Apparel and Footwear Sector Company Disclosure

In 2022/2023, KnowTheChain assessed the 65 largest global apparel and footwear companies on their efforts to address forced labor risks in their supply chains. In addition to assessing information available on companies’ websites, KnowTheChain invited benchmarked companies over a period of two months (July-September 2023) to review the information identified and to disclose additional information.

Please find below details on the engagement with each company.

*KnowTheChain assesses engagement levels similarly to the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark:

• “Yes” indicates that a company participated in the research process by having an engagement call with KnowTheChain or submitted links or additional disclosure to KnowTheChain during the engagement period (July to September 2023).
• “Informal” engagement means a company had some form of contact with KnowTheChain between April 2022 and October 2023. This could include an email enquiring about KnowTheChain or its benchmarking methodology or a call outside the engagement period.
• “No” means a company did not interact with KnowTheChain between April 2022 and October 2023 (beyond confirming a point of contact for KnowTheChain, confirming receipt of research, or stating it declines to provide additional information).

Previous company engagement process for the 2018 and 2016 benchmarks:

• 2018: To reduce the reporting burden for companies, ahead of the 2018 benchmarks, we asked companies to respond to 2-3 questions to point us in the direction of relevant disclosure. Further, we provided companies an opportunity to review the initial research findings, and to provide additional disclosure for indicators where disclosure was missing.
• 2016: Ahead of benchmark publication, we had invited companies to response to a set of engagement questions that correspond to the benchmark methodology.

** Information made available by benchmarked companies outside the 2018 and 2016 disclosure periods is available here.

For further details on the human rights impacts of companies around the world, see the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s website.