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.

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.

The Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) are a set of Principles offering guidance to business on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace and community. Established by UN Global Compact and UN Women, the WEPs are informed by international labour and human rights standards and grounded in the recognition that businesses have a stake in, and a responsibility for, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

WEPs are a primary vehicle for corporate delivery on gender equality dimensions of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By joining the WEPs community, the CEO signals commitment to this agenda at the highest levels of the company and to work collaboratively in multistakeholder networks to foster business practices that empower women. These include equal pay for work of equal value, gender-responsive supply chain practices and zero tolerance against sexual harassment in the workplace.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As responsibly acting retailers, the ALDI SOUTH Group and the ALDI Nord Group of companies has set the goal to source 100% of ALDI-exclusive brand seafood products from responsibly managed fisheries and farms. We are concerned by the suspension of the MSC certification from North East Atlantic mackerel and Atlanto-scandian herring fisheries from Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Area 27. We believe the management of these fisheries shows gaps, including a lack of a binding allocation of catch quotas for both fish species in line with scientific advice between all catch nations. It is important that the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) coastal states adhere to scientifically advised catch levels and implement a long-term science-based management plan for mackerel and herring.

We have joined the North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) to advocate for effective international agreement. NAPA aims to drive sustainability in these fisheries by generating momentum towards an agreement on total allowable catches in line with scientific advice, as well as long-term science-based fisheries management strategies. To address these issues they established the Northeast Atlantic Ocean mackerel and herring - hook & line, trawl, and purse seine fisheries improvement project (FIP). We are participating in the FIP and will continue to source North East Atlantic mackerel while progress is being made.  In the event that the NAPA FIP fails to achieve the desired outcome, ALDI will work with its suppliers to review sourcing options, including investigating alternative sourcing areas and species. We also call upon our business partners to support our efforts by joining NAPA and by engaging their business partners and networks where this has not happened yet.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

At ALDI, 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.

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. 

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.