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.

In September 2021, the “Partnership Initiative on Living Wages” of the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles entered a new phase and launched the “Living Wage Lab” to support member brands and retailers to implement pilot projects.

Together with 16 other members of the partnership, including brands and retailers, trade unions, civil society and the Federal Government, the ALDI SOUTH Group will continue to emphasise its work on living wages.

The ALDI SOUTH Group is partnering with amfori to pilot their “Speak for Change” grievance mechanism in Vietnam. This project will give workers a voice and improve their working conditions.

Not all workers can speak up when something is wrong in their workplace. Access to effective grievance mechanisms is essential to ensure a fair and safe working environment. The ALDI SOUTH group want to work closely with business partners and different stakeholders along our supply chains to change this.

Building on our pre-existing relationship with amfori, the ALDI SOUTH Group is now piloting their “Speak for Change” supply chain grievance mechanism in Vietnam. This project creates a trustworthy mechanism for workers in ALDI food and non-food supply chains to speak up and voice concerns and complaints. Together with our business partners, we are committed to investigating and remediating potential complaints. If proven successful, the programme will be rolled out to further sourcing countries.

Each of the ALDI SOUTH Group’s national organisations sources products from Asia. To minimise the risks related to working conditions and to 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 our own ALDI Social Assessments in the production facilities used for ALDI production and provide support to business partners on how to implement our CR requirements.

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. 

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. The new “International Accord for Health and Safety in the Garment and Textile Industry” is the result of long and intensive negotiations between trade unions and brands. We fully support the new agreement and we believe that it will help us to continue our engagement for fair and safe working conditions in Bangladesh.

As Bangladesh is one of our most important sourcing countries, we have intensified our regular ALDI Social Assessment (ASA) activities in this country to step up cooperation with business partners sourcing from there.

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.

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.

The high quality of our products is a basic requirement to be met by all ALDI suppliers. By placing our particular focus on quality and monitoring quality throughout the production process, ALDI directly meets the demand for a long lifespan of our textile products. High-quality products are only one of the two equally important key factors impacting textile longevity, the second being the ‘best possible’ care of the product during its useful life.

Therefore, high quality production standards and the correct care of the product during its useful life ensure that our customers can enjoy their textile product for a long time after the purchase.