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ASOS Plc Annual Report and Accounts 2024
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
02
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Our mission is to be
the world’s number
one fashion destination
for fashion-loving
20-somethings.
We are customer-first
Our behaviours
We are in it together
We are honest and transparent
We bring our authentic self
to work
We inspire
We move fast and innovate
at speed
We keep it simple and lead
with data
We take ownership and aim
for excellence
Our values
Creative
Deliver
We challenge each other
(with kindness)
We aim high
Brave
Authentic
MEN
TS
m
e
r
-
fi
r
s
t
rs
W
e
at
W
e
wit
W
e
for
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
03
STRATEGIC REPORT
02 Our mission, values and behaviours
03 Contents
04 ASOS brands and labels
06 Partner brands
08 2024 highlights
09 Chair’s statement
10 Chief Executive Officer’s statement
12 Business model
14 Strategic review
18 Our people
22 Stakeholder engagement
28 Fashion with Integrity
34 Task Force on Climate-related
Financial Disclosures
46 Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting
54 Key performance indicators
56 Financial review
62 Risk management at ASOS
64 Principal risks and opportunities
70 Long-term viability statement
GOVERNANCE REPORT
72 Board of Directors
76 Management Committee
78 Corporate Governance Report
90 Nomination Committee Report
94 Sustainability Committee Report
96 Audit Committee Report
102 Directors’ Remuneration Report
104 Annual Report on Remuneration
116 Directors’ Report
119 Non-financial and sustainability
informationstatement
120 Statement of Directors’ responsibilities
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
122 Independent Auditors’ Report to the
members of ASOS Plc
130 Consolidated Income Statement
131 Consolidated Statement of
Comprehensive Income
132 Consolidated Balance Sheet
133 Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity
134 Consolidated Cash Flow Statement
135 Notes to the Consolidated Financial
Statements
180 Company Balance Sheet
181 Company Statement of Changes in Equity
182 Notes to the Company Financial Statements
186 Related Undertakings of the ASOS Group
188 Alternative Performance Measures (APMs)
194 Company Information
195 Shareholder Information
We believe in a world where you have the
freedom to explore andexpress yourself
without judgement, no matter who you are
or where you’re from. That is why our purpose
is to give fashion-loving 20-somethings the
confidence to be whoever they want to be.
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
04
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
ASOS brands
and labels
Our largest in-house brand,
designed and sold exclusively
for ASOS.com. Serving up all the
major trends of the season for
our fashion-loving 20-somethings,
this is the go-to destination for
your fashion fix. We create
trends, head to toe looks and
the ultimate pieces for your
wardrobe.
As our in-house premium brand,
we create timeless essentials
andunique occasion pieces with
afeminine slant. From the perfect
white tee to floor-sweeping
showstoppers, everything is
designed, draped and pattern cut
in-house. Elevated but accessible
too, in sizes 4-30. It’s all in the
detail. Bold embellishments,
hand-painted prints, clean lines,
premium fabrics. Craftsmanship
and considered design run
through every piece.
Asos Luxe is serving elevated
glam looks for those “standout”
moments. Whether it’s a
birthday outfit or a poolside
look – ASOS Luxe is the
go-to brand for making a
showstopping entrance.
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
05
Leading fashion authority. Iconic
brands deeply rooted in fashion
and culture alike. The creative
direction ensures the brand
heritage is cherished and evolved
into the new era, remaining
relevant to our customers.
Miss Selfridge is about embracing your
vibe with effortless feminine dreamy
casual silhouettes, designed for a new
generation. Soft girl meets blends of
heritage boho with a fresh girl next
door aesthetic. We take the latest
trends and make them fun, wearable
and a representation of you.
Weekend Collective is the brand that
personifies off-duty glam leisurewear.
Our range of quality everyday
essentials are perfect for the “it”
girl of today, focusing on signature
logo branded pieces.
A brand for the coming of age,
created for a new generation,
pioneered for everyone. Collusion
is diverse, authentic, fashion
creditable and is competitively
priced, delivering good quality.
At the heart of the brand is
inclusivity.
4505 is our in-house activewear
brand that covers your everyday
uniform of workout essentials
across studio, gym, run and
winter sports. Inspired by the
latest workout trends and
culture,our fashion forward
active product is designed for
functionality, performance,
andversatility – it’s everything
you need to keep you motivated,
looking great, and feeling great on
your wellness and fitness journey.
Throwing it back to past eras, inspired
by nostalgia, encouraging individualism
and creativity. Each piece is created
to be loved, worn and worn again, filling
your wardrobe with eclectic favourites
and forever pieces.
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
06
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Partner brands
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
07
Face + Body
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
08
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Revenue
£2.9bn
2023: £3.5bn
Operating (loss)
(£331.9m)
2023: (£248.5m)
2024
highlights
67.2m
2023: 83.7m
Total orders
2023: £40.33
Net average basket value
£41.07
2023: 2.7bn
2.3bn
Total visits
We invested in impactful marketing activity
including our first-ever ASOS pop-up shop,
as well as brand partner and ASOS Media
Group initiatives with the likes of adidas,
Nike, On Running, and Sol de Janeiro.
Plus, we’ve grown our gifted influencer
base to c.1,500 influencers across
the UK, US and EU – all helping us grow
our connection with our customers.
We rolled out AI tools to improve productivity
and efficiency across the business – including
better demand forecasting, data-driven
decision-making, and testing a customer-
facing AI Stylist – all adding to our use of AI
for the billions of product recommendations
we deliver to our customers every day.
We enhanced our customer experience
with improvements to sizing, how we display
products, and greater use of videos and
360 imagery. We reduced our returns
rate,while continuing to make free returns
available to all customers in all our core
markets subject to our fair use policy.
Reaching our
community of
fashion lovers
We launched our new Buy the Look feature, allowing customers
to shop for entire outfits curated by ASOS in one click. Over
124,000 Looks have been created to date, with c.14 million
unique visitors to ASOS interacting with the feature since
itlaunched, driving higher basket size and value.
Building a destination for style
Our Test & React programme, which brings
product from design to site in less than three
weeks, met its FY24 target with over 10%
of own-brand sales. We introduced over
50new partner brands including customer
favourites like Veja, TALA, Hugo Blue, Murci,
and Laneige. Plus, we’ve expanded Partner
Fulfils to reach c.5% of Gross Merchandise
Value across c.100 brands, bringing customers
even greater breadth and depth of products,
fulfilled directly by our brand partners.
Delivering the best product
Using data and AI
Reducing cost to serve
m
pact
f
ul marketing activity
s
t-ever ASOS p
op-
up
sho
p,
partner and A
SOS
Media
s
with the likes o
f
adidas,
g
, and Sol de Janeiro.
w
n our gi
f
ted in
fl
uencer
influencers across
E
U – all helpin
g
us
g
row
w
i
t
h
ou
r
custo
m
e
r
s.
£80.1m
Adjusted EBITDA
1
2023: £124.5m
1 Adjusted EBITDA is an alternative
performance measure. Refer to pages 188 to
193 for reconciliation to statutory measures.
19.6m
2023: 23.3m
Active customers
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
09
FY24 was about delivering on the next stage of ASOS’ Driving Change
agenda, and accelerating the transition to becoming a faster, more
agile, and more profitable business. Some of these changes
haveimpacted revenue growth in the short-term, but we have made
considerable progress towards becoming a business that can deliver
sustainably profitable growth in the future.
A detailed analysis of our performance in the year is contained in
the following pages, but I am pleased that ASOS has delivered on
its profitability and strategic targets for the year.
Notably:
• Delivering positive adjusted EBITDA of £80.1m, and reaching a
second half adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.9%, despite significant
volume de-leverage.
• Reducing the cost to serve through fundamental efficiency
improvements, particularly across both our fixed and variable
warehousing and distribution costs.
• Reducing stock levels by c.30% since the start of the year as a result
of more disciplined buying and strong clearance through ASOS.com
and third-party channels.
• Further embedding a faster stock model and improving speed to
market, including achieving our target of scaling Test & React to
>10% of own-brand sales, bringing product from design to site within
three weeks.
