

UPHOLDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND PROTECTING OUR WORKERS

No child labour
Work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.
No discrimination
Distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, gender, religion (among other characteristics), “which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity and treatment in employment or occupation”.
No forced labour
Situations in which persons are coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation, or by more subtle means such as accumulated debt, retention of identity papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities.
Fair pay
A living income or living wage should provide for food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transportation as well as offer the opportunity to save in case of unexpected events.
Work safety
Health and safety in the workplace must be guaranteed. Contravening fundamental human rights in terms of working conditions, equipment and facilities in the workplace is prohibited. Employees must be given adequate, regular training on health and safety in the workplace.
Freedom of association
An important aspect of employee rights is the freedom to form employee representative bodies. We therefore aim to promote freedom of association to allow workers to organise themselves effectively and engage with stakeholders to better understand and overcome the barriers to freedom of association.
Further Information
Our full Code of Conduct can be downloaded here
Human rights due diligence
As part of our commitment to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), we implement human rights due diligence as part of our business operations. This means that we systematically monitor and assess human rights risks in our supply chains. Our risk assessment process is informed by greater transparency, our social compliance programme, internationally recognised assessment tools, as well as knowledge gathered through our supplier relationships and engagement with stakeholders.
Over the last year, the Lidl Group conducted a human rights review of its global supply chains, enabling us to better understand the risks facing people who work in our supply chains. More information on our approach, as well as further information on the high risk commodities and countries identified through the process, can be found within our ‘Human Rights in the Supply Chain Policy’.
Human Rights Impact Assessments
As part of our human rights due diligence approach, we are committed to conducting and publishing three human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) per year across the Lidl Group, in line with internationally recognised methodologies. So far we have conducted HRIA’s based on Kenyan tea, Spanish berries and bananas from Colombia. You can learn about all our HRIA’s here.
Gender Equality in the Supply Chain

Effective grievance mechanisms
Access to an effective grievance mechanism for employees in global supply chains is an essential part of corporate due diligence, in order to uncover human rights risks and potential rights violations. In practice this often poses a challenge, as employees with varying circumstances - e.g. language skills, access to technology, cultural differences – should all have equal access to an effective grievance mechanism.
Lidl recognises ‘effective grievance mechanisms’ as defined by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), meaning that they are legitimate, accessible, predictable, equitable, transparent, rights-compatible, a source of continuous learning and based on engagement and dialogue. Grievance mechanisms form part of our Supplier Code of Conduct and we firmly believe that when these are implemented effectively, human rights violations can be better identified and thereby remediated in a meaningful way.
Lidl has therefore set itself the goal of piloting grievance mechanisms in various supply chains, in order to identify scalable and effective approaches. As a first step, we have started to pilot grievance mechanisms in three high risk supply chains:
Berries, Spain
As part of this pilot project, we have worked with our partner Elevate on a new, effective grievance mechanism for workers in the berry sector in Huelva, Spain. The grievance mechanism will be piloted with selected producers as part of the 2021/2022 harvest season. This mechanism has multiple grievance channels, including a hotline operated by trained staff, as well as the ability to report complaints via Whatsapp. Complaints are accepted in any language and verbal exchange with the hotline employees is possible in Spanish, Arabic and English. All workers are trained in the use of the grievance mechanism. As the majority of the workers on site are women from North Africa and Eastern Europe, all hotline employees are women. We will evaluate this pilot after the end of the harvest season, and report on results and next steps.
Coconut milk, Vietnam
In Vietnam we are piloting a grievance mechanism which is provided by the service provider Ulula in cooperation with Amfori. This is a mechanism that is tested in both non-food and food sectors. Lidl is participating in this project with production facilities in both the textile and coconut milk sector. As part of this pilot, workers are provided with various channels to share their grievance. As several clients are often active in a production facility, grievances are investigated formally with the involvement of a third party and remedial measures are developed. The pilot will run until mid-2022 and will continue thereafter with the potential for scaling up the project.
Palm oil
We are working with our suppliers Griesson - de Beukelaer and Cargill to pilot an effective grievance mechanism in the palm oil sector. As part of the pilot, we will work with selected palm oil suppliers and their palm oil plantations to evaluate whether the grievance mechanism is suitable for a further roll-out in other regions or in relation to other product groups. The pilot is currently in the development phase and is expected to run until the end of 2022.
Working towards Living Wages

Transparency

Responsible Recruitment

Lidl also works collaboratively to go beyond audit and drive change at an industry level:
In order to compliment social audits we are taking actions in our highest risk food supply chains.
- Within the Spanish fresh produce sector, which is a key source for a wide proportion of our fruit and veg lines (including berries, brassicas and citrus), we pool pre-competitive data with other retailers to identify priority topics areas relating to human rights risks. Areas for further capacity building are identified and implemented through supplier training sessions in the Spanish Ethical Trade supplier forums.
- Through our work as part of the Retail Cocoa Collaboration, we are working with other retailers to use our collective leverage to assess the actions and progress being made by major cocoa traders working across the industry and multiple cocoa sourcing regions, on issues such as forced and child labour, incomes and deforestation. This process is raising awareness of the importance of these topics with powerful supply chain actors and maps areas of risk and improvement. The insights gained will be used to guide next steps.
- In the global banana industry we are working collaboratively with our supplier, the World Banana Forum and Fairtrade to go beyond audit and increase incomes and wages. These interventions will impact all identified high-risk countries including Colombia, Belize, Brazil and Costa Rica among many others.
Smallholders
We recognise the need to support smallholder farmers to increase their resilience and prosperity. We have implemented a range of programs to support smallholder farmers within many of our key commodity supply chains.
Within the Fairtrade system it is estimated that more than 1.48 million farmers are members of small-scale producer organisations, a large majority of Fairtrade producers, producing products including coffee, cocoa and cotton. The Fairtrade Standard provides a framework for smallholder producers to build resilient and thriving organisations, generate more benefits for themselves and their communities and improve farming practices. By supporting Fairtrade producer organisations have access to training on how to strengthen their management practices and provide protection for workers. The Fairtrade Premium allows small-scale producers to drive sustainable social and economic development for their organisations, families and community. In addition, co-operatives have the flexibility to design relevant policies, including gender, to increase active and equal participation for women to access the benefits associated with Fairtrade.
Our programmes in high risk supply chains are developed and implemented in close collaboration with expert partners. Examples include improving resilience to the impacts of climate change, training towards better agricultural practices, as well as supporting women on the issue of land-rights.
Working with our non-food suppliers
We have been a member of the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) since 2007, committing us to improving working conditions for people employed in our non-food supply chains. As part of the membership, Lidl’s non-food suppliers are required to regularly carry out independent social audits by qualified local personnel for all non-food producers and to comply with recognised international labour standards.
Recognising that audits only present us with a snapshot in time and do not necessarily drive improvements in themselves, we work to understand the root cause of the issues and take appropriate remediating steps. Expert partners work closely with our factories to develop and implement corrective actions following an audit.
Since 2008, we have also focused on going ‘beyond compliance’ in Bangladesh, working in partnership with the German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ) to provide dedicated training programmes for production facilities to support compliance with international labour standards. Our current joint programme focuses on Bangladesh, where GIZ currently employs more than 20 people who work exclusively for Lidl and to date have delivered on-the-ground training to 80 textile manufacturers across the country. Learn more about this training program here.
We are a member of the Bangladesh Accord, which is an independent, legally-binding agreement between brands and trade unions designed to work towards a safe and healthy Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry. Learn more about this program here.
Social auditing
