...We attach great importance to creating transparency and ethical conditions in the supply chain of our young private labels (zLabels), as demonstrated through various measures (social standards, audit programs, Factory Improvement Program, etc). We currently publish the number of suppliers and factories with which zLabels cooperates as well as the sourcing countries and respective volume of goods sourced in percent in the Annual Report...

...In recent years, the team has worked hard to build closer relationships with suppliers and implement programs to improve the factories that go beyond auditing and support factories "on the ground”. We have transparently communicated all capacity-building measures and training programs that zLabels implements in sourcing countries with partners such as ILO Better Work. 20% of zLabels products are currently manufactured in factories participating in one of these programs, which zLabels plans to expand to 25% by the end of this year. Many challenges in this area cannot be solved alone and we therefore actively participate in industry alliances.

We have placed a large focus on creating traceability throughout our supply chain to firstly understand where our products are coming from beyond our Tier 1 suppliers and will continue this work in the coming years. zLabels' goal is to publish the most important strategic Tier 1 business partners that make up a large part of the business by the end of 2019 and to continuously expand this list. We recognize that many of the problems we face are endemic in the fashion industry and that this work marks the beginning of a long journey of collaboration with other brands, organizations, consultancies, NGOs and governments. As a young company, this represents a great challenge for zLabels, which the team is actively taking on...

We are aware of our responsibility towards people and the environment in our supply chain... All suppliers, factories and business partners must sign our Code of Conduct, which is based on the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO)... Our procurement standards are available for download on our website: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/corporate-responsibility/downloads-and-contact