• Scaling flexible models to bring customers even greater breadth and
depth of products, including doubling our flexible fulfilment business
to c.5% of third-party GMV
1
across c.100 brands.
• Reviewing and revising our approach to Fashion with Integrity to
ensure we’re aligning with the latest best practice, focusing on
the right issues, and preparing the business for future regulation.
• Strengthening our balance sheet by improving our financial flexibility
through our re-financing and demonstrating our efficient and
disciplined capital allocation with the recent Topshop and Topman
joint venture
2
in early FY25.
Chair’s
statement
”FY24 was about delivering on the
next stage of ASOS’ Driving Change
agenda, and accelerating the transition
to becoming a faster, more agile,
and more profitable business.”
Jørgen Lindemann
Chair
• Reinvigorating our company leadership, both at the Management
Committee and Board levels.
I would like to thank our ASOSers for their hard work and passion
which are the driving force behind the considerable progress ASOS
has made over the last 12 months, and our shareholders for their
support. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mai Fyfield
who stepped down from the Board on 7 February 2024 and welcome
the new Board members who have joined us during the year.
More details on our Board changes are included on pages 90 to 91.
Our Right to Win comes from leveraging our unique capabilities –
having the best product, providing a destination for style, having
a compelling and distinct brand, offering competitive convenience,
andall underpinned by disciplined capital allocation. Having the best
product is at the heart of this flywheel and, following two years
of significant focus and hard work, we leave FY24 with stock in the
best position it has been in many years. At the same time, we’ve
fundamentally improved the foundations of our business to be able
to deliver sustainably profitable growth. This transition away from our
old operating model while scaling our new commercial model has been
our greatest challenge over the last two years, but it now represents
our greatest opportunity. Fashion has the power to excite and inspire,
and into FY25, we look forward to providing our c.20m customers with
a market-leading destination for style.
Jørgen Lindemann
Chair
5 November 2024
1 Gross Merchandise Value.
2 The arrangement with Heartland, whilst referred to as a joint venture throughout
thisreport, will be accounted for as an associate, as detailed in Note 30 of the
FinancialStatements.
This journey of rebuilding ASOS started two years ago. In previous
letters, I’ve described some of the challenges facing the business and
some of the actions we’re taking to build ourselves back faster, more
agile, and better able to serve our fashion-loving 20-something
customers. We know that by having the most exciting product, by
focusing on inspiration over transaction, by providing an exciting
customer journey enabled by a fast and agile operation, we can build
asustainable, profitable business and return to growth.
From the start of this journey, we’ve been determined to take the
‘medicine’ required and face our problems head on, even when it has
been painful or unpopular. I’d like to describe that journey – what
we’vedone as well as what’s next – and why I’m more confident than
ever that we’re on the right path to be the number one destination
forfashion-loving 20-somethings.
What have we achieved so far?
Since October 2022, with our Driving Change agenda, we were
determined to make ASOS a healthy business ensuring that our
operations were efficient and effective, and that all our efforts were
creating value for our customers, our brand partners, our ASOSers and
our shareholders. Internally, I spoke about this as a two-step plan: starting
with ‘Back to Basics’, which was about bringing stability and laying solid
foundations both operationally and financially, and ‘Back to Fashion’ which
is focused on recapturing the hearts and minds of our target customers.
ASOS needed time to cleanse and rebuild – such a transformation could
only be built over a disciplined revision of everything we do, bringing
arefreshed level of rigour to each process in our value creation chain.
Onlythen would we be in a position to grow again.
At the core of this process has been the transformation of our stock
model and we can be proud that today our stock is in the strongest
position it has been for many years. Two years ago, we had far too
much inventory – c.£1bn for c.£4bn of sales, with a very large intake of
new inventory arriving over the following year. We faced the problem
head on and cut intake dramatically, we restructured the way that we
buy, we prioritised speed and net realised margin, we incubated new
commercial models like Test & React, which we have scaled to over 10%
of our own brand mix, and scaled our flexible fulfilment models –
Partner Fulfils and ASOS Fulfilment Services – to c.5% of partner
brand Gross Merchandise Value (GMV).
We have reduced stock levels by c.50% over the last two years, and
completely refreshed our offering now with c.80% of fashion stock
being product that has been on site for less than six months. We’ve also
fundamentally restructured the way we buy and manage our inventory
so that we never find ourselves back in such a heavily overstocked
position. At the same time, we’ve cut our over-reliance on discounting
and built a business focused on selling the best fashion at full-price.
This has helped us attract exciting new brands for our customers like
Arket, Laneige and Veja, all joining in recent months.
We have cleansed our logistics operation, rationalising excess space to
increase efficiency, rebuilding our processes with increased visibility
and speed to bring our customers a better experience. Over the last
two years we have improved our missed customer delivery promise
byhalving the share of parcels delivered late. We transformed our
performance marketing model, removing inefficient spend to increase
return on advertising spend (ROAS) by +18% in Q4.
We rethought the economics of our international markets last year
and all of our markets now deliver a positive contribution profit, with
dedicated efforts in North America to restore profitability. In order
toachieve this, we had to make changes to our propositions targeted
at unprofitable customers and revenues. This resulted in a shrinking
ofthe business, but was the right decision so that we can build from
thestrongest possible foundations.
We also continued the evolution of our leadership team to prepare for
the next phase of our journey. We welcomed Anthony Ben Sadoun as
Executive Vice President (EVP) Digital Product in February, Dave
Murray as Chief Financial Officer in April, and Ras Vaghjiani as EVP of
People Experience in July. We also welcomed Rishi Sharma as Interim
General Counsel and Company Secretary in May (Emma Whyte is on
maternity leave) and Hugh Williams as Interim EVP Technology in June.
Chief Executive
Ofcer’s statement
“From the start of this journey, we’ve been
determined to take the ‘medicine’ required and
face our problems head on, even when it has been
painful or unpopular. I’d like to describe that
journey – what we’ve done aswell as what’s next
– and why I’m more confident than ever that we’re
on the right path to be the number one destination
forfashion-loving 20-somethings.”
CEO
José Antonio Ramos Calamonte
GOVERNANCE REPORTSTRATEGIC REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
10
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
In recent months, we have seen signs that the changes we have
implemented are starting to bear fruit. We have seen a consistent
evolution on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with 24% growth in
sales of new product over the last 3 months from 6% higher stock,
30% faster stock turn, and variable contribution margin up c.4ppts.
InSeptember, we also delivered a major milestone in this journey with
the strengthening of our balance sheet through the formation of a
Topshop Topman joint venture and our successful refinancing, bringing
to ASOS the right level of balance sheet flexibilityto complete this
journey.
What’s next?
As we enter FY25, we now feel that the major blocks of our foundations
are largely built. While we will maintain our obsession with operational
efficiency and speed, our focus shifts to relentlessly improving on the
pillars of our “Right to Win” – the best & most relevant product, being
adestination for style, delivering an engaging customer journey and
competitive convenience. Clearly, the logical consequence of completing
this journey will be to bring the company back to revenue growth, but
thismust be sustainable, profitable growth. In the past, ASOS’ growth
was built over an ambitious geographic expansion, with a wide base of
customers globally, but a relatively small share of wallet. In my opinion,
the future growth of ASOS should be built over different pillars – with
agreater focus on share of wallet from our core customers in our
coremarkets.
Our ultimate goal is to delight our customers so much that they give us
more of their time, love, and fashion spend. We believe this is the best
way to build a good economic business and cannot be delivered through
a solitary action, but by putting customers at the heart of everything we
do. Internally, we now talk about our growth strategy by planting seeds.
We want to model bamboo, with strong roots that first grow deep
andallow the plant to then grow sustainably for many years, and stay
strong. These seeds can be something as small as a new feature on our
site such as Buy the Look (which 14m customers engaged with last year)
orthe addition of an exciting new brand. And we have begun to develop
aculture of innovation, instilling in our teams the desire to plant seeds,
minimising risk by testing before committing.
