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Lacoste

OVERALL

Owned
SWI
Rating
Praises, some criticism

Clothing and accessories

French apparel company founded 1933 which licences its trademark to various companies including Devanlay SA. It operates worldwide through department stores and its own boutiques. Acquired by Maus Freres SA in November 2012.

Company Ownership

Lacoste SA   FRA     website   email   facebook   twitter
  Maus Freres SA   
   owns 100% of Lacoste SA  
SWI     website   email      

Holding company

Established in Geneva in 1902, and still owned by the founding Maus and Nordmann clans. Switzerland's largest retailer. Bought Devanlay in 1998, Gant in 2008 and Lacoste in 2012. Devanlay makes Lacoste clothing.

> About the Ratings

Company Assessment

PRAISE CRITICISM INFORMATION
Lacoste SA
Social 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)
Business Ethics 35/100 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 35%, signifying it is publishing suppliers lists as well as detailed information about their policies, procedures, social and environmental goals, supplier assessment and remediation processes, and is more likely to be addressing issues such as living wages and collective bargaining. The average score was 23% and the highest score was 78%.
Source: Fashion Revolution (2021)
Business Ethics 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)
Social Forced labour in China
The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including brands owned by this company. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute's 2020 report estimates (somewhat conservatively) that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps.
Source: ASPI (2020)
Environment Supply chain practices in China
This company received a score of 14/100 (retrieved 10-Oct-2020) in the Corporate Information Transparency Index (CITI), a system for evaluating supply chain practices in China, particularly in regards to environmental management and water pollution. Scores are calculated using government compliance data, online monitoring data, and third-party environmental audits, as well as trends in the environmental performance of factories in the company's supply chains.
Source: IPE (2020)
Environment Climate action commitments
As listed on the We Mean Business website, this company has committed to the following climate action initiatives: adopt a science-based emissions reduction target.
Source: We Mean Business (2021)
Social 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)
Animals Fur free
This company has announced that they don't sell animal fur or are phasing in a fur-free policy.
Source: Humane Society (2019)
Animals 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)
Social 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)
Social 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)
Maus Freres SA
No assessment data currently available for Maus Freres SA

> About the Icons

Company Details

Type Wholly-owned subsidiary
Employees 5,189 (2019)

Contact Details

Address Paris, France
Website www.lacoste.com

Products / Brands

Lacoste
Lacoste Menswear (casual)
Lacoste Sportswear


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