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Article

23 May 2018

Author:
Gisela Burckhardt, FEMNET e.V. (Germany)

Speech by Gisela Burckhardt, FEMNET, at Zalando's Annual General Meeting on 23 May 2018 in Berlin

This is an unofficial summary translation by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. The full document in German is available below.

"Zalando: What the company writes and what it does", 23 May 2018

1. Sustainability - Seals: ...Zalando, through its portal, mainly offers non-sustainable fashion. Zalando only has a small choice of sustainable products... Zalando does not make use of its popularity and market leadership to increase the share of clothes and shoes produced in a fair manner. Instead, the company focuses on stepping up consumption and related resource use...

2. Transparency: ...Not even tier 1, that is the garment manufacturing stage of the supply chain, is disclosed for Zalando's own brands. Other brands have gone much beyond, such as Esprit, Hugo Boss, Tchibo, Lidl, Aldi, and many more... Question: When will Zalando disclose its supply chain?

3. Supply chain of Zalando's own brands - Auditing: ...Your Code of Conduct mainly contains self-evidence that is already covered by the law... Zalando analysed 506 audit reports: What was the result? The annual report does not include any information on this! Other companies state explicitly where the problems are... 

4. Zalando's suppliers in Bangalore - Lacking childcare in factories: ...FEMNET and our partner in India, Cividep, wrote a letter to Zalando in January 2018. Two of its suppliers have no adequate childcare - which is required by Indian law - in place in their factories...

5. SAC [Sustainable Apparel Coalition] membership: Question: Why is Zalando not member of the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles?

6. Proportion of women in management positions on the Executive and Supervisory Board: There are currently no women on the three-member Executive Board. Only two out of nine Supervisory Board members are women. At the management level below the Executive Board: only 11% - to be increased to 25% in 2022...