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Position Statements


2020 MODERN SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING STATEMENT

Walgreens Boots Alliance, as a global corporate citizen, recognizes its
responsibility to address and mitigate the risk of modern slavery and human
trafficking in its operations.




INTRODUCTION

As a global corporate citizen, Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) recognizes its
responsibility to address and mitigate the risk of modern slavery and human
trafficking in its operations and supply chains. This statement sets out our
commitment to eradicating these abhorrent practices and describes the actions we
have taken through the end of our fiscal year, August 31, 2020. This statement
meets the requirements of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the California
Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010.

Through this statement, we confirm our commitments to the Consumer Goods Forum
(CGF) resolution against forced labor and to the Employer Pays Principle, which
state that every worker should have freedom of movement and that no worker
should be indebted or coerced to work or pay for a job.


STRUCTURE, BUSINESS AND SUPPLY CHAINS

A description of WBA’s structure, values, divisions and product brands can be
found in our Annual Report and in our annual Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) Report, both on our website. CSR is embedded in our drive to operate both
a sustainable and profitable enterprise and is at the core of our everyday work.
Our CSR Committee, chaired by Co-Chief Operating Officer Ornella Barra, reports
to the WBA Board of Directors’ Nominating and Governance Committee. The CSR
Committee meets regularly to review our CSR program, policy statements and
progress toward achieving our 12 CSR commitments, including our commitment to
drive responsible sourcing practices throughout our supply chain, protecting
human rights and engaging with suppliers around ethical and environmental
issues.

WBA’s permanent working group on modern slavery reports to the CSR Committee and
is tasked with driving ongoing improvements and a consistent approach to the
issue. The group is made up of representatives from across our businesses and
led by a senior leader.

We recognize that the goal to eliminate modern slavery can be achieved only
through long-term partnership and collaboration between businesses, nonprofit
groups and governments. We are proud of our membership in organizations such as
CGF and the Palm Oil Transparency Coalition that work toward this common goal. 


POLICIES

The WBA Code of Conduct and Business Ethics available on the Governance section
of our website, provides the foundational standards for all aspects of our
business and applies to all of our employees and operations globally.

The Code makes clear our commitment that: “(w)e will also strive to ensure that
slavery and human trafficking is not taking place within any of our supply chain
business partners and will not tolerate such activities either within the supply
chain or within any part of WBA’s business.” The Code further sets forth the
responsibility of every employee to help ensure all of WBA’s global activities
meet our high standards for behavior and business ethics, and establishes
accountability for compliance with law and policy.
 
These issues are also addressed in our Human Rights Policy Statement and in our
Supplier Code of Conduct, which were published on our corporate website in
January 2021, and which state our opposition to the exploitation of workers
through any form of forced or bonded labor, slavery, human trafficking or other
labor practices that involve harsh or inhumane treatment. 

With regard to our own labor practices, the WBA Code of Conduct and Business
Ethics and  our corporate values of trust and inclusion set forth our standards
for a diverse and inclusive workplace that provides a safe and healthy
environment and that complies with or exceeds local law. The WBA Global Human
Resources Policy requires an effective program be in place to help address the
reporting, investigation, and disposition of any potential modern slavery claims
within our own business while also ensuring compliance with labor laws involving
migrant and foreign national workers. 

As we are a global company with businesses in many countries, local policies
provide additional guidance and detail on these issues. However, local policies
may only inform WBA if their standards are equal to or stricter than those of
WBA. 

Regarding potential violations or concerns within our supply chains or our own
workforce, our Code of Conduct and Business Ethics provides confidential
reporting helplines managed by external service providers that can be used to
report any concerns. These contact points are available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week and in a number of languages. Any reports are thoroughly
investigated. 


SUPPLY CHAIN DUE DILIGENCE

As described above, WBA’s permanent working group on modern slavery considers
more fully our company’s risk of exposure to these practices and risk mitigation
activities. Following a 2018 review of potential exposure to modern slavery, the
group developed a continuing action plan targeting the highest risk operations
through a phased approach.

WBA works with multiple service providers to facilitate risk and compliance due
diligence reviews of business partners globally. These reviews may include
active monitoring for adverse media regarding modern slavery and other issues.

Goods not for Resale (GNFR) refers to products or services to support business
operations.  Our Retail Pharmacy USA division and the UK businesses in our
Retail Pharmacy International division partner with an external provider to
review our assessment of ethical standards compliance within our GNFR supply
chain. This assessment focuses on new and existing GNFR suppliers. New suppliers
are assessed prior to onboarding and then actively monitored for a minimum of
one year. For existing suppliers, the top 300 suppliers in Retail Pharmacy USA
and top 100 in the UK businesses of our Retail Pharmacy International division,
which represent the bulk of annual GNFR spend, will be monitored on an ongoing
basis. We are working to expand and conduct a broader review of the businesses
in our Retail Pharmacy International division outside of the UK and the Republic
of Ireland and of our Pharmaceutical Wholesale division in the future.

