Your Cart is Empty
SUPPLIER CODE OF CONDUCT
At Cooke and Kin, our vision is to create timeless garments that uphold the conscious integrity of our stance on sustainable and ethical practices to ensure that we are contributing to a positive future for this industry, our planet and its people. We are endlessly optimistic that this approach can and will encourage everyone our business touches to contribute to a better world, as well.
---
As an integral part of the Cooke and Kin family, we consider you and your employees to be an extension of our brand. We take responsibility for you and your employees as we would family, and that extends to those who work in any part of the supply chain.
The Cooke and Kin Code is a document that outlines our brand values in regards to ethical sourcing, and supports what we believe to simply be responsible business practice. We expect these ethical manufacturing requirements to be upheld by all those who work within the Cooke and Kin supply chain, so that workers and the environment are respected and cared for.
CONTENTS
PARTNERSHIP
Scope
Collaboration
Continuous Improvement
Governance and Ethics
Bribery and Corruption
Transparency
PLANET
Animal Welfare
Environmental Management
Responsible Chemical Use
Responsible Water Usage
Minimize Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Waste
PEOPLE
Community Development
Wages and Employment
Working Conditions
Living Wage
COMPLIANCE
Updates
Audits
Non-Compliance
Acknowledgement
PARTNERSHIP
Scope
Our Code terms apply to all suppliers, their employees, agents, parent, subsidiary or affiliate entities and subcontractors. Should a direct partner require a subcontractor, Cooke and Kin must be notified in writing. It is the supplier’s responsibility to communicate our code to the relevant parties, in the local language where applicable, and to ensure their compliance. We require all suppliers to read our code and acknowledge it in writing.
Collaboration
We support all conversations regarding this Code and the expectations outlined within it. Should there be an area that you do not believe you are adhering to, we will always support you and work collaboratively to ensure that it is achievable. We believe in cultivating long term, strong and trusting relationships with all of our suppliers, that benefit everyone involved.
Continuous Improvement
We believe that in order to make a fundamental, long-lasting change in the fashion industry, we need time, collaboration and responsibility. We require our suppliers to meet our basic criteria, and we encourage suppliers to exceed these standards and continuously aim for best practice.
Governance and Ethics
We expect all our suppliers to adhere to international best practice in terms of their governance and ethics. This includes, but is not limited to adhering to all relevant local and national laws.
Bribery and Corruption
We have a strict zero-tolerance policy for accepting bribery or engaging in corrupt business practices. A bribe includes financial or other advantages, which are given, promised, offered, accepted, requested or received with the intention to influence the ability to make objective and fair business decisions.
Transparency
We reserve the right to request information such as the country of origin, identity and location of the sources of components and raw materials. We require full compliance and cooperation from all our suppliers in providing this information.
PLANET
Animal Welfare
We advocate for animal welfare and encourage our suppliers to do the same. It is our expectation that our suppliers also adhere to the highest standards of care and treatment for all animals within their supply chains, including implementing processes to ensure supply chains engage cruelty-free practices and materials supplied comply with local and international laws and regulations.
Environmental Management
All suppliers are expected to not only comply with local and national environmental regulations, but to work to exceed to ensure the environmental impact of their business practices are minimized.
We require that all information regarding chemicals, GMOs, and/or hazardous materials be provided prior to order confirmation. Declaration of harmful or hazardous materials must be properly surrendered in accordance with local and international law or commonly used standards.
Responsible Chemical Use
Policies and procedures must be established to ensure all chemicals are used safely and responsibly, and that all applicable laws and regulations are adhered to. The safety of all staff involved in chemical use is to be paramount, including providing all safety gear and training required. Suppliers must ensure no environmental harm is caused from the use of chemicals.
Responsible Water Usage
Suppliers must comply with all applicable local laws and regulations relating to the use of water including their management of wastewater.
Minimise Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Suppliers must comply with all local and national applicable air emission laws and take all reasonable steps to minimise and/or offset their Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Waste
We believe that in order to truly create a sustainable fashion industry, we must use the principles of a circular economy, designing with longevity and the entire garment lifecycle in mind. As a minimum requirement, suppliers must implement processes for responsible recycling of waste. Beyond this, we expect our suppliers to strive for ongoing waste reduction and implement processes to continually work towards zero waste.
PEOPLE
Wages and Employment
All employees must be voluntarily employed and have complete freedom of movement.
No person shall be forced to work against their will.
Suppliers must not hold possession of workers’ IDs / passports or collect deposits at any time.
All persons must be paid a fair and competitive wage, in a timely manner, that allows them to meet their basic needs, have discretionary income and the ability to save.
All overtime is voluntary and compensated at a rate that fairly reflects the additional undertaking and complies with local labour laws.
All employees have the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining and negotiation and shall not face any negative consequences for doing so.
All persons employed must be legally eligible to do so including being of legal working age.
No employee shall be under the age of 15.
It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure the appropriate documentation is provided.
The privacy of all persons data and personal information must be respected.
All employees must be provided with opportunities for training and development
Working Conditions
Suppliers must provide all employees, agents and subcontractors with safe and comfortable working conditions, minimise work-related illness or injury, and comply with all local employment laws including establishing health and safety policies and procedures.
Workers must be free to and know how to raise complaints about their workplace or housing conditions without retaliation.
Adequate and regular breaks must be provided and working hours must not exceed hours allowed by the law of the country where the workers are employed, or eight hours in the day and forty-eight in the week unless agreed upon by both parties.
All workers must be allowed a minimum of one day of no work out of every seven.
All persons must be treated with respect, dignity, and kindness at all times.
No person shall be discriminated against for any reason.
No person shall be subjected to abuse, intimidation, threat or harassment of any kind. Any supplier who provides housing must ensure this is also a safe, comfortable, respectful, and dignifying environment free of discrimination, abuse, intimidation, threat or harassment of any kind.
Living Wage
Employees must be paid a living wage in a timely manner. This living wage must allow employees to meet their basic living needs for themselves and their families. Following the Global Living Wage Coalition’s definition of a living wage as “the remuneration received for a standard workweek by a worker in a particular place sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for the worker and her or his family. Elements of a decent standard of living include food, water, housing, education, health care, transportation, clothing, and other essential needs including provision for unexpected events.”
COMPLIANCE
Updates
As a supplier of Cooke and Kin, you acknowledge that the contents of this Code will be reviewed and updated when required, and shared with our supplier network. Should any revisions be required as a matter of urgency, they will be sent through and the update will take immediate effect. Transition periods will be negotiated if applicable.
Audits
In addition to the Cooke and Kin Code, we support all suppliers in the supply chain to commit to their own Code, and work with external auditing bodies to verify compliance on a globally recognised level. If there is any reasonable doubt regarding a supplier’s commitment to the Cooke and Kin Code, we commit to working on an ongoing basis to improve and verify the supplier compliance.
Non-Compliance
In the unfortunate event of a continued breach of this Code, we may terminate the relationship with immediate effect.
Acknowledgement
We require all suppliers to review and acknowledge this code in writing. The standards set out in this code are in addition to, not in lieu of, provisions contained within legal agreements and contracts between Cooke and Kin and our suppliers.