We have already begun planting the seeds that will underpin the next
chapter of our transformation. Test & React transforms our own brand
model to ensure we are the first place that customers can access the
best product. Our shift from performance marketing to social media &
influencer marketing, which we’ve already scaled to working with c.1,500
influencers per month over the last year, ensures we can communicate
our fashion message efficiently and consistently off-site as well as
on-site. We’re excited to re-launch Topshop.com which will provide
customers a destination for the brand beyond the current ASOS
ecosystem. Following the appointment of our first EVP of Digital Product,
we have also begun transforming our Technology and Digital Product
models, simplifying our structure, reorganising into smaller, autonomous
units aligned to customer focus areas. We’re adding 100 software
engineers, increasing our capacity by 25% to empower faster innovation
of our on-site customer experience with the cost off-set through the
simplification of our structure.
Understandably, we will be asked by analysts or investors, “when will
ASOS grow again?” so I wanted to share my framing here. At ASOS
wehave to focus on the inputs – which for the last two years has been
weighted towards taking the painful medicine of reducing stock, exiting
unprofitable activities and the disciplined revision of everything we do.
As we move into Phase 2 of our journey, the year ahead and beyond
willbe increasingly weighted towards taking actions that delight our
customers to win more of their time, love and fashion spend. However,
from experience we know that exactly when that results in growth
inrevenue is not something we should try to manage. We could, for
example, decide to grow next month by re-engaging promotional
marketing or discounting product, but that would not be in the long-term
interests of the business. We want to spend our time and energy building
experiences that deserve for our customers to say “wow”. We will do
things in the right way and we’re going to be patient. We have already
seen the green shoots in the performance of our new stock in recent
months, providing confirmation that we have taken the right action
forour customers.
While there is still work to do, I am energised by the progress we have
made so far and am excited for the next stage of our journey. I am
absolutely convinced that ASOS can grow again, that we have
something incredibly unique to offer our customers, and that we now
have the right team, the right foundations and the necessary rigour,
passion and the energy to do so.
José Antonio Ramos Calamonte
Chief Executive Officer
5 November 2024
11
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Business model
Operational excellence
in all parts of our business, from buying and managing stock
through the value chain to our products arriving with our
customers, all underpinned by our commitment to Fashion
with Integrity.
Our tech and data
with continuous innovation at the right level of cost.
Our international model
which efficiently allocates capital to generate the best returns
from our overseas operations, influencing decisions such as
the degree of localisation in the assortment to the level of
investment in marketing in non-UK markets.
Our people, culture and values
with a refreshed leadership team, a strong Board and disruptive
mindset at all levels of the business, and a focus on driving positive
change, diversity, equity and inclusion forall our people.
Disciplined capital allocation
Our distinct model is enabled by disciplined allocation of capital with a focus on four key areas:
Our proposition is unique in the world of mass market fashion, set apart from peers by the combination of our
strategic priorities:
Our right to
win
The best and most
relevant product
from both exclusive own brands manufactured
to strong ethical standards, and a curated
assortment from selected partner brands
which resonate with our target audience.




A compelling and
distinctbrand
famous for fashion, with widespread recognition,
a clear point of difference, and a high level of
engagement with our customers.
A destination for style
with items from different brands styled into
outfits, in context, and in our differentiated
visual language.
Competitive convenience
offering a delivery, returns and payment
experience at least comparable with our best
competitors.
5
ASOS is a leading global destination
for fashion-loving 20-somethings,
with 20m active customers
in over 200 markets worldwide.
GOVERNANCE REPORTSTRATEGIC REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
12
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
13
Stakeholder engagement on pages 22 to 27.
Financial review on pages 56 to 61.
Creating stakeholder value
Delivering on our right to win creates value for our stakeholders.
Our Customers
Our Shareholders
who benefit from access to quality fashion at an attractive
price, a market-leading selection of brands and inspirational,
targeted styling.
who will benefit from a focus on delivering profitable
growthand sustainable cash generation through the
efficientallocation ofcapital.
Our ASOSers Our Communities
who are empowered to contribute, learn, and grow through
our open and entrepreneurial culture.
both through our work on human rights and modern slavery
inpartnership with NGOs and unions in our sourcing countries,
and through the ASOS Foundation and long-term charity
partnerships aimed at breaking down barriers for young
people by instilling confidence and unlocking talent.
Our Suppliers
with whom we collaborate to foster trusted, mutually
beneficial partnerships over the long term and support
incontinuous improvement to meet our FWI standards.
Our Brand Partners
a
who gain access to a large, global and often hard-to-reach
customer base as well as the flexibility to work with us under
arange of different models, including our direct-to-consumer
offering, and the opportunity to work and learn from other
brands on sustainability and ethical trade.
13
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Strategic review
Our mission is to be the number one destination
for fashion-loving 20-somethings. We know that
by having the most exciting product, by focusing
on inspiration over transaction and by providing
anexciting customer journey enabled by a fast
and agile operation, we canbuild a sustainable,
profitable business and return to growth.
What have we achieved?
ASOS is unequivocally a faster, more agile and
more efficient business than when we started
our Driving Change transformation two years
ago. This has been made possible by a
significant effort from ASOSers to deliver
against our strategic priorities.
1. Product is in a great place, through
disciplined stock management and
anobsession with speed
Our mission is to be the world’s number
onefashion destination for fashion-loving
20-somethings. Having the best product
isat the core of our flywheel. We want to
delight our customers with the hottest and
freshest products and brands, at the right
price, delivered in a reliable and consistent
way - great products lead to positive
customer experiences and inspire loyalty.
We can drive better unit economics from
selling full-price products, and a better
return on marketing investment when
directing people to the best product.
Themore efficient we get, the better
theexperience we are able to deliver.
At the core of this process has been the
transformation of our stock model and the
transition to our new commercial model.
Wecan be proud that today our stock
position is in the strongest position it has
been for many years. At the beginning of our
transformation, our stock levels had more
than doubled to over £1bn due to Covid-
related disruption and poor commercial
practices which led to the build-up of old
andaged stock. Over the last two years,
wehave reduced stock levels by c.50% to
£520m and c.80% of our current fashion
stockholding is in product that has been
onsite for less than six months.
This hasn’t been an easy journey, and we
have operated through ‘peak pain’ over FY23
and FY24 as we’ve cleared through high
levels of excess aged inventory built up
under our old operating model, reduced
ourintake of new and exciting product and
shifted to a model ofclearing through any
underperforming stockas we go. During the
second half of the year, we began testing
the removal of the remaining old stock on
oursite to see how it would affect customer
engagement and sales. The trial was a
success:sell through of new stock increased
dramatically, conversion rates improved,
and we almost halved discounting on site.
InQ4, we decided to permanently remove
the remaining excess stock from site, which
we subsequently wrote-down and will clear
through alternative channels. This write-
down mainly relates to stock over 12months
old, andmeans that we finished FY24 with a
more compelling customer proposition and
the right level of newness toexcite our
customers again. The results are clear. Over
the last 3 months (July-September) sales of
newness increased 24% year-on-year (YoY)
with only 6% more stock, turning 30%
faster, and with c.4ppts higher variable
contribution margin.
Our new commercial model ensures this
build-up of old inventory never happens
again. We have significantly improved our
speed tomarket (the lead time between
buying andselling stock), meaning we can
make better choices on our intake. We
focus on selling the best fashion at
full-price and clearing through any
underperforming stock in-season,
improving gross margin, avoiding deeper
discounts, releasing cash to invest innew
GOVERNANCE REPORTSTRATEGIC REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
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ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
15
15
15
1
15
15
15
5
1515
15
15
15
1
15
15
15
5
5
1
1
5
15
stock, and ensuring a better customer
experience by presenting more fresh and
relevant product.
Our market-leading Test & React model is
fundamental to our new commercial model,
bringing product from design to site within
three weeks, ensuring our own brands
always offer the most exciting product and
set the trends for our fashion-loving
customers. Having developed the model
during FY23, wehave now successfully
scaled to more than10% of our own-brand
sales mix at the end of FY24 and remain on
track to scale to 30% over the mid-term.
