The Sourcing Team Ltd Code of Conduct and Business Ethics 2025
The Sourcing Team is an ethical sourcing company, designing and creating branded marketing materials that bring brands to life – all ethically sourced, fantastically creative and driving the message for sustainability up and down the supply chain.
We have a robust approach to assessing and onboarding our supplier partners, this process includes review of policy, processes, factory audits and general company approach to sustainable business practices.
The Sourcing Team created their own constant improvement process, through their own program, Ethical Promotional Product Strategic Alliance, established in conjunction with Oxfam. We like to review our supply partners development and feed in where we find potential gaps and room for improvement.
Supplier Code:
1. Compliance of Laws
• Suppliers shall always conform with all applicable laws and regulations.
2. Labour Standards and Human Rights
The Sourcing Team are committed to upholding all laws relating to the protection of human rights, to ensure dignity, fairness, equality, respect and independence. We expect our supply partners to work to the UN Guiding Principles and the ETI base code.
We encourage our supply partners to join SEDEX to promote transparency throughout the supply chain and as a minimum, we expect that:
• All employment is freely chosen and there is no forced or bonded labour.
• All workers have freedom of association and the right to create and /or join a trade union or workers committee to enable collective bargaining without discrimination.
• All working conditions will be safe and hygienic with access to clean portable water and clean sanitary conditions. Adequate Health and Safety provision should be made including H & S training and recorded training and accidents. Accommodation, where provided should be safe, clean and meet basic needs.
• Child labour (under 15 years, 14 in exceptional circumstances) must not be used and under 18s must not do night or hazardous work.
• All staff should be paid a minimum wage in accordance with local laws and where possible this should be a ‘living’ wage designed to meet the living costs of workers. No deductions (unless allowed by local law) should be made from pay without the express permission of the worker.
• Working hours should comply to local laws and all overtime should be voluntary and paid at a premium rate.
• All workers should be employed without discrimination based on gender, race, religion, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation or political affiliation. This also applies to training and promotions.
• No harsh or Inhumane treatment of workers is allowed – including verbal, physical or sexual abuse.
• Regular employment is provided, and the use of subcontracting should not be used merely to avoid providing worker benefits and training.
• Take all reasonable steps to ensure that modern slavery is not present within the supply chain and train staff adequality to know what to look for.
3. Environmental Standards
As part of our ISO14001:2015 accreditation we assess our environmental impacts and try to reduce these wherever possible. We actively promote the purchase of sustainable products, and where required, sustainable packaging, with products designed to have an end of life plan, which can be communicated to our clients and the end user.
We ask that our suppliers:
• Minimise the use of packaging and reuse/recycle wherever possible.
• Have an environmental policy to be available on request, detailing what measures are being taken to reduce carbon emissions, reduce water use, reduce waste and minimise environmental impact.
• Where possible to use renewable energy.
• Ensure that all products produced with a sustainable claim (i.e., GOTS, FSC, Fairtrade, GRS etc.) have available 3rd Party certifications.
• To be focused on reduction of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions year on year to meet the 2030 targets.
4. Business Ethics
We expect our suppliers to adhere to the highest standards of business ethics. These include but are not limited to:
• Bribery and Corruption – there is no place in modern society for bribery or corruption in any form and suppliers should take steps to ensure this is not occurring within the supply chain.
• Anti-Competition is strictly forbidden and includes any form of price or bid rigging or attempting to agree prices to starve competition. These and other illegal or unethical practices are not permitted in any shape or form.
• We expect all suppliers to act fairly towards us and others in their supply chain and abide by all applicable laws and legislation.
5. Data Security
We expect all suppliers to work to the principles of GDPR and to take adequate measures to ensure any data supplied by us or our clients is protected and secure. We also expect all supplier staff to maintain confidentiality on projects to ensure there are no breaches and should there be any concern to inform The Sourcing Team immediately.
We would expect that the current policies will be available on request:
• Privacy Policy & Data Security
• Records Retention Policy
• Individual Security Policy
• Password Compromise Policy
Where possible to gain Cyber Essentials, The Sourcing Team are currently going through the process.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberessentials/overview
As part of our working relationship, we will also expect our preferred supplier partners to participate in our supplier review every two years.
Why does all this matter? We want to be able to demonstrate we are a responsible business taking action to protect people and planet – no ‘tick boxing’. We are committed to doing the right thing down the supply chain from a human-rights, environmental, community and compliance perspective. This is a collaborative process, we are keen to share insights and work together with our supply partners, leading the way to be best in class.
Gill Thorpe, FCIPS, Chartered, CEO