Workers in global supply chains are critical to our everyday lives: they grow the food we eat, make the clothes we wear and keep products we need moving around the world. When you pick up an apple in our store, it’s been planted, grown, picked, packed and delivered to us. When you choose a new pair of jeans, the cotton has been grown, picked, dyed and weaved; the fabric has been cut, sewn, assembled, labelled and packed, all before making its way to our stores. Female workers play a critically important role in these supply chains. The vast majority of garment workers – approximately 80% - are women [1], however, the highest-paid positions in garment factories are majority male [2]. Within agriculture, women do the majority of the labour, yet men own the land they work on [3].  Empowering these women is essential for us to continue to serve our customers. Therefore, it’s vitally important that we recognise the unique challenges that women workers face and play our part in breaking down these barriers. We want to be part of a world where women can succeed and fulfil their full and vibrant potential.

Gender inequality is a global challenge

We know that women face unique challenges in the workplace – whether that’s on a farm, in a factory or any other setting. There are hidden barriers that limit women’s ability to engage and succeed in their work. For example, women often take on work that is invisible and unrecognised, such as unpaid family labour on farms. This invisibility, combined with issues such as gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and social expectations about what roles women should or shouldn’t play, all limit how women can equally participate in and benefit from working in global supply chains.

We also know that certain groups of women face further discrimination – for example, based on race or ethnicity, migrant status, social status, religion, disability, age, marital status, or sexual orientation. Where gender inequality intersects with other forms of discrimination, this contributes to making certain groups of women more vulnerable.

Women must not be left behind in a net-zero world

As part of our ambition to be a truly inclusive retailer, we want to push for change. Our approach to tackling gender inequality is framed by our commitment to being net-zero by 2035. As part of a just transition to net-zero, we want to place the people in our supply chains at the heart of our move to a low carbon world.

The global transition to net-zero will undoubtedly disrupt how global supply chains operate, and the roles of workers will change. We are committed to working seamlessly across our Plan for Better ambitions to understand where women work within our supply chains and the barriers they face. We will push for a just transition that protects women’s livelihoods and opportunities for work. For example, women’s land rights, access to technology and access to finance all impact their ability to participate and benefit in our agricultural supply chains, particularly as we move towards net zero.

We are ready to stand up and play our part in this global and complex challenge. This isn’t just the right thing to do – there is huge potential for businesses to benefit by making progress towards gender equity. For example, when women workers enjoy safe and secure working conditions, studies show that this leads to reduced turnover, higher productivity, and improved reputation [4].

Our approach to tackling gender inequality

We have a strong history of empowering women in our workforce and supply chains. We have signed up to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as the 30% Club and the Women in Finance Charter. We regularly publish gender-related data such as our gender pay gap, and more recently, our ethnicity pay gap. We encourage our suppliers to do the same through our Human Rights Policy and our Ethical Sourcing Policy:

• Our Human Rights Policy is aligned with the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the ILO Core Conventions. The policy outlines our human rights commitments - which include women’s rights - to our colleagues, customers and suppliers.

• Our Ethical Sourcing Policy requires all our suppliers to meet the Sainsbury’s Code of Conduct for Ethical Trade which is based on the ETI Base Code. This includes the principle of no discrimination – including equal pay for equal work, and no discrimination in access to employment, training, promotion or termination.

Our Board is committed to tackling gender inequality. Sainsbury’s Chief People Officer and member of our Operating Board, Prerana Issar, is responsible for our approach to human rights, which includes women’s rights. Our Gender Board Sponsors, Jim Brown and Rhian Bartlett, champion our work to create a better gender balance, including in our leadership teams, within Sainsbury’s.

Spotlight: learning from our success

By working collaboratively with our colleagues, we have developed impactful policies to support women and recognise the unique challenges they face. We aspire to learn from the successes in our own workforce when expanding our approach into our supply chains.

• We were the first FTSE100 company to include carers in our Parents and Carers policy, recognising that of the 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK, 58% - or 3.34 million - are women
• Our Colleague Guide to the Menopause was launched on World Menopause Day 2021, which aims to raise awareness of the different ways menopause can affect women in all aspects of their lives, including at work
• Training on inclusion is mandatory for line managers, reaching over 16,000 of our managers. Our colleague inclusion training has been completed by over 165,000 of our colleagues
• In the UK, almost one in three women aged 16-59 will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime. We have developed a guide to domestic abuse to support colleagues and line managers to identify domestic abuse and know what support is available to them
• Our Guide to Discrimination, Bullying, Harassment, Sexual Harassment and Victimisation is available to all our colleagues and outlines our zero-tolerance approach to discrimination against women, gender-based violence and harassment
• Supporting our colleagues at all stages of their careers is a big part of our commitment to be truly inclusive. Our Family Leave Policy was recently enhanced to recognise the important time away from work needed to have a family

Our commitments to tackling gender inequality

We are committed to respecting women’s rights across our supply chains - it is critically important to us that the women who grow or make our products are not being exploited or exposed to unsafe working conditions. In order to see real changes for women, we commit to:

1. Encouraging all our suppliers to sign up to UN women’s empowerment principles and publish gender-related data through our human rights and sustainable sourcing policies
2. Tracking the gender profile of our supply chains, including the proportion of women working in our supply chain, the proportion of women in trade unions and/or worker committees and the proportion of women in supervisory positions.  By understanding the gender profile of our supply chains, we are better placed to respond to the challenges faced by women workers 
   
   

We have ambitious plans for the future

In 2022 we published our human rights saliency report which identified discrimination, including gender-based discrimination, as a salient human rights risk for our business. As part of our efforts to build on our work to promote gender equality to tackle discrimination more broadly in our value chain, we have set commitments which you can read about in more detail on our human rights page. 

Only by working together will we see systemic changes for women

If one thing is clear, it’s that tackling the global issue of gender inequality is not something that Sainsbury’s can achieve alone. Collaboration with other stakeholders will be essential to drive change and improve the situation of women in our supply chains. Collaboration with our suppliers, other retailers, and non-government organisations, with goals and ambitions in line with ours, will help us create the level of change we need to see. We will continue to support our suppliers to help them achieve their gender ambitions, and we will continue to engage with other initiatives on gender equality. Together, we can create truly inclusive and sustainable supply chains that value women in the workforce and help them fulfil their full potential.