We test product before ‘reacting’ and
committing to volume. When we do commit,
given the speed to market, we typically
aimto hold just three weeks ofstock,
supporting a cleaner stock profile. Despite
the higher sourcing costs that small batch
sizes incur, the high customer demand and
full-price mix means the product generates
higher gross margin.
Our obsession with speed spans our entire
portfolio, and is indicative of an evolution in
our broader culture. The development of
flexible fulfilment models, Partner Fulfils and
ASOS Fulfilment Services (‘AFS’), enable us
to be more agile in how we collaborate with
our third party brands while bringing our
customers increased width (i.e. expanding
the product range available on the ASOS
platform) and depth (i.e. allowing us to
continue fulfilling orders on our bestsellers
when our wholesale stock is depleted). As
planned, we successfully doubled the share
of third-party GMV to c.5% and the number
of brands using flexible fulfilment to c.100
over FY24.
2. We’re faster and more agile, after
reducing our cost to serve, removing
waste and improving our use of data
It is critical that we invest in the areas
thatmatter most to our customers.
Wehave simplified processes and removed
wasted time and cost to reinvest into
productive commercial activities. This has
laid the foundations for future growth
without sacrificing margins – in other
words, to be able to deliver sustainable,
profitablegrowth.
While there are many initiatives driving
improvement, it is worth highlighting our
progress in two particular areas – our
logistics operations and customer returns
– which helped improve our distribution and
warehousing cost ratios by a combined
c.2ppts YoY, despite volume deleverage.
In logistics, we have undertaken a
significant transformation rationalising
excess space and re-building our processes
with increased visibility and speed to
bringour customers a better experience.
This was driven by a range of initiatives,
reflecting our shift in business culture
prioritising continuous improvements,
suchas:
•
Improved customer experience: Through
better use of granular and near-time data
to identify trends and patterns in our
delivery experience, we have halved the
percentage of orders that were missing our
customer delivery promise over the last
eighteen months, significantly improving
our customer experience while reducing
our costs.
•
Warehouse optimisation: We lowered
ourvariable warehousing costs through
increased automation, reducing our labour
cost per unit by c.10%, whilst the reduction
in stock levels has enabled the consolidation
of our warehouse infrastructure, reducing
fixed costs by c.25%.
• Delivery cost efficiencies: Through
optimising our delivery partners and
renegotiating contracted rates, we have
lowered our variable delivery costs. The
cessation of split orders from our two UK
distribution centres in H1 FY23, alongside
improved rates from carriers, has further
reduced our distribution costs.
Minimising unnecessary returns remains
acentral focus for ASOS. During our rapid
expansion period, we focused on reducing
thefriction in the returns process to
maximise the customer experience. More
recently, we have turned our attention to
lowering the returns rate and eliminating
needless pain points for our customers. This
has involved making improvements to our
size and fit and how clothing and accessories
are displayed onproduct pages, including
greater use of videos and 360 imagery as
well as introducing AI to better understand
and address reasons for returns, creating a
feedback loop for improvement. As an
e-commerce business, weunderstand that
there is such a thing as ‘good returns’ that
enhance the customer experience, and
wecontinue to offer free returns to all
customers in our core markets. For
customers with an exceptionally high
returnsrate, this is now subject to keeping
to a minimum net order threshold.
There is still work to do in this area, but we
have been pleased to see these initiatives
begin to have a positive impact for our
customers, reducing our underlying returns
rate by more than 1ppt YoY.
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Strategic review continued
3. We’re better placed to deliver great
customer experiences
In the past, ASOS built its growth through an
ambitious geographic expansion. This
created a wide base of customers globally,
but with a relatively small share of wallet.
The growth engine of the coming years will
be our core customers in our core markets.
This means strengthening our relationship
with customers, bringing more engagement
and excitement totake a greater share of
wallet and greater penetration of our core
demographic.
In the UK, we have our highest brand
awareness, our greatest penetration of our
core demographic and our highest share of
wallet. On average our UK customers spend
£214 per annum at ASOS and our returning
customers (i.e. excluding customers
acquired during the year) shop on average
seven times per annum. In the initial stages
of our transformation, we saw two clear
headwinds to order frequency and churn:
i)reduction in intake to clear through excess
stock carried forward, meaning less new
andexciting product; ii) heightened levels of
clearance which detracted from the overall
experience and attracted non-core ASOS
shoppers making one-off purchases to take
advantage of discounts being offered.
Outside the UK, our brand awareness is
significantly lower as is our order frequency
and average customer spend. In these
markets we have also undertaken a more
significant rebalancing of the customer
proposition to invest in the areas that really
matter to our customers. This has meant
ashift away from differentiating through
our delivery and returns proposition and
into product and inspiration. This journey
will take time to bear fruit, but we believe
by creating win-win relationships with our
customers we can both improve our
profitability and grow.
These headwinds also made our marketing
investment less efficient during this
transition, driving traffic towards a
sub-optimal customer experience.
However, we made significant optimisations
in our performance media model, allowing
us to reduce investment year-on-year while
delivering a net positive impact on variable
contribution generated through
performance channels. We were able to
identify and remove the tail of inefficient
spend from paid search, social and affiliate
channels leading to an increase in media
return on advertising spend (ROAS) at
Group level of +18% in Q4.
Concurrently, we have rebalanced our
marketing investment towards brand
marketing. In order to build lasting, engaged
relationships with our core customers we
need to deliver consistent brand messaging
both on-and-off-site. Having tested a
variety of marketing approaches earlier in
the year, including full funnel campaigns, we
found our always-on influencer programme
to be the most effective and efficient, which
following successful testing, we scaled to
working with c.1,500 influencers per month
by the end of the year. This meant we spent
less than the £30m incremental brand
budget initially planned.
In recent months, we have also seen
improved customer engagement. As we
have removed clearance stock from our site,
increased newness and rolled out our social
media and influencer marketing programme,
we have seen improving customer
reactivations and retention. As we
haveimproved the reliability of our
deliveryproposition, we have also seen
improvements in our corresponding Net
Promoter Scores (NPS) which demonstrates
the focus on strengthening our core
customer proposition.
Underpinned by efficient and disciplined
capital allocation
Our strategy is underpinned by efficient
capital allocation, allowing us to invest
behindour strengths in a disciplined way,
andrelentlessly removing waste to invest
intoopportunity. At the beginning of FY25
weannounced three key updates which
significantly increased our balance sheet
strength and financial flexibility:
i) TSTM JV: In October 2024, we formed
ajoint venture (JV)
1
with Heartland A/S
thatpurchased the Topshop and Topman
brands, with Heartland taking a 75% stake
for £135m cash consideration. Through the
JV, we continue to be part of the brands’
future potential while improving the
efficiency of our capital allocation today.
We will explore new opportunities, both
online and offline, to bring the best of TSTM
to customers globally, providing an exciting
growth avenue. Through either partner or
owned stores, we will strive to return TSTM
to the high street and, within the next six
months, will re-launch Topshop.com, giving
the brand an opportunity to further expand
its customer base.
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ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
17
ii) Convertible bond re-financing: We
successfully extended our maturity profile
while reducing our net debt through the
placement of convertible bonds due 2028
and concurrent repurchase of outstanding
convertible bonds due 2026 at a discount
to par. This was funded, in part, by the sale
of a majority stake in TSTM, demonstrating
our focus on efficient capital allocation.
iii) Bantry Bay re-financing: We also announced
an amendment and extension of our existing
facilities agreement with Bantry Bay Capital
to May 2027, with an option for a 12 month
extension. As part of the amendment,
weswitched £50m of term loan into a
revolving facility to effectively reduce
ourblended interest rate as we improve
ourfinancial flexibility.
During the year we also continued the evolution
of our leadership team to prepare for the next
Phase of our journey. We welcomed Anthony
Ben Sadoun as our first EVP Digital Product
inFebruary, Dave Murray as CFO in April,
andRas Vaghjiani as EVP of People Experience
in July. We also welcomed Rishi Sharma
asInterim General Counsel and Company
Secretary in May (Emma Whyte is on maternity
leave), and Hugh Williams as Interim EVP
Technology in June.
Where are we going?
