Modern Slavery
At COS, we recognise that respecting the human rights of those affected by our business activities is important. We endeavour to make a positive and real difference to our immediate and greater community through our operations and wider supply chain.
We scrutinise every element of the supply chain and place a high level of importance on the behaviour of the total supply chain, as we believe this is where COS can make the most significant impact. A core focus of managing the relationships with our suppliers is ensuring that they share COS’ commitment to social and environmental responsibilities. COS places preference with suppliers practicing ethically responsible methods of sourcing and manufacturing whilst maintaining world best practice labour standards.
In FY2026 we will continue to improve our initiatives and strategies, including:
- Reviewing our current COS Risk Assessment Methodology against all product suppliers to affirm the risk matrix is appropriately assessing and addressing potential modern slavery risks;
- Extending and implementing a review of the COS Risk Assessment Methodology and companywide compliance, particularly as it applies to indirect suppliers;
- Continuing the rollout of sensory audits in overseas factories, achieving a minimum of five sensory audits during FY26, with a focus on modern slavery review process for the top suppliers in each category that have not had a sensory audit in the past three years;
- Implementing a focused review process aligned to contract renewal cycles for cleaning services and third-party labour hire agencies;
- Reviewing our mechanisms to capture and identify active modern slavery concerns in our supply chain to mitigate risks where suppliers have not proactively notified us of current identified concerns;
- Participating in a minimum of three external roundtables or industry conferences to assist in awareness and education of modern slavery;
- Continuing the evaluation of large installation providers for furniture and capturing one-off large purchases for solutions projects with a specific focus on service providers;
- Conducting a comprehensive review and evaluation of the recently acquired subsidiary, Kookaburra Audio Visual & Technologies, including a focused review of new suppliers in the Education and Audio Visual Technology categories through our Supplier Management Program, with particular attention to Audio Visual installers;
- Explore and potentially support charities relating to modern slavery in Australia; and
- Continuing to refine our governance dashboards and reporting mechanisms to track compliance and effectiveness of our actions for product suppliers.
For more information or to report any modern slavery concerns, please email us at: modernslavery@cos.net.au.