We provide our customers with ethically sourced products and services and insist our suppliers meet the same high standards.
Managing an ethical supply chain
RELX has a diverse supply chain with suppliers located in over 150 countries across multiple categories, including technology (e.g. software, cloud, hardware and telecom), indirect (e.g. consulting, marketing, contingent labour and travel), and direct (e.g. data/content and production services, print/paper/bind and distribution).
Given the importance of an ethical supply chain, we maintain a Socially Responsible Supplier (SRS) programme encompassing all our business areas, supported by colleagues with expertise in operations and procurement and a dedicated Supplier Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Director from our global procurement function. We maintain the SRS programme terms as well as policies and other requirements for our suppliers here. The VP Global Procurement has operational responsibility for ensuring engagement with suppliers occurs.
Monitoring suppliers
Our Supplier Code of Conduct (Supplier Code) stipulates our expectations of our suppliers. It incorporates the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact and encompasses key topics such as involuntary labour, non-discrimination, compensation and working hours, coercion and harassment, data security and environment. We require suppliers to ensure the standards of the Code are applied across their own supply chain. Where local industry standards are higher than applicable legal requirements, we expect suppliers to meet the higher standards.
Non signatories to our supplier code are primarily new to the SRS tracking list, and we work with them, and other non-signatories, to gain agreement to our Supplier Code. In total, at the end of 2025 there were 6,586 signatories to our Supplier Code, or suppliers with an equivalent code, representing an increase of 9% from 6,056 signatories at the close of 2024.
We engage specialist supply chain auditors to evaluate compliance with the Supplier Code, and in 2025 there were 140 external audits; 69 onsite and 71 desktop. During 2025, onsite audit locations included Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Hungary, India, Italy, Mauritius, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, and United States.
Desktop audits involve supplier responses to an online questionnaire, supporting document uploads, and a risk assessment. During an onsite audit, the auditor will randomly select employees from a full roster to interview. This provides an opportunity to address the awareness and trust in the process. Interviews are confidential, facility management are not allowed to be present, and the interviews are anonymised. In communicating non-compliance to management, the auditor cannot disclose information which could identify the employee or employees to avoid retaliation against them, which is forbidden by the Supplier Code.
Incidence of noncompliance identified during an audit leads to a timeline requiring either immediate remediation or from 30-90 days remediation based on the finding. Audit reports provide a summary of findings, local law references as relevant, root cause and explanation of the noncompliance, follow-up methods, timescale, and recommendations and actions needed to close the finding. Suppliers upload a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) in the audit platform for each noncompliance finding and a follow-up audit is then scheduled to confirm action; auditors work with suppliers until full compliance is reached. We aim to ensure supplier remediation but in instances where the supplier fails to take sufficient action, we will terminate the supplier relationship.
To minimise deforestation risk in our production paper supply chain, we utilise the Forest Sourcing module of The Book Chain Project, a shared industry resource for sustainable paper we helped establish to assess the forest sources of our papers. By year end 2025, 100% of RELX’s production paper was graded by The Book Chain Project as known and responsible (sustainable) sources or certified to FSC or PEFC (less than 0.1% not yet graded or certified).
During 2025, we held RELX Supplier sessions focused on avoiding modern slavery, promoting living wages and setting sciencebased carbon reduction targets.
Promoting human rights through the Supplier Code
As stated above, the Supplier Code sets out expectations for our suppliers’ ethical conduct.
In accordance with the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015, our Supplier Code explicitly prohibits suppliers from participating in any form of human trafficking or related activity. In 2025, we updated our RELX Modern Slavery Act Statement (MSA), available at www.relx.com, outlining how we are working to prevent human trafficking and modern slavery in our direct operations and throughout our supply chain.
The Supplier Code stipulates that, where required by law, suppliers will have employment contracts signed with all employees and require mechanisms for reporting grievances. It additionally contains a provision on involuntary labour that states unequivocally that suppliers cannot directly or indirectly use, participate in, or benefit from, involuntary workers and human trafficking-related activities. Suppliers have access to Modern Slavery Awareness training through our audit provider. In addition, suppliers audited in the year were asked to undergo further training on freely chosen employment and living wages. We use a UK Government definition of modern slavery, particularly ‘the trafficking of people, forced labour, servitude and slavery.’ In 2025 we did not receive any reports from employees or suppliers via the Integrity Line that related to modern slavery.
The Supplier Code states that failure to comply may result in termination of the business relationship between RELX and the supplier, it also protects reporting persons from retaliation.