Human Rights
As an international company with global supply chains, we are aware of our responsibility to respect human rights. ALDI US, along with the entire ALDI SOUTH Group, is certain that long-term business success can only be ensured if human rights are acknowledged and respected, protected and fulfilled. We are committed to safeguarding human rights and improving living and working conditions throughout our supply chains.
Programs
Social Monitoring Program
Our Social Monitoring Program (SMP) was developed to monitor compliance with our Social Standards in Production. We require suppliers to provide third-party audit reports demonstrating they’re upholding our standards. If these audits raise any concerns, we require a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) to be developed so that steps can be taken to improve working conditions.
ALDI Sustainability Assessment (ASA)
We consider third party social audits to be an important first step in gathering social compliance information about our production facilities and initiating improvements. From our experience, we know that on-site presence can lead to greater transparency and fosters strong partnerships with suppliers and production facilities. This is why we have been supplementing third-party audits with our own ALDI Sustainability Assessments (ASAs). These on-site visits are conducted in production facilities of select high-risk commodity groups by ALDI employees, together with external auditors and business partner representatives.
Corporate Responsibility Supplier Evaluation (CRSE)
We have adopted an annual Corporate Responsibility Supplier Evaluation (CRSE), an approach that goes beyond conducting audits. Our CRSE is a comparable and transparent evaluation, which focuses on our business partners’ social and environmental compliance management systems and their farm or production facilities’ corporate responsibility performance. The CRSE supports long-term relationships with business partners who demonstrate a strong commitment to continuous improvement by allocating the majority of our buying volume to these suppliers.
Partnerships and Memberships
To make a real difference, we have established a wide range of partnerships with suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, governments and NGOs. Together we can improve the lives of workers and their families by promoting better working and living conditions, paying fair wages, empowering women, prohibiting child labor and increasing the transparency in our supply chains.
Issara Institute is an independent non-profit organization based in Southeast Asia and the United States tackling issues of human trafficking and forced labor through worker voice, partnership, and innovation. ALDI is piloting a grievance mechanism with production facilities in Thailand to strengthen the voice of workers to ultimately improve their working conditions.
Building on our pre-existing relationship with amfori, BSCI which enables companies to trade with purpose by improving social performance in their supply chains, 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. If proven successful, the program will be rolled out to other sourcing countries.