ETI is a ground-breaking alliance of companies, trade unions and voluntary organisations. We work in partnership to improve the working lives of people across the globe who make or grow consumer goods - everything from tea to T-shirts, from flowers to footballs.

Our corporate membership includes companies such as Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, M&S, Next, New Look, Monsoon, Primark, WH Smith and Zara. They have a combined turnover of over £107 bn. Trade union members represent nearly 160 million workers around the world in every country where free trade unions can operate. Our NGO members range from large international development charities such as Oxfam and CAFOD, to specialised labour rights organisations such as Anti-Slavery International.

Companies that join ETI must adopt the ETI Base Code in full. The ETI Base Code is derived from the standards of the International Labour Organisation, and is an internationally recognised code of labour practice. They must also sign up to our Principles of Implementation, which set out the approaches to ethical trade that member companies should follow.

Member companies must also play an active part in ETI activities alongside their trade union and NGO colleagues, including in members' meetings, projects and working groups.

In 2008, our member companies' ethical trade activities covered nearly 40,000 suppliers which collectively employ over 8.6 million workers around the world. They requested that their suppliers take over 84,520 separate actions to improve workers' conditions. These numbers are growing every year.

An independent assessment of ETI members' ethical trade activities carried out by Sussex-based Institute of Development Studies found that improvements have been made in health and safety, reducing child labour, increasing wages and reducing the incidence of excessive overtime.