Brands including ASOS, Fred Perry, New Look and River Island are extending a package of beyond audit support to their suppliers to implement fair work standards and due diligence, free from exploitation, in their own operations and supply chains.

This new collaborative programme – from the not-for-profit Stronger Together – comes at a critical time as businesses prepare for new employment rights legislation, the planned new enforcement powers of the Fair Work Agency, updated modern slavery reporting guidelines and momentum towards mandatory human rights due diligence. The programme also extends support across the breadth of Sponsors’ UK supply chains including manufacturing, warehousing, importers and indirect supply chains like recycling.

As part of the programme, Sponsors and their suppliers will be able to access:

• Free places on a suite of open training courses including introduction to fair work, tackling modern slavery in UK apparel and general merchandise, embedding effective grievance mechanisms, and effective human rights due diligence in global supply chains.
• Peer to peer and multistakeholder opportunities to share challenges, good practice and opportunities for collaborative and systemic change.
• A new streamlined contextualised audit methodology to assess and demonstrate progress on fair work.

Hannah Newcomb, Co-CEO of Stronger Together commented: “We are delighted to launch this new programme for the UK Apparel and General Merchandise sector with Founding Sponsors: ASOS, Fred Perry, New Look and River Island. This new programme builds on the success of the Fast Forward initiative to move beyond audit and extend comprehensive capacity building support to Brands’ supply chains to embed fair work and due diligence, free from exploitation.”

Melissa Craft, Head of Sourcing at New Look, said: “At New Look, we are proud to support this programme and to work alongside our peers to raise standards across the UK apparel sector. As expectations around responsible business evolve, we know lasting change relies on collaboration, transparency and practical action. This support reflects New Look’s ongoing commitment to using data to build a more transparent, responsible and future-ready supply chain and industry”.

Adrian Stevenson at River Island added: “We are excited to be continuing our relationship with Stronger Together as part of the Apparel and General Merchandise sector programme. We see this new programme as a continuation of the Fast Forward legacy helping our suppliers and their factories to build strong compliant supply chains, meeting both ethical and legal standards in the UK”.

About Stronger Together

Stronger Together is an impact driven, not for profit organisation that provides businesses with practical training, resources, business services and collaborative programmes.

We work across three continents and within multiple sectors with many organisations to achieve our wider vision of a world where all workers are recruited responsibly and have fair work, free from exploitation.

The new Stronger Together UK Apparel and General Merchandise programme is the natural evolution of the Fast Forward initiative, that commenced in 2014 and formally merged as an initiative of Stronger Together in 2022. Activity under the Fast Forward banner will formally cease at the end of 2025. Current Brand Members of Fast Forward will have the opportunity to become Sponsors of the S2G A&GM programme when their membership renews.

Interested parties can contact: info@stronger2gether.org