Supre

OVERALL
Owned	AUS
Rating

Teen female fashion retailer

Founded in 1984 by Hans and Helen van der Meulen. Operates across Australia and New Zealand. Clothes are designed in Australia and made locally and offshore. Acquired by Cotton On in Oct 2013.

Company Ownership


Supre Holdings Pty Ltd	AUS	website	email
Cotton On Clothing Pty Ltd owns 100% of Supre Holdings Pty Ltd	AUS	website	email
Clothing Established in 1991 in Geelong. Today they have over 600 stores in Australia, NZ, Singapore and Hong Kong. Acquired Supre in Oct 2013.

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Company Assessment

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INFORMATION

Supre Holdings Pty Ltd

Sexualised advertisements

Supre has been criticised for sexualised television commercials, posters and shirts. As shown on the Collective Shout website, the Advertising Standards Bureau upheld complaints with regards to a poster on the grounds that it sexualised children, in breach of advertising codes.
Source: Collective Shout (2011)

Supre Foundation

The Supre Foundation aims to empower girls globally. 100% of proceeds they raise through the sale of their charity products go directly to supporting Supre Foundation projects in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Source: company website (2017)

Cotton On Clothing Pty Ltd

Cruelty free company

This company has either signed PETA's statement of assurance or provided a statement verifying that they do not conduct or commission any animal tests.
Source: PETA (2020)

Bangladesh Safety Accord signatory

This company has signed the 'Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh', a program endorsed by Bangladeshi and international unions and labor rights organizations. The ground-breaking program includes independent safety inspections with public reports, mandatory factory building renovations, the obligation by brands and retailers to underwrite the cost of repairs, and a vital role for workers and their unions all in a legally-binding, enforceable agreement.
Source: Bangladesh Accord (2019)

COVID Fashion Commitments

In 2020 Baptist World Aid Australia released The COVID Fashion Report, a special edition of their Ethical Fashion Report. The report is framed around six COVID Fashion Commitments that ask companies to demonstrate the steps and measures they are taking to protect and support the most vulnerable workers in their supply chains. This company showed evidence of actions that cover ALL areas of the COVID Fashion Commitments.
Source: Baptist World Aid Australia (2020)

Efforts to pay a living wage

Oxfam Australia's Company Tracker compares the big clothing brands on their efforts to pay a living wage to the women working in their factories. This company has released the names and addresses of at least 70% of their supplier factories, has taken some action towards paying a living wage within a set timeframe in the supply chain, and has made a commitment to ringfence wages.
Source: Oxfam Australia (2021)

Turkmen Cotton Pledge signatory

This company has signed the Cotton Pledge with the Responsible Sourcing Network, signifying a public commitment to not knowingly source Turkmen cotton for the manufacturing of any of their products until the Government of Turkmenistan ends the practice of forced labor in its cotton sector. Each cotton season, Turkmen public sector workers are forced by the government to fulfill cotton picking quotas and private businesses are forced to contribute to the efforts financially or with labor. This places a huge burden on the health, education, and general well-being of Turkmen citizens.
Source: Responsible Sourcing Network (2021)

Transparency Pledge

The Apparel and Footwear Supply Chain Transparency Pledge (Transparency Pledge) helps demonstrate apparel and footwear companies' commitment towards greater transparency in their manufacturing supply chain. Transparency of a company's manufacturing supply chain better enables a company to collaborate with civil society in identifying, assessing, and avoiding actual or potential adverse human rights impacts. This is a critical step that strengthens a company's human rights due diligence. This company is fully aligned with the Transparency Pledge, thereby committing to regularly publish on its website a list naming all sites that manufacture its products.
Source: Transparency Pledge (2019)

Workers rights in Bangladesh

According to Oxfam's 2019 report, "Made in Poverty - The True Cost of Fashion", this company sources from Bangladesh and Vietnam. Some of the many disturbing findings of the research in Bangladesh were that 100 per cent of workers interviewed were not paid a living wage, nine out of ten could not afford enough food for themselves and their families until their next monthly pay and seven out of 10 could not pay for medical treatment when they were sick or injured. In Vietnam, 99 per cent were not paid a living wage and seven out of 10 women interviewed felt their pay was not enough to meet their needs.
Source: Oxfam Australia (2019)

18/100 in Fashion Transparency Index

The 2021 Fashion Transparency Index reviewed 250 of the world's largest fashion brands and retailers and ranked them according to how much they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices and impacts. Brands owned by this company scored 18%, signifying it makes some efforts to manage and improve their supply chains but make little supply chain information publicly available. The average score was 23% and the highest score was 78%.
Source: Fashion Revolution (2021)

Fined over product safety

In 2012 Cotton On was fined $1 million for selling children's sleepwear that was deemed so flammable it shouldn't have even been sold in Australia. Cotton On have also been at the centre of a number of controversies over the past few years including advertising bungles and an underpayment scandal. [Listed under Information due to age of court finding]
Source: news article (2012)

