Rab and Lowe Alpine show exceptional progress in protecting workers’ rights along global supply chain

Equip Outdoor Technologies Ltd. (owner of UK outdoor brands Rab and Lowe Alpine) have shown exceptional progress in protecting factory workers’ rights, aiming to improve working conditions, safety, transparency and better treatment for workers along their global supply chain. This resulted in Equip reaching Fair Wear Foundation’s “Leader” status after only two years of membership (scoring 80 out of 100).

In this year’s Brand Performance Check carried out by Fair Wear, Equip is recognised for establishing formalised due diligence and risk assessment procedures, particularly when embarking on new manufacturing partnerships. The report also highlights the strong collaborative approach Equip takes towards its suppliers, despite challenges such as Covid-19.

In Fair Wear’s Brand Performance Check, it says: “Equip have shown exceptional progress and met most of Fair Wear’s performance requirements, with applying a systematic approach to human rights due diligence. Future recommendations include establishing a systematic process for routinely evaluating suppliers’ performance including social standards, and to continue assessing root causes of where low wages occur within the supply chain.”

Equip have always aimed for establishing long-standing partnerships with their suppliers, based on regular communication, mutual trust and shared values: 86% of Equip’s production volume in 2021/22 was manufactured by partners with who they’ve been doing business with for more than five years; 46% of their production volume came from manufacturing sites visited by their teams in 2021-22 (despite continued travel restrictions); and 92% of their production volume came from manufacturing sites audited for social standards at least once in the last three years.

Matt Gowar, Equip’s CEO, explains: “2021 was a year of challenges: the continuation of Covid-19, global lockdowns in retail and manufacturing locations, increasing costs in the supply chain and stock availability pressures. Because of this, we continued to work with suppliers to ensure their staff were looked after through these challenging times. As travel restrictions eased in 2022, I’ve already visited a few of our factories, and seen how our efforts are changing the factory floor.

Reaching Fair Wear Leader status in only our second Brand Performance Check is a great achievement. It is recognition for the long-term relationships we have built with our suppliers over the years. These relationships create resilience in our businesses and allow us to improve the working conditions, safety and wellbeing for the people who make our products.”

The Fair Wear Brand Performance Check is a tool to assess how a Fair Wear member’s business practices improve labour conditions among their supply chain and contribute to more transparent and responsible relations with its manufacturing partners. Every year, Fair Wear reviews the brand’s efforts by measuring how well they have identified, assessed and resolved issues with their suppliers. Making the results of these checks open to the public ensures transparency and keeps member brands accountable.

The Leader status is awarded to member companies who are doing exceptionally well, and are operating at an advanced level. Leaders show best practices in complex areas such as monitoring, remediation and training to empower workers to raise issues in their factories.

As next steps on their Fair Wear journey, Equip has set up its 2022-23 Work Plan. Areas to focus on include formalising an existing-supplier evaluation process, and continuing to monitor and mitigate the risk of forced labour in China and adopting the heightened due diligence recommendations when sourcing in Myanmar.

More details on Equip’s strategy to constantly improve workers’ treatment along their supply chain can be found HERE and in Equip’s 2021-22 Social Report.

Equip’s 2022 Sustainability Report provides details on the company’s overall sustainability strategy.