10+yearsaverage supplier cooperation
Suppliers
At Rituals, we pride ourselves for the long-standing relationships with our suppliers. With some of our biggest suppliers, we even go back all the way to the beginning of Rituals, that’s 25 years of cooperation, growth and success together. The close collaboration has not only supported Rituals' growth it also helps us to address ESG improvements in the value chain.
Human rights risk assessment
Last year we conducted a human rights risk assessment to identify and prioritise our most salient issues. Salient issues are the areas we have identified as those at risk of negative impacts on people and their human rights throughout our own activities and business relationships. Since human rights risks can be linked to specific products, commodities, industries, or countries, we mapped our value chain to ensure that all relevant aspects were carefully considered throughout the process. Find our salient issues and value chain mapped below.
Details on Assesment & Policy
Salient issues
Upstream
Right to adequate standard of living
Livelihood & access to resources
Child labor
Freedom of association & collective bargaining
Fair & just working conditions
Equality & non-discrimination
Own operations
Downstream
2024 actions
Updated Supplier Code of Conduct
Supplier Risk Assessment using SEDEX
Updated Code of Conduct & Human Rights Policy
Updated Responsible Sourcing Policy
Complaints Mechanism
E-learning on Human Rights Commitment
Supplier Monitoring via Ecovadis
High-risk Ingredients Assessment
ESG in Supplier Business Reviews
Supplier ESG performance
Creating a complete picture of our suppliers and their own practices is a core element of meeting our commitments to safeguarding human rights within our value chain. We use EcoVadis, a provider of independent business sustainability ratings, as a supplier assessment platform to analyse suppliers’ sustainability and corporate responsibility practice and to encourage an ongoing supplier relationship based on continuous improvements.
For a more in-depth understanding of potential human rights risks, we use SEDEX. Our aim is for 100% of our Tier 1 direct suppliers to complete SEDEX onboarding through the self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ). To date, we have onboarded 69% of our direct suppliers.
Supplier scoring breakdown
Not onboarded
15.9%
Insufficient
0.0%
Partial
9.8%
Good
37.1%
Advanced
36.6%
Outstanding
1.5%
45%
of our suppliers meet their updated target of the total required score and the minimum score per pillar.
Read more
69%
of Tier 1 direct suppliers completed SEDEX onboarding: target is 100% by 2025.
54
SEDEX Audits across our direct supplier base.
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Profit Pledge
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Human rights risk assessment & policy 2024
Based on our geographical and operational footprint, a scan of different sources including a peer analysis, desktop research, and internal stakeholder engagement, we compiled an exhaustive list of potential human rights at risk across our value chain. To ensure we prioritised the most significant human rights impacts, we assessed the severity (the scale, scope, and irremediability) and likelihood of the impacts throughout our value chain.
To safeguard and promote human rights throughout the value chain and minimise human rights risks, we have a set of preventive measures concerning our own business area and our direct suppliers. We continuously review and improve those preventive measures in light of our ongoing risk management process. See Image for the mapping of our salient human rights issues across the value chain and corresponding preventive measures. You can read more about our salient issues in our Human Rights Policy (2024).
Details of Human Rights Policy 2024 (PDF)
Ecovadis
The EcoVadis assessment is one of the most renowned evaluation tools, which entails an extensive survey on the suppliers’ practices on environment, labour and human rights, procurement, ethics, and sustainability.
We require our suppliers to complete the EcoVadis assessment, and we expect all our onboarded suppliers to obtain at least a score of good (total score between 45-64 points). For our key strategic suppliers, we set the goal of reaching advanced (total score between 65-84 points) in their EcoVadis assessment. Additionally, as part of our commitment, we now require all our suppliers to reach a minimum score of 45 points per EcoVadis pillar.
As shown in the right side, our suppliers perform well overall. Still, we believe it is important to include the required minimum score per pillar in the target. This helps us raise the bar and aim for continuous improvement. As a result of this recent update, 45% of our suppliers are meeting their target of the total required score and the minimum score per pillar.
Additionally, we are onboarding our strategic indirect suppliers on EcoVadis, representing 50% of our managed indirect spend by 2025.
Supplier scoring
breakdown
Not onboarded
15.9%
Insufficient
0.0%
Partial
9.8%
Good
37.1%
Advanced
36.6%
Outstanding
1.5%
Assessment themes
Environment
Labour & Human Rights
Ethics
Sustainable Procurement
Sedex
The self-assessment questionnaire is just the first step in identifying potential risks as we perform additional onsite audits through SEDEX.
In 2024, we conducted 54 audits across our direct supplier base, comprising a mix of announced, non-announced, and semi-announced audits. We discuss the audit findings with our suppliers and, where appropriate, support them with corrective actions to manage issues and ensure continuous improvement. We usually insist on follow-up actions and improvements be complete within six months, or sooner if the severity of the impact necessitates it. We also require our strategic indirect suppliers with actual plants to complete SEDEX onboarding, with a target of 100%.