IS BURBERRY A HIGHLY ETHICAL COMPANY?

An ethical company is a company that does not cause or harm the earth, misuses its
labor by paying low salaries, using child labor, or producing unsafe or harmful products for the
public. Ethical conduct can generally be described as acting in ways consistent with what
society and people typically believe to be good values. Ethical conduct is helpful to companies
as a highly ethical business demonstrates that they care about the company's authenticity,
nobility and client rights. Burberry can be classified as an extremely ethical business. This can
be seen through many of their efforts to avoid harming the environment by their product.
Burberry has used the Ethical Trading Initiative Code of Conduct. Other than that, Burberry has
taken steps to reduce waste by a partnership with Elvis and Kresse. Lastly, Burberry has
stopped the practice of destroying the unsaleable product.

Burberry business operations are guided by their Responsible Business Principles, including
their Code of Conduct for Ethical Trading and Responsible Sourcing Policy. Whenever they look
to work with a new partner or material in the supply chain, they have procedures and processes
in place to assess potential risk and evaluate new partners or products against coherent ethical
trading norms and accountable sourcing requirements. Thus, all of their supply chain partners
need to agree with Burberry Responsible Business Principles.

Burberry Ethical Trading Code of Conduct establishes the norms they maintain in relation to
their staff and in relation to their supply chain partners. Targets were set and incorporated into
the performance goals of Burberry sourcing teams as well as at an individual level to support
fair and accountable work practices. Both existing and potential new vendors are audited
against international labor standards, especially where local labor laws are weak, absent or
poorly implemented. This can be seen from their vendor ownership program in 2013. It is a
capacity building program with strategic Italian vendors to increase their ability in managing their
working conditions at their subcontractors and brings their ethical trading monitoring programs.

Next, Burberry is a highly ethical company. This can be proved in a recent announcement by
Burberry that they will no longer be using a real fur in its product and would cut out current
product produced from real fur. Most consumers don't want to have anything to do with the fur
cruelty, so this is the correct choice taken by Burberry. According to CEO Marco Gobbetti's
interview on Fashion Business. Burberry bans rabbit, fox, mink, and Asian raccoon fur, as well
as angora, starting with the debut set of Riccardo Tisci this September 17. Shearling and leather
will continue to be used in collections and the remaining fur products will be phased out of the
line slowly. The new fur-free policy of Burberry is a component of a shift in the luxury sector.
Brands including Gucci have produced government statements about their products being fur-
free over the previous 18 months. The Humane Society, which argued in fashion against fur,
issued a declaration praising Burberry for choosing to enter the ranks of these fur-free products.
"We are pleased that this iconic British fashion giant is lastly going fur-free," said a Humane
Society U.K. member

Lastly, In addition to not using fur in its product, Burberry has promised to stop destroyed or
burning their unsaleable product. The retailer had previously been discovered to have set an
ablaze of roughly 28.6 million pounds of products at the end of the fiscal year 2017–2018. Last
year, the British fashion house destroyed unsold £ 28.6 m of products to protect its brand and
prevent the unwanted stock from being sold at knockdown prices, taking the value of destroyed
items to £ 105 m over the previous five years. The FTSE 100 firm now claims that all unsaleable
products will be reused, repaired, donated or recycled. Burberry is the first significant
corporation to end the practice of destroying undesirable products openly. His chief executive,
Marco Gobbetti, said he hoped others would follow suit in the sector. Gobbetti said: "Modern
luxury implies a responsibility for society and the environment. At Burberry, this faith is central to
us and the key to our long-term achievement. We are dedicated to applying the same creativity
as we do to our products to all components of Burberry. Thus this concludes that Burberry is a
highly ethical company.