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Introduction
This statement sets out The Economist Group's actions to understand all potential modern slavery risks related to its business and to put in place steps aimed at ensuring there is no slavery or human trafficking in its own business or its supply chains. This statement relates to actions and activities during the financial year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
As part of the independent global media and information-services industry, we recognise our responsibility to take a robust approach to modern slavery and human trafficking, and we continue to invest in our internal risk and control structures. Our organisation is fully committed to preventing modern slavery and human trafficking in its activities, and to ensuring that its supply chains are free from modern slavery and human trafficking.
1. Organisational structure and supply chains
This statement covers the activities of The Economist Newspaper Limited and all of its subsidiaries, representing The Economist Group as a whole.
The Economist Group exists to champion progress by helping people understand and tackle the critical challenges facing the world. As a leading source of analysis on international business and world affairs, we provide trusted information, analysis, data, and expertise through printed and electronic newspapers, intelligence and consultancy services, policy and insight services, events and conferences, and educational programmes.
Our supply chains include vendors providing:
Event spaces for conferences
IT and other office equipment and support services
Marketing services from technology companies
Professional services from lawyers, accountants, and other advisers
Office cleaning and facilities services
Print production and newspaper distribution services
We currently operate globally across North and South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
2. Policies
We operate the following policies that describe our approach to identifying modern slavery risks and preventing slavery and human trafficking in our operations:
Employee Handbooks: Location-specific handbooks help colleagues understand their benefits, our company values, and our policies regarding the prevention of slavery and human trafficking.
Whistleblowing Policy: The Group is committed to the highest standards of openness, honesty, accountability, and corporate governance. We encourage all colleagues to report any malpractice related to direct activities or supply chains of our organisation, including circumstances that may increase modern slavery or human trafficking risks. Concerns can be raised confidentially through our external whistleblowing service, Lighthouse, without fear of retaliation.
Guiding Principles: Approved by our board of directors, our Guiding Principles establish our ethical context, including explicit opposition to slavery and human trafficking across our business and supply chains.
Business Partner Code of Conduct: Sets out the behaviours, practices, and standards expected from vendors, contractors, agents, and any other partners or subcontractors engaged with The Economist Group.
3. Vendor Due Diligence
We undertake due diligence when taking on new vendors and regularly review existing vendors. To maintain real-time oversight, we:
Map our supply chain by capturing information from all relevant vendors, to assess particular service or geographical risks of modern slavery and human trafficking; and
Evaluate the modern slavery and human trafficking risks of each new vendor.
4. Risk assessment and management
We assess vendor risk through a rigorous process: all vendors are assigned a modern slavery risk rating (low, medium, high or very high) during the onboarding process. Once a vendor’s risk rating is established, they are managed through our structured risk mitigation framework:
Identified vendor risks are reviewed to determine whether appropriate safeguards exist or if targeted treatment plans must be completed by the vendor prior to engagement.
Where a risk cannot be fully remediated to an acceptable level, it must be formally risk-accepted through our governance escalation chain:
For medium or high-risk acceptance, formal review and sign-off is completed by our senior managers or Executive Leadership.
For very high risk, mandatory escalation to Executive Leadership is actioned for formal review, approval, or vendor rejection.
Once all actions are successfully closed/completed, or set to monitor for ongoing discussions, the vendor continues the onboarding process.
To ensure process adherence and timely closure of risks there is a quarterly meeting where they are discussed and appropriate action agreed to be taken - the chief legal officer and chief financial officer, among others, are in attendance.
5. Key Performance Indicators
To evaluate the effectiveness of our supply chain controls, governance rollout, and due diligence mechanisms, we monitor quantitative metrics across policy adoption, leadership oversight, and risk screening.
During the reporting period, we significantly expanded vendor coverage through our vendor risk management (VRM) platform. This continued focus on onboarding has substantially increased platform adoption, ensuring broader risk oversight and governance across our supply chain engagements.
We established structured service-level targets for vendor evaluations. Operational enhancements reduced average end-to-end vendor risk review times from 38 calendar days to 8 calendar days, ensuring all risks - including modern slavery - are identified and addressed rapidly prior to vendor engagement.
The vast majority of evaluated new vendors continued to reflect our core operational profile in low-risk, professional media, digital, and advisory services.
6. Training and Awareness
Our internal intranet provides anti-bribery, slavery, and human trafficking guidance, explaining the core principles of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and how colleagues can flag potential issues during vendor onboarding and contract renewals. Where appropriate, we also request that business partners provide relevant training to their staff and sub-vendors.
Targeted vendor risk management and modern slavery governance training was delivered to the Executive Leadership Team and senior management across the Group to ensure risk escalation pathways and tone-at-the-top oversight are embedded across all business units.
7. Continuous Improvement Strategy
Enhanced Profiling
We continue to enhance vendor assessments to allow specialists to rate, identify, and respond to risks in real time, capturing better data to build fuller risk profiles.
The Compliance function will conduct individual risk assessments, engage in remediation plans, and oversee high-risk escalations.
We will pay heightened attention to higher-risk operational areas, including: event space facilities, office cleaning, print production, physical distribution, and seasonal or low-wage operational roles.
Mandatory Training
We will provide mandatory annual modern slavery training for all commercial, front-facing, and procurement-adjacent teams (including Sales and key business unit owners) via our internal learning management system. In addition, all colleagues will be required annually to review our Guiding Principles and Modern Slavery Statement.
Chief Executive Officer approval
This statement was approved on 26 September 2025 by our board of directors, who review and update it annually.
Luke Bradley-Jones
Chief Executive Officer
For and on behalf of The Economist Group
Date: 30 September 2026