The last two years have necessarily been
focused on putting the right foundations in
place. As we enter FY25, we now feel that
themajor blocks of our foundations are
largely in place. While we will maintain our
obsession with operational efficiency and
speed, our focus now shifts to relentlessly
improving on the pillars of our Right to Win –
the best & most relevant product, being
adestination for style, delivering an
engagingcustomer journey, and competitive
convenience – in order to delight our
customers so much that they give us more
oftheir time, love and fashion spend.
We believe that delighting our customers
isthe best way to build a good economic
business. Delighting customers is not
delivered through a solitary action, but by
putting customers at the heart of everything
we do. Internally, we now talk about our
growth strategy by planting seeds. We want
to model bamboo, with strong roots that first
grow deep and allow the plant to then grow
sustainably for many years, and stay strong.
These ‘seeds’ can be something as small as a
new feature on our site such as ‘Buy the Look’
(which 14m customers engaged with last
year)or the addition of an exciting new brand.
We have also begun to cultivate a culture of
innovation, instilling in our teams the desire to
plant seeds, minimising risk by testing before
committing. We have already begun to plant
many of the seeds across our four pillars
thatwill underpin the next chapter of our
transformation:
1. Best & most relevant product: While Test
& React has been pivotal to improving
inventory management, it also transforms
our fashion offering, ensuring we are the
first place that customers can access the
best product. With the support of AI, we
willfurther scale Test & React from 10%
to20% of own-brand sales over FY25.
Wesuccessfully tested AFS with our first
brand over FY24 and will expand further in
FY25. We recently appointed a new Partner
Brands Director, Shazmeen Malik, to lead
our partner brand team and will create a
brand acquisition team to focus on bringing
exciting new partners to our platform
following the launch of Arket, Veja and
Mango Man.
2. Destination for style: Following the
appointment of Anthony Ben Sadoun, our
first EVP of Digital Product, we have begun
to transform our Technology and Digital
Product models, reorganising into smaller,
autonomous units aligned to customer
focus areas. We’re adding 100 software
engineers, increasing our capacity by 25%
to empower faster innovation of our on-site
customer experience with the cost off-set
through the simplification of our structure.
3. Engaging customer journey: We have
improved the efficiency of our marketing
activity through the optimisation of our
performance marketing model and already
begun deploying these savings into our
social media and influencer marketing
tocommunicate our fashion message
efficiently and consistently off-site as well
as on-site. Over Q4, we have seen a 14%
increase in our earned media value and will
continue to scale our programme over the
next 12 months. We will also test incentives
to improve customer loyalty, including the
launch of a new loyalty programme in H2.
Finally, the launch of Topshop.com will
provide the brand a destination for
customers beyond the current ASOS
ecosystem.
4. Competitive convenience: Our work on
size and fit and the use of AI to learn from
our customer experience has had a positive
impact on our underlying returns rate. We
will continue to improve the convenience of
our customer experience by tackling the
causes of unnecessary returns.
Our goal is to build a business that delights
customers so much that they give us more of
their time, love and fashion spend. We know that
by having the most exciting product, by focusing
on inspiration over transaction, and by providing
an exciting customer journey, enabled by a fast
and agile operation, we can build a sustainable,
profitable business and return to growth.
Ourbusiness model affords us competitive
advantages in these areas, which has been core
to our success. However, we must continue
torelentlessly improve across each of them.
Whilethere is still work to do, we are motivated
by the progress we have made so far and
areexcited for the next stage of our journey.
Wehave something incredibly unique to offer
our customers, and now have the right team,
the right foundations and the necessary rigour,
passion and the energy to do so.
1 The arrangement with Heartland, whilst referred to as
ajoint venture throughout this report, will be accounted
for as an associate, as detailed in Note 30 of the
FinancialStatements.
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
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ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Our people
Great work doesn’t happen by chance. It takes
facts and data to help us make decisions with
conviction. It’s about doing what we say and
owning what we do until it’s done, and using data
to bring everyone on the journey with us. It’s a
strategy that allows us to create an ASOS that’s
built for future success.
Learning
In October 2023, we rebranded learning and
development activities under Learning@ASOS
for a refreshed learning experience that
was relevant, accessible, inclusive and engaging.
Learning@ASOS includes a wide range of
activities and programmes, such as our ASOS
Develops learning events, which we run twice
ayear for all ASOSers. Our April 2024 edition
spanned three days and included 80 sessions
across six sites.
One of our focus areas over the year was to
increase our expertise in using data. As well
asdelivering 19 Data Apprenticeships, we
upskilled over 1,200 ASOSers on tools such as
Excel, Power Bi, and SQL, covering everything
from planning and governing to gaining
insights and storytelling with data.
To help drive innovation, productivity, and
efficiencies, we launched an internal Work
Smarter campaign, delivering learning content
on new and existing tools within AI, automation,
and virtual workshop tooling across Microsoft
and Miro. We also delivered over 70 sessions
inCommercial Tech, AI & Data Science,
Customer Experience, and Core Services to
140 engineers, including several cycles of the
eight-module “Software Crafters” training,
teaching software development best practices
and further enhancing technical knowledge
across our teams. To keep the knowledge of
our Tech teams up to the minute, stand-alone
Tech Develops sessions were run monthly by
the Tech team to share new skills and learning,
sponsored by our Executive Vice President
-Technology.
New learning to support new systems
roll-outs, processes, or business issues
isalways key to support our day-to-day
operations. Over the year we ran learning
programmes for ASOSers and key partners
on Intake, Product Lifecycle Management,
Customer Care, Returns, and more.
In December 2023, we launched
our leadership curriculum, Liberating
Leaders, and our development curriculum,
Liberating Self, providing a mix of personal,
career and business skills development.
Wesaw over 350 ASOSers take part in the
foundation programme, Self-Leadership,
which was highly successful: those taking
partgave it an effectiveness rating of 97%,
and we saw a significant shift in competence
and confidence in their development
mindset,helping them to identify potential
development blockers.
We also run business skills sessions every six
weeks, giving all ASOSers a great foundational
learning on what they need to do their jobs well.
This curriculum is reviewed annually in line with
our ASOS-wide Skills Gap employee survey.
Finally, we launched our new learning
management system, Thrive, in July 2024
providing a platform that is much more
modern, accessible and relevant. This new
system now provides a far more personal
learning experience for ASOSers enabling
learning to be part of their day-to-day.
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
19
Apprenticeships
FY24 saw the launch of our route-to-hire
programmes, providing a much-needed access
point for young adults and those who face
barriers to work to begin their careers. Our 13
new hires joining us under this programme did
so through a variety of pathways including
creative, commercial, business administration,
and finance. They joined the 566 ASOSers
wehave enrolled on the programme since
2017,and the 130 currently studying across
15apprenticeship standards.
This year we enhanced our offering for
emerging talent by creating opportunities to
experience more of ASOS, from getting hands
on in our supply chain operations through to
understanding life in studios. This combined
with workplace application of learning and
study towards recognised qualifications
increased our apprenticeship completion rate.
We’re passionate about recognising success
and raising the profile of apprenticeships
across the UK. In the year, we hosted our
biggest National Apprenticeship Week
celebration to date, attended by our CEO,
José, recognising and celebrating our
apprentices’ achievements.
Our commitment in this area was recognised
inJuly 2024 as we were listed 79th in the
Best100 Apprenticeship Employers by Rate My
Apprenticeship. Our position was based on the
reviews and experiences of our apprentices
and it was the first time we’ve appeared in
these rankings. Over 3,500 employers are on
the platform, with only 100 being shortlisted,
demonstrating the quality of our delivery and
success in this space. We’re the only online
fashion retailer to make the list.
We believe in the power of apprenticeships
tounlock potential and build future capability.
We’ve pledged to invest further in this space
by continuing to create new opportunities
andprovide education for all, supporting the
growth of lifelong skills for our ASOSers.
Attracting and retaining
amazing people
We have continued to focus on retaining
high-performing talent. Our internal-first
approach provides our people with a platform
to grow and develop in their career and we’ve
seen a 5% rise in internal moves from the
previous financial year. We piloted our first
internal talent event, Shape Your Career,
where over 1,600 of our people registered
andattended a range of talks and coaching
sessions with the objective to empower
career development. We also delivered
workshops on the ASOS behaviours and values
across teams, reaching over 2,000 ASOSers
to further embed and embrace our culture.
