Query: Ethical sourcing is irrelevant to me. Why do I need to commit to the ETI Base Code?
Context: We do not expect organisations to sign up to the Ethical Trading Initiative and recognise that for non-trading organisations, the Base Code may not seem relevant.
There is an established principle of leverage in due diligence, which reduces your responsibility the less you consume. If an organisation does not buy very much, it would be disproportionate to expect them to spend as much time checking suppliers as we would expect a large trading organisation to. Every organisation should still do something – we recommend a modern slavery act statement which outlines the steps it takes to avoid human rights abuse in its services and supplies. With agency staff, which can be an area of risk, we would recommend an organisation ask the companies they use to supply labour for their own policies on avoiding abuse and ethical practices.