Supply chain
Products can be pretty complex. Normally, a shoe has up to 20 different components. And every single one is made in a different factory. And this factory in turn also gets their materials from different material suppliers …
To break these supply chains open and make them transparent has been quite a challenge. But what other way is there to make sure that our supply chain is complying with our social and environmental standards? We have always known the factories that make our products. But what’s the situation in those factories further up the supply chain? To get more information on their conditions has taken us years. But it was worth it: we now know a lot about our main material factories and what challenges they face in production. And we also know how to make sure that no harmful substances are used in our products and our production facilities.
Material suppliers
The bigger our order volume is in each factory, the bigger is also our influence. And the bigger our influence is, the better we can implement our standards in our partner facilities.
That’s why we started to bundle our orders at strategic partner facilities since 2016. By now we produce 80% of our orders with 20% of our suppliers. Each factory in our nominated supplier pool has been assessed by our CR-team and was onboarded to our internal assessment and training program. A final assembly factory has of course different requirements than material suppliers like tanneries or textile dying houses. So, our program is individually adapted to the different tiers of the supply chain. The program is under constant review and advancement. To generate the strongest possible impact, we cooperate with industry initiatives and our supply chain partners.
Learn more in our sustainability report
