Overview
The assurance area is a critical component of the people pillar in the Good On You ratings methodology. It serves as the verification layer to ensure a brand’s stated labour policies and ethical commitments are actually being implemented throughout its operations and supply chain. Policies set the standard, and assurance measures the mechanisms, such as auditing, grievance mechanisms, and worker empowerment, that provide transparency and accountability.
This area is important because it moves beyond top-level promises. It recognises that without robust monitoring, it is nearly impossible to manage risks like child labour, forced labour, or unsafe working conditions.
By assessing how a brand audits its facilities, provides avenues for worker complaints, and facilitates collective bargaining, Good On You evaluates the degree to which a brand adopts accepted good practices to minimise its negative impact on people.
Industry verticals: Fashion, Beauty, Services, Retailer
Applicable for: small and large brands
What is assessed?
Good On You assesses the "how" of labour rights protection. Across all verticals, the methodology focuses on several key items:
Auditing and monitoring
Brands are evaluated on how they ensure their codes of conduct are met at various production stages. This includes:
Audit Scope and Percentage: The proportion of the supply chain audited, often broken down into the final stage (assembly), second stage (fabric/ingredients), and primary stage (raw materials).
Audit Type: Whether audits are internal (conducted by the brand) or third-party (conducted by an independent body like SMETA or WRAP).
Unannounced Audits: Use of unannounced visits is rewarded as they provide a more accurate picture of daily operations compared to announced audits, where managers have time to hide abuses.
Disclosure of Findings: Brands that publish full audit reports or detailed findings (naming specific facilities and non-compliances) receive higher scores than those that only provide aggregate summaries.
Grievance mechanisms
This item assesses if workers have a safe, formal process to report violations. Good On You evaluates:
Anonymity: Whether reporting can be done without fear of retaliation.
Third-Party Access: Providing access to an independent, credible third-party mechanism is considered best practice, as internal brand systems may be biased.
Implementation Transparency: Brands should disclose the number of grievances filed, addressed, and resolved.
Worker empowerment and labour risk
This assesses the brand's relationship with its workforce and suppliers.
Unions and collective bargaining: The percentage of suppliers with democratically elected unions/collective bargaining groups and the frequency of negotiations the brand has with those unions.
Purchasing practices: How brands structure contracts to provide financial security (e.g., long-term contracts, on-time payments), which reduces the risk of suppliers exploiting workers to meet unfair demands.
Assessments in industry verticals
Fashion and Beauty
In the Fashion and Beauty vertical, the methodology emphasises the deep tiers of the supply chain.
Materiality: The highest risks are often found in the earliest stages, such as palm oil production, cotton harvesting (primary stage) or spinning and dyeing (second stage).
Specifics: Fashion and beauty brands are specifically questioned on the percentage of their supply chain audited across these three distinct stages. For fashion: Cut-Make-Trim (final), inputs (second), and raw materials (primary). For beauty: formulation (final), processing (second), and raw ingredients (primary).
Services
The Services methodology shifts focus toward direct operations and contractors.
Materiality: Unlike product-based categories, service businesses (like travel agents or hairdressers) have more direct control over their staff and the physical retail/office environment
Direct operations focus: Assurance questions cover retail outlets and offices, ensuring health, safety, and labour standards are met for "non-executive" workers (all staff except the C-suite)
Contractor inclusion: Services brands are often evaluated on how they monitor contractors, such as cleaning or security staff, who represent higher levels of labour risk
Retailer
Retailers are assessed on their role as both manufacturers (for "own-brand" products) and distributors.
Materiality: Retailers have a unique responsibility to influence the third-party brands they sell
Multi-brand scope: They are assessed on the percentage of their third-party brands that require suppliers to undergo social audits
Dual responsibility: Retailers must disclose monitoring for their own retail stores and offices, their direct suppliers for own-brand products, and their expectations for external brands
Disclosure and data sources
Good On You primarily relies on a brand’s public website and formal sustainability, CSR, or ESG reports. In addition, for sourcing policies we reference:
Third-party auditing reports such as Fair Wear Foundation.
Corporate policies
Regulatory disclosures
NGO or investigative reports where relevant
Conditional assessments
The assurance methodology is designed with a hierarchical structure where certain aspects of the assessment are only relevant if a brand has first demonstrated specific foundational practices. This conditionality ensures that the evaluation is tailored to the brand's actual operational depth and disclosure level.
Many assurance questions are only triggered if a brand discloses an initial practice. For example, questions about the percentage of audits performed by third parties only appear if the brand first states that it implements third-party auditing.
Brands are initially assessed on whether they audit or monitor their supply chain and if they disclose information about how they do so. Selecting any positive disclosure option (eg auditing at final, second, or primary production stages) triggers a series of required follow-up questions on the nature of the audits at each stage
Grievance mechanisms: Follow-up questions about disclosing the number of reported violations, how workers are informed of the mechanism (eg via notice boards), and third-party involvement are only triggered if the brand first selects an option confirmed they provide a mechanism (such as third-party managed or anonymous internal systems).
Relevance for different brands
The assessment of labour auditing can vary significantly based on whether a brand is categorised as small or large.
Small brands
The assessment focuses more on the presence of monitoring suppliers, whether this be through internal or external means. Small brands are expected to visit their suppliers regularly, and ideally partner with suppliers that already have some form of third-party assurance. Small brands are not expected to implement worker empowerment initiatives such as grievance mechanisms or engaging with collective bargaining groups.
Large brands
Expected to have robust labour rights monitoring and assurances. Large brands are expected to be transparent on the results of their monitoring processes, such as disclosing the number of grievances filed during the reporting year, or how many suppliers are in the process of remediation after being audited. Large brands are also expected to ensure workers' voices are heard and represented, such as meeting with worker representatives including collective bargaining groups or unions.
Other practices that contribute to the score
Some practices assessed in other sections of the methodology score points within this area. These reflect actions such as certifications or broader business practices that have sustainability implications beyond just this area.
The exact practices that score in this area vary by industry vertical and are described in the articles linked below:
Best practice and common pitfalls
Best practice principles
Not only disclosing that audits happen, but also what the results were and how many workers were interviewed
Tracing and auditing the deep supply chain (Tier 2 and Tier 4), where the most severe risks are hidden
Moving from "top-down" audits to "bottom-up" empowerment through unions and anonymous, third-party grievance channels
Common pitfalls
Using unspecific terms like "regularly" instead of "annually", or "Asia" instead of specific countries within the region. Such vague disclosures are often insufficient for credit.
Brands will state that some manufacturing is exempt from auditing as it produces in lower-risk countries such as the USA. All manufacturing carries some level of risk to human rights, and so manufacturing should still be monitored.
Implementing a grievance mechanism, but not reporting on how often it is used. For brands with lots of suppliers, having no grievances filed is often a reflection of a poorly implemented mechanism, rather than there truly being no grievances.