Our commitment to eliminating modern slavery starts with focusing intensely on
our owned brands supply chain where we believe we can have the greatest impact.
This includes maintaining and continually assessing and enhancing our
well-established program of supplier assessment, which is delivered through our
own ethical trading auditors or a small number of pre-approved third-party
assessment bodies. Our ethical trading experts across the globe meet on a
regular basis to ensure the program remains effective and drives best practices
throughout our supply chain.

The assessment program, developed over 10 years, helps ensure our owned brand
suppliers are fully aware of our standards and expectations. This is achieved
through supplier manuals, contracts, technical agreements and mandatory ethical
compliance assessments. Suppliers must further agree to provide evidence of
their related compliance programs, which should also include a process for
assessing the ethical standards of their own supply chains. Analysis of our
assessment program shows levels of compliance with our ethical trading standards
are significantly higher for existing sites than for new sites. This reflects
increasing understanding and commitment from our supply chain to maintaining our
standards.

Assessment results are shared monthly with the WBA senior management team. We
also have in place a formal escalation process whereby any modern slavery “Zero
Tolerance” violations or other serious violations of our standards that we
become aware of are reported to the senior management team within 24 hours,
along with the results of any investigations.

In fiscal year 2020, we conducted more than 900 ethical compliance assessments
on new and existing suppliers for our Walgreens and Boots UK owned brands. Our
assessment ratings are defined by the severity and/or number of incidents of
noncompliance identified during the assessment process, these are currently
defined as:

 * Satisfactory and Needs Improvement: Meets our ethical trading standards
   expectations but could require differing levels of remedial corrective
   actions
 * Critical: Falls below the expectations of our ethical trading standards and
   requires immediate remedial action to address the critical incidents of
   noncompliance to enable new or ongoing business relationships
 * Zero Tolerance: Issues identified that are not accepted or tolerated by our
   businesses and are related to incidents of the following but not limited to: 
   * Child Labor
   * Convict/Indentured/Forced Labor
   * Corporal Punishment
   * Slavery and Human Trafficking
   * Acts of Bribery
   * In all cases we view these issues as Zero Tolerance.

The following table provides a breakdown of assessments and outcomes during
fiscal year 2020.

Fiscal Year 2020Fiscal Year 2020 %Satisfactory39140.0%Needs
Improvement39440.3%Critical19019.5%Zero Tolerance20.2%Total977100%

Our policy in cases of Zero Tolerance violations is to terminate the business
relationship with the site where the violation occurred and to suspend the
supplier and its other sites pending a full investigation of the supplier and
its supply chain. If the supplier is directly implicated in the Zero Tolerance
violation, or if further violations are found, the business relationship with
the supplier will be terminated. For suppliers where we identify critical
noncompliance issues, corrective and remedial action plans are developed and
implemented. In the small number of cases where suppliers are unwilling to work
with us to achieve compliance within an agreed time frame, we maintain the right
to end the business relationship and cancel outstanding purchase orders.
However, simple termination of a contract relationship may not always be the
most appropriate response. We recognize that in the event of noncompliance,
withdrawal of our business may cause severe hardship to those employed and we
will therefore attempt to work with our vendors through a remediation program to
achieve ongoing compliance.

We want to work with suppliers who are open and transparent, so in order to
reinforce this commitment, we request that our owned brand suppliers agree to
our right of unannounced assessments at any time that they are operating. 

As part of our ongoing engagement with our suppliers around our ethical
standards, we provide a supplier manual that explains our Code of Conduct and
Business Ethics, assessment requirements, capacity building and continuous
improvement programs. 


TRAINING AND AWARENESS

In fiscal 2020 we implemented our company-wide training initiative to drive
ethical sourcing practices across our business and expanded this training to
include select WBA employees globally in human resources, our Retail Pharmacy
International division and owned brands, including management. This built on
previous training modules focused on employees and management involved in and
responsible for sourcing, supply chain and retail operations, which was and will
be relaunched to existing and newly hired employees.

In our Retail Pharmacy USA division, relevant employees, including management,
are required to complete an annual online training course that meets the
requirements of the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010. 


EFFECTIVENESS AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS/MONITORING

We recognize that the risks from modern slavery change, and as such our approach
to preventing modern slavery is expected to be reviewed annually by the WBA
permanent working group on modern slavery. This approach will monitor and
review:  

 * Effectiveness of risk assessment processes
 * Staff training programs
 * Assessment programs (where applicable); and
 * Reporting and escalation processes.

This statement is made pursuant to the relevant legal requirements of the United
States (including the individual states and territories therein) and the United
Kingdom, and covers the UK subsidiaries listed here.

Ornella Barra
Co-Chief Operating Officer Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.
Chairman of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee

(updated January 2021) 

Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
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