As corporate citizens, we strive to balance social and environmental standards with innovative business solutions. We recognize the importance of responsibly sourced materials and are committed to working with supply chain business partners that are dedicated to safe, humane, and ethical working conditions that comply with international labor standards.
Our Production Code of Conduct clarifies the minimum standards that factories and suppliers with whom Wolverine Worldwide conducts business are required to satisfy in conducting their operations.
View the Production Code of Conduct
Our partners business’ must be carried out with a high degree of ethics, honesty and fair dealings. All production partners are required to conduct their business in compliance with all applicable legal requirements.
To help us conduct business ethically and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, Wolverine Worldwide operates an ethics hotline known as the Wolverine Reportline – a confidential and anonymous tool for reporting possible violations of the Wolverine Worldwide Code of Business Conduct, the law, or reporting suspected unethical practices.
We require manufacturing processes to minimize the adverse effects on the community, environment and natural resources while safeguarding the health and safety of the public. This includes meeting all relevant local and national environmental protection laws, with the goal of meeting international environment protection standards.
Our production partners must commit to upholding the human rights of workers, to treating them with dignity and respect, and to improving working conditions within their supply chain.
View the Anti-Human Trafficking and Transparency in Supply Chain Statement
Production partners must comply with applicable U.S. Customs importing laws and security processes, including without limitation C-TPAT (Customs – Trade Partnership Against Terrorism), or any other applicable importing laws or securing processes of jurisdiction where the products will be shipped.
All production partners maintain accurate records and information and permit us or our representatives to periodically conduct announced and unannounced audits of such records and information.
Wolverine considers numerous factors in selecting new production partners, such as location, manufacturing capabilities, reputation, and most importantly the ability to comply with our Code of Conduct. We carefully consider geopolitical, infrastructure, human rights, and similar risks associated with regions where we have or are seeking to expand production to ensure alignment with our long-term sourcing strategy. Many of our production partners have operations in multiple locations to minimize potential production disruptions.
When a potential production partner is identified, our assessment process commences and a series of inspections are carried out by our internal teams and third parties. These inspections review manufacturing capabilities, compliance with our Code of Conduct, and the ability to satisfy our C-TPAT (Customs – Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) Tier III status. If a deficiency is discovered, we work with the production partner to establish a measurable corrective action plan and conduct periodic reassessments to ensure it is continually improving.
Wolverine is committed to long-term partnerships rooted in trust, open communication and a shared vision that fosters continual improvement and compliance with our Code of Conduct. We value all of our production partners, particularly our 33 core production partners, who account for a significant majority of our footwear production, and are in constant communication with them regarding best practices and current events impacting the industry. We also hold an annual summit with our core production partners. In addition to open communication, we routinely conduct social compliance audits through our internal teams and third parties to monitor compliance with our Code of Conduct. In 2016, we conducted more than 300 social compliance audits. We also proactively work with our production partners to address issues such as geopolitical and regional risks. We offer our production partners training programs that help better understand our compliance standards and we assist in developing procedures to them.
View the Conflict Minerals Policy
As part of our continuous improvement commitment, we launched our first Annual Social Compliance Supplier Summit in China. While we have focused more on factory education, we decided that providing an environment where all our key factories could interact would encourage the sharing of best practices. The feedback was very positive and we experienced even greater commitments from our factory partners.