Asda ranks bottom of Oxfam supermarket ethical scorecard

Asda has been ranked as the worst supermarket for workers’ rights in Oxfam’s “Supermarket Scorecard” human rights analysis.

According to the charity, the supermarket’s ethical standards were incredibly low, especially in the categories: treatment of workers, small-scale farmers and transparency.

Asda ranked at the bottom for all the criteria, except the treatment of women where it still remained below 70% of the listed supermarkets.

READ MORE: ‘Why won’t they pay workers properly?’ GMB union slams Asda boss

The result come part of Oxfam‘s annual investigation based on examining the supermarket’s policies, looking at behaviour that protects farmers and women and compiling a score out of 100%.

Scoring the highest overall was Tesco with 61%, followed by discount retailers Lidl and Aldi at 59% and 56%, respectively. Asda on the other hand lagged behind at 9%.

‘We’ve been saying to Asda you actually need to come out now with a proper labour rights policy,” Oxfam private sector senior advisor Radhika Sarin said.

“We need supermarkets to switch to responsible buying practices and governments to strengthen legislation that protects workers, including on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence.”

Asda was also the only major supermarket to see its scores plummet compared to previous years. In the category of treatment of small-scale farmer, the supermarket scored 21% in 2020 compared to a mere 4% in 2022.

The charity noted that the Big 4 grocer’s had “extremely basic standards” in place ever since it was separated from Walmart in October 2020.

“Asda was part of Walmart’s responsible sourcing programme for over 20 years and is in the process of establishing its own standalone programme following a change in ownership in June 2021,” as Asda spokesperson said.

“Our ranking in this year’s survey is due to the transition between these two programmes and is not a reflection of our ongoing commitment to protect the rights and treatment of the people who work within our supply chain.”

Click here to sign up to Grocery Gazette’s free daily email newsletter

Supermarkets

RELATED POSTS

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.

Menu

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Sign up to our daily newsletter to get all the latest grocery news and insights direct to your inbox.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.