissions Council”.

The Smart Freight Centre (SFC) is an international non-profit organisation focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from freight transportation. Their goal is to work collaboratively with businesses and other interested organisations to measure the impacts of freight, identify solutions, and support an organisations logistics decarbonisation strategy.

The Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0, driven by AIM - European Brands Association and powered by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, is a pilot project with the objective to prove the technical viability of digital watermarks for accurate sorting of packaging waste as well as the economic viability of the business case at large-scale. Digital watermarks are imperceptible codes, the size of a postage stamp, covering the surface of a consumer goods packaging and carrying a wide range of attributes. ALDI joined the initiative in 2022.

The aim is that once the packaging has entered into a waste sorting facility, the digital watermark can be detected and decoded by a high-resolution camera on the sorting line, which then – based on the transferred attributes (e.g. food vs non-food) – is able to sort the packaging in corresponding streams. This would result in better and more accurate sorting streams, thus consequently in higher quality recyclates benefitting the complete packaging value chain.

In 2021, the ALDI SOUTH Group became a member of The Consumer Goods Forum (“CGF”) Coalition of Action on Plastic Waste. The Coalition was founded in 2020 with the aim of developing a more circular approach to the development and processing of plastic packaging in the consumer goods industry.

As a CEO-led group of 36 committed and innovative retailers and manufacturers, the Coalition’s vision of accelerating progress towards the New Plastics Economy is embodied by its central aims for members to work towards implementing impactful measures through multi-stakeholder collaborations that will help make circularity the norm in the industry.

© The Consumer Goods Forum

RecyClass is a comprehensive cross-industry initiative that works to advance plastic packaging recyclability and to establish a harmonized approach towards recycled content calculation and its traceability in Europe. Activities within RecyClass include the development of Recyclability Evaluation Protocols and scientific testing methods for innovative materials which serve as the base for the Design for Recycling Guidelines and the Recycling Online Tool. RecyClass offers Recyclability Certifications for plastic packaging and Recycled Content Traceability Certification for plastic products. ALDI joined the initiative in 2022.

The ALDI SOUTH Group joined Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) as a member in 2019. AWS is a global multi-stakeholder initiative driving good water stewardship performance through the International Water Stewardship Standard (AWS Standard). Together with AWS and its members, we are championing good water stewardship and the sustainable use of water in our supply chains.