A key part of our attraction and retention
strategy is to engage and attract diverse,
international talent. We developed our existing
partnerships this year to enable us to connect
with and inspire diverse talent communities.
Our internal Talent Acquisition team and
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team collaborated
to ensure ASOS is an inclusive employer of
choice, bringing to life our brand purpose –
giving potential hires the confidence to be
whoever they want to be. We’ve upskilled
ourexisting people leaders on best practices
inhiring, and we’ve continued to add to our
interview committee, through which individuals
can volunteer to take part in interviews and
help ensure a diverse interview panel.
Celebrating success
July saw the return of the “ASOS Aces”
Annual Awards ceremony, celebrating
success across the business. We introduced
a total of 11 award categories geared to
individuals that over the financial year
demonstrated our values and behaviours,
exhibited strong leadership and delivered
results successfully as a team. All employees
could nominate any ASOSer under categories
such as, “Leader of the Year”, “Customer
Champion”, “Authentic”, “Brave”, “Team
of the Year”, and “Ace of Aces”. Over 850
nominations were received over 10 working
days, with finalists shortlisted by a community
of ASOSers and winners determined by
the Management Committee. ASOSers
from around the world gathered for the
celebratory event in our London HQ,
which was a great success.
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ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)
Over FY24, we invested time and resource
into strengthening the foundation of our DEI
networks with a redesign and relaunch, adding
two new networks: Fertility & Baby Loss and
Women’s+. Our nine DEI networks now have
full core operational teams, including Chair
and Co-Chair positions, alongside an
allocated budget and clear targets that align
to our central strategic focus as a business
todrive change. Key activities carried out
bythese groups since their refresh include
campaigns in recognition of International
Women’s Day, Mental Health Awareness
Week, Pride Month, and more. Our newest
network, Fertility & Baby Loss, has already
made a significant impact by inputting into
crucial policy work and improvements.
We’re dedicated to enhancing our policies and
benefits to support ASOSers, and we’ve
recently enhanced our parental leave policy.
We’ll continue to review our overall offering.
We’re committed to inclusive hiring practices
where interview panels must have diverse
representation, supported by an Interview
Committee made up of ASOSers from
underrepresented groups. Hiring managers
receive Hiring @ ASOS training, with learnings
about how to run an inclusive and equitable
process. Our external partners are crucial to
this work. We’ve signed up to the Race at
Work Charter and are working with The
Outsiders Perspective, who support people
from ethnically diverse backgrounds getting
into the fashion industry.
Our people continued
Celebrating Pride
In June 2024, our THEYSOSers (our internal LGBTQIA+
network) once again led ASOS’ representation for the Pride
inLondon and Belfast Pride parades. Additionally, our Studios
team conducted an internal shoot campaign in our HQ and
Leavesden offices, featuring around 50 ASOSers who are
members of the LGBTQIA+ community as part of our annual
Pride celebrations. We also launched an ASOS Design Pride
range created in collaboration with LGBTQIA+ artists and
insupport of Just Like Us, LGBTQIA+ young people’s charity.
20
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
21
Our THEYSOSers network for LGBTQIA+
inclusion is backed up by a partnership with
myGwork, the largest business community for
LGBTQIA+ professionals, where we advertise
jobs and have access to training and event
opportunities. This includes an Employee
Resource Group Workshop, delivered to our
network core teams, to set them up for success.
We are level 1 Disability Confident Committed
and are continuing to work with Scope to
attract talent by advertising all jobs on
its job board, to reach the disability and
neurodiversity community. We’ve also had
training delivered by Autism NI, our charity
partner in Belfast which has helped to train
an additional 26 ASOSers across different
site locations as Autism Champions.
Wellbeing and mental health are still a huge
focus for us. We’ve recently introduced Unum,
a new Employee Assistance Programme which
provides mental and physical health support.
We now have over 30 ASOSers trained to a
Mental Health First Aid standard, through
Mental Health England and Byrne-Dean. Our
Mental Health First Aiders support ASOSers
and work to break down the stigma about
mental health through our Reach Out Rep
community.
1 The gender data is taken from legal sex data disclosed by employees in out Workday people platform.
Thisdata is available for 100% of employees. We’re working towards being able to measure and report
ongender data more accurately through gender identity with internal DEI data disclosure campaigns.
2 Data includes both Emma Whyte, General Counsel and Company Secretary (maternity leave) and
RishiSharma, Interim General Counsel & Company Secretary.
3 Defined as “Head of” and above positions. Please see pages 92 to 93 of our Nomination Committee Report
for further information on our Senior Leaders’ diversity.
Female Male
Gender diversity
1
As at 1 September 2024
Senior Leadership
3
41% 59%
226 roles
All ASOSers 63% 37%
2,968
Management Committee 47% 53%
15 members
2
White Ethnically diverse Not specified
Ethnic diversity
As at 1 September 2024
Senior Leadership
3
80% 12% 8%
226 roles
All ASOSers
71% 24% 5%
2,968
Management Committee
53% 27% 20%
15 members
2
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ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Stakeholder
engagement
Our mission is to be
the world’s number
one destination
for fashion-loving
20-somethings.
Our key stakeholders play a fundamental
role in helping us achieve this mission, and
therefore strong stakeholder engagement is
pivotal in achieving our long-term objectives
and driving long-term value creation.
Details of how we engaged with our stakeholders,
considering the long-term goals for each,
are set out on pages 23 to 27 and 88 to 89.
How the Board considered our key
stakeholders in their principal decision-making
during the year can be found on page 86.
S.172(1) statement and stakeholder engagement
The Directors continue to ensure they act
in a way which is in good faith and most
likely to promote the success of the Group
over the long term for the benefit of
shareholders, and in doing so, also having
regard for the Group’s key stakeholders
and other matters set out in section 172(1)
(a) to (f) of the Companies Act 2006,
being:
• the likely consequences of any decision
in the long term;
• the interests of the Group’s employees;
• the need to foster the Group’s business
relationships with suppliers, customers
and others;
• the impact of the Group’s operations on
the community and the environment;
• the desirability of the Group maintaining
a reputation for high standards
of business conduct; and
• the need to act fairly as between
members of the Company.
The Board is accountable to its stakeholders
and understands the importance of
incorporating stakeholder considerations
into the Board discussions and
decision-making.
The Directors have identified the Group’s
keystakeholders to be our customers,
ASOSers, shareholders, suppliers and
communities. Each stakeholder group has
their own individual priorities, of which the
Directors are aware and have regard to.
These priorities are considered, where
appropriate, in the Board’s decision-making.
This is not only the right thing to do but
is also vital in achieving the Group’s
long-term objectives.
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
23
How ASOS engaged during the year
• We invited customers to engage with ASOS
in real life through:
– Our first pop-up store in London;
– Curated fashion-focused events for our
Premier customers such as an ASOS
Design new season catwalk preview and
Face & Body days at our London HQ;
– Our ASOS Media Group partners tapped
into ASOS’ engaged customer base to
invite brand superfans to various events
including a creative workshop with Nike.
Engaging with our customers
face-to-face helps us to gain a better
understanding of what they love about
ASOS, and how to build experiences
thatbetter meet their needs.
• We continued to engage with customers
through various Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Customer Experience surveys – capturing
satisfaction data on our end-to-end journey
and post customer care interaction.
Ourend-to-end journey survey has now
expanded to include all four core markets
– UK, France, Germany, and US.
• Our Customer Care team provides help for
customers and gathered feedback through
our Virtual Assistant and advisors across
c.6.5m contacts in FY24 to help improve the
shopping experience. Insights have been
shared with our Management Committee
through immersive Customer Experience
sessions and initiatives taken have resulted
in improvements in customer satisfaction,
NPS and customer resolution rates.
• To further understand our customers, we
conducted bi-annual market surveys to
capture perceptions and behaviours across
core markets. We also conducted ad-hoc
surveying and focus groups to gain
additional insights to answer key business
questions.