Forced by back-pay $278,000 to workers

In July 2010 Cotton On back-paid 3289 of its employees more than $278,000 after it was discovered the company had failed to pay staff for attending training out of working hours. Cotton On Clothing Pty Ltd entered into an enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman whereby the company posted an apology on Facebook, sent Human Resources managers to workplace compliance training and agreed to provide 3 consecutive annual reports on its active compliance.
Source: Fair Work Ombudsman (2010)

The Full Federal Court of Australia ordered Cotton On Clothing Pty Ltd to pay damages of $280,000 to Elwood Clothing Pty Ltd after finding that Cotton On Clothing Pty Ltd had infringed the copyright of T-shirt and swing-tag designs belonging to Elwood Cothing Pty Ltd.
Source: Australasian Legal Information Institute (2009)

Uzbek Cotton Pledge signatory

This company signed the Uzbek Cotton Pledge with the Responsible Sourcing Network, signifying a public commitment to not knowingly source Uzbek cotton for the manufacturing of any of their products until the Government of Uzbekistan ends the practice of forced labor in its cotton sector. However the Pledge was lifted in March 2022 after the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, who monitored the annual cotton harvest since 2010, found no state-imposed forced labor in the 2021 harvest.
Source: Cotton Campaign (2022)

Angora ban

This company has taken angora items off the shelves and promised not to use angora again, following a PETA campaign launched in Dec 2013 which revealed the cruelty inflicted on angora rabbits in Chinese factory farms, where 90% of the world's angora is produced.
Source: PETA (2018)

Cotton On Foundation

The Cotton On Foundation raises funds through the sale of charity items, such as reusable shopping bags, in Cotton On Group stores. With these funds they assist several project and other charities.
Source: company website (2020)

Supplier Factory Disclosure List

This company is one of of a handful of major Australian fashion retailers to publish the names and addresses of their supplier factories.
Source: company website (2016)

Ethics claims

This company has ethics claims on its website under the headings of sustainability, community partnerships and ethical sourcing.
Source: company website (2021)

Better Cotton Initiative member

This company is a member of the Better Cotton Initiative, a voluntary initiative which encourages the adoption of better management practices in cotton cultivation to achieve measurable reductions in key environmental impacts, while improving social and economic benefits for cotton farmers, small and large, worldwide.
Source: Better Cotton Initiative (2019)

ACT participant

This company is a participant in the Action, Collaboration, Transformation (ACT) initiative, an initiative between international brands and retailers, manufacturers, and trade unions to address the issue of living wages in the textile and garment supply chain.
Source: IndustriALL (2021)

Sedex member

This company is a member of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex), a not-for-profit, membership organisation that leads work with buyers and suppliers to deliver improvements in responsible and ethical business practices in global supply chains. Tens of thousands of companies use Sedex to manage their performance around labour rights, health & safety, the environment and business ethics.
Source: Sedex (2018)

Modern Slavery statement

California, the UK and Australia have all enacted legislation requiring companies operating within their borders to disclose their efforts to eradicate modern slavery from their operations and supply chains. Follow the link to see this company's disclosure statement.
Source: Modern Slavery Registry (2016)

B grade in 2021 Ethical Fashion Report

B grade in Baptist World Aid Australia's '2021 Ethical Fashion Report', which grades companies, from A to F, on the strength of their systems to mitigate against the risks of forced labour, child labour and worker exploitation in their supply chains, as well as protect the environment from the harmful impacts of the fashion industry. Assessment criteria fall into five main categories: policy & governance, tracing & risk, auditing and supplier relationships, worker empowerment and environmental sustainability.
Source: Baptist World Aid Australia (2021)

2/4 for purchasing practices

In 2020 Oxfam evaluated several clothing brand's purchasing practices across seven categories: whether a brand provides accurate forecasts of upcoming work to factories; its price negotiation strategies; whether a factory's environmental and social compliance influences the brand's purchasing decisions; how a brand places orders with factories; what its payment terms are; commitment to pay a living wage; and the transparency of a brand's supply chain. This company was given a score of 2 with 4 being the highest possible score.
Source: Oxfam Australia (2020)

Forced labour in China

In early 2017, China's Communist Party began a new incarceration campaign, rounding up, detaining and forcibly indoctrinating over 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minority ethnic groups in the far-western region. A coalition of more than 180 human rights groups is calling on apparel brands and retailers to stop using forced labour in the Uyghur Region and end their complicity in the Chinese government's human rights abuses. In 2019 the ABC reported that this company stopped buying cotton from the region over human rights concerns.
Source: ABC (2019)

Licensing agreement with Time Warner

In 2013 Cotton On Kids, the childrenswear arm of Cotton On, teamed up with Warner Bros Consumer Products Australia and New Zealand (part of media conglomerate Time Warner). Starting Jan 2014 Cotton On Kids selected baby and children's apparel and accessories will be sporting DC Comics' Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman designs. Time Warner is the world's largest media conglomerate.
Source: Ragtrader (2013)

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Company Details

Type	Wholly-owned subsidiary
Revenue	219 million AUD (2012)
Employees	2682 (2012)

Contact Details

Address	1a Sydney Steel Rd, Marrickville, NSW, 2204, Australia
Phone	02 9550 4200
Website	www.supre.com.au

Supre

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