In the late 1980s, employees at Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO.) began to raise concerns about the working conditions of people making our products overseas. This led executives to begin work on a supplier code of conduct that would help to ensure all individuals making our products were being treated with dignity and respect and working in a safe and healthy environment.
In 1991, LS&CO. became the first multinational apparel company to establish a comprehensive ethical code of conduct for our manufacturing and finishing contractors. We called it our Global Sourcing and Operating Guidelines and it was comprised of two parts — The Country Assessment Guidelines, and our Business Partner Terms of Engagement.
At the time, many inside and outside the apparel industry were skeptical. In the years that followed, however, most major apparel brands established their own codes of conduct. Multi-stakeholder groups, such as the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), emerged with codes that would be adopted by their member companies. Today, codes of conduct are an apparel industry norm and are increasingly being adopted by companies in other sectors.
Our responsible sourcing program and our approach to working with our suppliers to implement it has come a long way since 1991, but the values that inspired this work haven’t changed.