• We launched our As Seen on You user
generated content program on-site to
showcase our customers’ style choices
inaddition to expanding our influencer
programme on social media platforms
toact as further outfit inspiration for
customers.
• Our design teams continue to use insights
from social and from our Test & React
products to lead on emerging trends
andstay in touch with customers.
How the Board engaged during
theyear
• Throughout the year, our Board received
periodic updates on brand performance
and customer health metrics at Board
meetings and at the Board Strategy Day.
The Board tracks progress against actions
and initiatives in this area to improve
performance.
Why they are important…
Our goal is to create and curate
products and experiences to inspire
fashion-loving 20-somethings. To stay
relevant to our 20-something audience,
it is essential we never lose touch with
what matters to them, whoever and
wherever they are. It’s vital we engage
frequently with our customers to
ensure we can provide them with what
they want, when they want it. Being in
regular contact with our customers
helps us to tailor our product offering
and content to stay relevant to our
customers, which is key to our
long-term success.
Our Customers
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
24
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Stakeholder engagement continued
Our ASOSers
Why they are important…
We’re determined to create an
employee experience like no other,
where our ASOSers can be whoever
they want to be. An experience that
ASOSers love, where they learn,
collaborate, embrace change, and can
be authentic, brave, creative and
deliver ineverything they do. Where
ASOSers can push boundaries,
challenge expectations andhelp drive
our journey to becoming the world’s
number one destination for fashion-
loving 20-somethings and, ultimately,
our long-term success.
How ASOS engaged during the year
• We received feedback through our bi-annual
ASOS Vibe employee engagement survey
which helped us to identify key focus areas
for improvements. A full ASOS Townhall was
held to share the ASOS Vibe results with
immediate quick wins and a wider action
planto act on the feedback received.
• We continued to work with our employee
forum, the Voices Network, on both a
company-wide and a functional level,
providing a platform for two-way
conversations and amplifying ASOSers’
voices to Senior Leaders.
• We refreshed and rolled out ASOS’ Values
and Behaviours and embedded these
across the business through functional
workshops with every ASOSer, with teams
drawing up a manifesto of how they will
embody the Values and Behaviours.
• Members of the Management Committee
hosted Leaders Connect sessions with the
leadership community, focusing on key
strategic moments throughout the year.
• We continued to strengthen digital internal
communications, with “The Edit” weekly
newsletter sent direct to all ASOSers, and
a Management Committee Weekly Update
published on Viva Engage by a different
leader each week, sharing highlights
ofdiscussions at the Management
Committee, personal reflections,
and key business updates.
How the Board engaged
during theyear
• Our CEO, José Antonio Ramos Calamonte,
hosted regular townhall meetings, supported
by the Management Committee, connecting
with ASOSers on our strategic goals, providing
organisational and company updates, and
offering an opportunity forlive Q&A. Townhalls
were streamed toenable all ASOSers to join
regardless oftheir location, and recorded for
anyone not able to attend live.
• Our recently appointed CFO, Dave Murray,
hosted two CFO Townhalls with his team,
which will continue on a quarterly basis.
• At one of the CFO Townhalls, Dave Murray
hosted a fireside chat with Natasja Laheij,
ourSenior Independent Director and Audit
Committee Chair. Natasja shared her insights
of being a senior leader in the Finance industry
and ASOSers were invited to ask questions.
• In April 2024, we held our first “Meet the
Board” event, where José Antonio Ramos
Calamonte held a fireside chat style session
with William Barker, in conversation about
William’s career and his thoughts on our
strategy, focusing on waste elimination and
Test & React. A significant proportion of the
event was dedicated to ASOSers’ Q&A.
• In July 2024, our CEO hosted another
“Meet the Board” session with Jose Manuel
Martínez Gutiérrez. This was a live session
that focused on Jose Manuel’s career
inretail, including his reflections on the
industry and how it has evolved over the
years. They also discussed what it means
tobe a leader in fashion, and what growth
anddevelopment may mean other than
linear career paths.
• In April 2024, Jørgen Lindemann, in his
capacity as designated employee
engagement representative, and Christine
Ierakidis, Reward and DEI Director, met with
our employee representative group, the
Voices Network, to discuss Executive pay
and remuneration. Key views were fed back
fromthe representatives, which were in
turnfed back to the Board by Jørgen at
thenext Board meeting.
• Our Board received updates on employee
engagement and action planning
throughout the year, following a Vibe pulse
survey in October and a full Vibe survey
inApril. Key actions highlighted included
changes to performance management
practice, improved family leave provision,
and updates to the staff discount benefit.
• Several of our Directors conducted site visits
outside of HQ in London. In January 2024,
José Antonio Ramos Calamonte visited our
USfulfilment centre in Atlanta, Georgia;
inOctober 2023, José Antonio Ramos
Calamonte, JoseManuel Martínez Gutiérrez,
Wei Gao and William Barker visited our
fulfilment centre in Barnsley, U.K; in June
2024, JoséAntonio Ramos Calamonte, Dave
Murray and Jose Manuel Martínez Gutiérrez
conducted a tour of ourfulfilment centre
inBerlin, Germany andour returns centre
inPoznan, Poland. During site visits, our
Directors received a tour and meet with our
ASOSers to better understand the ways of
working and the culture at each location.
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
25
How ASOS engaged during the year
• We held meetings with institutional
investors and analysts meetings following
release of our full-year and half-year
results, hosted by the CEO, Interim CFO
and the Investor Relations team.
• Our Board members and/or our Investor
Relations team held further meetings with
major shareholders throughout the year
asand when required.
• Throughout the year, all shareholders
havean opportunity to ask questions or
represent their views at any time through
the dedicated Investor Enquiries email
address.
How the Board engaged
during theyear
• In September 2023, Mai Fyfield, in her role
as Remuneration Committee Chair at that
time, conducted a shareholder consultation
to seek their views on how we proposed to
implement the Directors’ Remuneration
Policy in FY24.
• Christine Cross, Remuneration Committee
Chair, led a shareholder consultation
process in July 2024 to gauge investor
sentiment regarding the introduction of
anew Value Creation Plan, as detailed
further on page 103.
• Our Board received feedback from our
corporate brokers and Investor Relations
team regarding market reaction and
investor views after announcements
androadshows.
• Our Investor Relations team provided
theBoard with a market update at each
scheduled Board meeting, which includes
shareholder feedback as and when
appropriate.
• Following any investor engagement by
aBoard member, that Board member
provides shareholder feedback at Board
meetings.
• Our shareholders have an opportunity to ask
questions or represent their views formally to
the Board at the Annual General Meeting.
How ASOS engaged during the year
• In November, we hosted our supplier
conference at our London HQ. Over 40
suppliers from around the world joined us
todiscuss our strategy and plans for the
future. It was a great opportunity for our
suppliers to hear from key stakeholders
from across the business and engage in
round table discussions where they could
share their experiences and feedback.
• Throughout the year, we collaborated with
our suppliers as part of our speed to market
initiatives, reviewing all our processes to
identify and remove inefficiencies.
• We maintained ongoing communications
with our suppliers through direct
engagement and our regular supplier
newsletters.
• We continued to engage with existing
keybrands to maintain solid relationships
and onboarded new brands to enhance
ouroffering.
• Our dedicated Human Rights team
operates globally to manage region-
specific social risks in our supply chain.
• Over the year, we carried out audits of 485
sites supplying ASOS, ensuring corrective
action plans were developed to address
anyissues within factories.
• We extended our partnership with
GoodWeave International from India to
Bangladesh. GoodWeave is a non-profit
organisation that promotes transparency
in global supply chains.
• For our brand partners, we launched
theFashion with Integity Learning Hub, a
comprehensive learning resource centre,
offering targeted learning opportunities,
guidance, and resources on various topics
including the importance of clear policy,
transparency, auditing and corrective
action planning, and how to identify and
remediate modern slavery related risks.
Developed with input from our critical
friends, Anti-Slavery International, the
hubaims to support our brand partners in
developing and implementing best practice
in the management of their supply chains.
