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Responsible supply chain

Vodafone’s position in the ICT supply chain links consumers with a vast and complex network of suppliers. We demand high ethical, health and safety, labour and environmental standards of all our suppliers.

We do not manufacture anything ourselves, but we spend billions of Euros a year on network and IT equipment and services to support our operations, and products such as mobile phones which we sell to our customers.

The suppliers we buy products from directly (Tier 1) are large multinationals with their own established corporate responsibility and supply chain management programmes. We monitor, assess and work with these suppliers to help them improve their sustainability performance. Encouraging them to demand similar high standards from their own suppliers is also critical to drive improvements down the supply chain.

Ensuring our Tier 1 suppliers take responsibility for working with their own Tier 1 suppliers – and have the capability to do so – is the best way to achieve sustained improvement throughout the supply chain. We go further with audits targeting sub-tier suppliers (such as those manufacturing Vodafone-branded devices) to identify opportunities for them to improve performance. And we contribute to wider industry initiatives on issues such as conflict minerals further down the supply chain.

Two growing areas of our business bring with them greater risks in the supply chain which could impact our reputation: dealing directly with manufacturers in Asia who supply us with Vodafone-branded products; and outsourcing network deployment activities in emerging markets where safety risks must be carefully managed (see safety). Both are prioritised in our supply chain management programme and engagement with suppliers – through workshops, for example.

In all cases we need to ensure manufacturers and contractors clearly understand our standards, which are embodied in our Code of Ethical Purchasing, and implement them in their operations.