Equip Outdoor Technologies Achieves Fair Wear Leader Status For Third Consecutive Year
Equip Outdoor Technologies Ltd. (owner of British outdoor brands Rab and Lowe Alpine) has achieved Fair Wear Leader status for the third consecutive year. In its recent Brand Performance Check, Fair Wear has acknowledged Equip’s exceptional progress in protecting workers’ rights along its global supply chain with enhanced Human Rights Due Diligence.
As Fair Wear states in the brand performance check: “Equip has shown advanced results on performance indicators and has made exceptional progress. With a total benchmarking score of 76, the member is placed in the Leader category.” This is a significant improvement on Equip’s previous result, earning 10 more percentage points than the 2023 score.
Equip is dedicated to improving working conditions for the people making its products and continues to increase scrutiny on HRDD and transparency within its operations. This year it published its Sourcing Principles, Responsible Business Conduct Policy and a Human Rights Due Diligence Policy together externally for the first time.
Matt Gowar, Equip’s Executive Chair and Owner, explains: “Maintaining our Fair Wear Leader status reinforces the importance we place on factory relationships. I prioritise face-to-face communication to build trust and openness. Regular in-depth factory visits allow me to really understand what's happening on the ground and support the factories where we identify improvements. This is how we work as a business. It’s something we’ve always done and we will continue to do so.”
Richard Leedham, Equip’s CEO, adds: “This achievement is a result of continued hard work from our teams and constant scrutiny of our processes. Building on this and our heritage is core to me as we grow our business the right way, looking toward our ESG leadership goals that overarch our 5-year strategy.”
For the future, Equip has expressed its ongoing commitment to expand the scope of its Human Rights Due Diligence. In 2025 Equip will commission further Fair Wear worker training covering employment rights, anti-harassment and social dialogue based upon their HRDD risk assessment.
The Fair Wear Brand Performance Check (BPC) is a tool to verify how a Fair Wear member’s business practices help improve labour conditions across their supply chain. It contributes to more transparent and responsible relations with its manufacturing partners. Every year, Fair Wear reviews the brands’ efforts by measuring how well they have identified, assessed and prevented, mitigated or remediated (potential) risks with their suppliers. Making the results of the BPC open to the public ensures transparency and keeps member brands accountable.
The Leader status is awarded to member companies who are doing exceptionally well and are operating at an advanced level. Leaders show best practices in complex areas such as monitoring, remediation, and training to empower workers to raise issues in their factories.
Alongside their work with Fair Wear, Equip continues to drive improvements in all other areas of its sustainability agenda. Their 2024 Sustainability Reportprovides a comprehensive overview of progress.