• In May, the Fast Forward audit initiative
launched the Brand Associate programme,
anew initiative designed specifically for
UK small and medium-sized brands with a
turnover under £36m. The Brand Associate
programme is a collaborative effort
between Fast Forward, ASOS, and other
brands, aimed at addressing the challenges
that SMEs encounter. It seeks to provide
a comprehensive solution by offering a
step-by-step journey for brands to enhance
their knowledge and understanding around
decent working conditions and how
businesses can operate on a level playing
field with accountability and transparency.
How the Board engaged
during theyear
• Through our Sustainability Committee,
theBoard monitors the way we manage
oursupply chain to ensure we continue to
operate responsibly in line with our Fashion
with Integrity commitments.
• Our Board received updates on our supply
chain network and brand partnerships.
• Our Board reviewed our supply chain
challenges and opportunities.
Why they are important…
A key objective for the Board is to
create value for shareholders. Our
mission, purpose, values and strategy
strive to deliver long-term, profitable
growth for our shareholders.
Our Shareholders
Why they are important…
Maintaining close working relationships
and open dialogue with our suppliers
and brand partners is key to offering
our customers the best fashion.
Our Suppliers
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
26
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
How ASOS engaged during the year
• To celebrate Pride, our THEYSOSers (our
internal LGBTQIA+ network) once again
ledASOS’ representation for the Pride
inLondon and Belfast Pride parades. Our
Studios team also facilitated an internal
shoot campaign in HQ and Leavesden
offices, featuring around 50 ASOSers who
are members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Why they are important…
Operating responsibly in everything we
do is not just incredibly important to
our business and our people, it is also
key to driving positive outcomes for
thecommunities in which we operate.
From the way we manage our supply
chain, to how we address environmental
challenges such as plastic waste, it all
matters. We want to be a force for
good, so we can support the people
who support us. That’s why we’ve
continued to actively engage with local
communities and charities – helping
drive positive change.
Our Communities
Stakeholder engagement continued
The ASOS Foundation
was established as
a charity in 2013
with the aim to open
doors, remove barriers
and help young people
change their lives for
the better.
The ASOS Foundation (“The Foundation”)
invests in high impact projects which focus on
instilling confidence and unlocking talent, and
utilises our expertise in fashion and technology
to create life changing interventions for young
people. Since 2013, The Foundation has
donated c.£7.5m and has built impactful,
strategic partnerships with charitable
organisations who are playing a key role in
breaking down barriers faced by young people.
The Foundation works in collaboration with
long-term trusted partners who help us
ensure that funding is used appropriately,
effectively, and sustainably, and ultimately
reaches the young people who rely on their
support the most. The Trustees visit projects
funded by The Foundation and meet with the
partners, community stakeholders and young
people supported by these programmes.
The Foundation also engages directly with young
people at a grass roots level and maximise the
benefits of sharing skills and expertise from our
corporate funder, ASOS.com Limited. All of The
Foundation’s internal fundraising activities and
initiatives aredelivered directly by ASOS’
Corporate Responsibility team.
The Trustees review fundraising activities on
acase-by-case basis, and only approve events
which support The Foundation’s strategy
andare in keeping with its values, ethics and
reputation. In FY24, ASOS.com Limited donated
£300,000 to The Foundation. Throughout the
year, external fundraising events included a gala
dinner and a golf event. Funds generated from
ASOS office sample sales, personal training
sessions and beauty treatments are also
donated to The Foundation.
• We relaunched Give a Day Away, our
employee volunteering scheme, which offers
ASOSers one day of paid volunteering a year.
We highlighted a range of opportunities,
including some ASOS Foundation partners,
resulting in 70 ASOSers using their day
tosupport charitable initiatives.
• We continued our partnership with
(Fashion) Minority Report to support
theprofessional development of young
creatives across theUK.
26
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Foundation
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
27
• After celebrating our £2m milestone with
Centrepoint last year, The Foundation
committed another £240,000 to the
expansion of the helpline, their main
homelessness prevention tool and where the
ASOS partnership began. By developing the
helpline’s capacity and raising awareness
ofit amongst young people, Centrepoint
canmeet the rising demand for support and
reduce the number of young people facing
homelessness in the UK.
• The Foundation continued to partner with
charities to provide infrastructure, training
and support to enable underprivileged
young people to reach their potential in the
UK, Kenya and India.
• The Foundation delivered its second year
ofpartnership with East London Fashion
Education charity Caramel Rock. The
funding enabled 43 young people to access
a BTEC fashion course as well as additional
guidance to help them break into the
industry. Eight ASOSers have been actively
involved in mentoring Caramel Rock
students this year.
• In Barnsley, The Foundation continued our
partnership with OnSide, a national youth
charity determined to make sure that all
young people have the opportunity to shine,
committing £1.5m to support the building
and operational costs of a state-of-the-art
youth centre for young people aged 8-19.
The centre aims to be a safe and
aspirational place for young people, with
first class sports, arts, performance and
enterprise facilities. The public opening is
scheduled for 2025.
• The Foundation celebrated its 14th year with
the Prince’s Trust as we empowered young
people with essential STEM skills and insights
into tech. Through the Prince’s Trust, The
Foundation invested £180,000 in digital
skillsfor underrepresented youth in high
deprivation areas and delivered multiple
insight days across our offices in London
andBelfast, reaching 51 young people and
introducing them to the world of tech and
what a career in the sector could look like.
• The Foundation celebrated another impactful
year with its international partner Udayan
Care, which has continued to nurture and
care for orphaned children in India, with
74children being supported in the five homes
that The Foundation is funding. Alongside
theprovision of education, wellbeing support
and entertainment, we also invested in
maintenance projects to ensure the living
environments are a standard the young
people can be proud of.
• The Foundation also continued its support
of the Soko Community Trust inKenya,
which provides training and women’s
empowerment in local schools.
TheFoundation’s funding ensured the local
community received training on Menstrual
Hygiene Management, helping young
women to manage their menstrual cycle
without stigma or embarrassment.
How the Board engaged
during theyear
• The Board received an update on the work
of The Foundation from Nick Robertson,
Chair of the The Foundation.
• The Board keeps up to date with the
progress against community projects
delivered by The Foundation through
theSustainability Committee.
• Nick Robertson visited one of OnSide’s
youth centres in London in his capacity as
Trustee and Chair of The Foundation. Nick
was able to see first-hand the great work
that the charity is doing with the support
ofThe Foundation.
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
28
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Fashion
with
Integrity
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
28
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Progress update:
our strategic pillars
Fashion with Integrity
(FWI) is our strategy for
managing sustainability
and corporate
responsibility at ASOS.
As disclosed in last year’s annual report, our
focus in FY24 has been on reviewing and, where
necessary, revising our FWI goals and targets.
We’re pleased to have now published our
updated FWI Strategy, available on asosplc.
com/fashion-with-integrity/. To inform our
review of the Strategy, during the period
wecompleted a new impact materiality
assessment to ensure that our focus aligns to
the areas where we have the biggest impact.
Read our updated Fashion with Integrity
Strategy.
We’ve integrated our annual FWI Progress
Update with our annual report this period.
Aswith our last FWI Progress Update, we’ve
reported in reference to Sustainability
Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and
Global Reporting Index (GRI) metrics. We
continue to monitor the developments of
sustainability reporting standards in the UK
and EU in preparation for future reporting
requirements.
An explanation of our FWI Strategy, our
targets and commitments, definitions, and
methodologies is available on our plc site at
asosplc.com/fashion-with-integrity/.
We’ve set a mixture of targets and commitments
against each of our FWI pillars. Where relevant, we’ve
set measurable, data-led targets, backed by clear
methodologies, and operational roadmaps to help us
achieve our aims. It’s not always appropriate to set
data-led targets, for example when considering
progress on human rights. When that’s the case we’ve
set clear commitments instead. As with our targets,
these commitments are supported by operational
plans and interim milestones which we’ll be using to
measure and report against our progress.
Targets relating to the volume and proportion
ofsustainable materials used and our Scope 3.1a
emissions data are based on a series of
documented estimates and assumptions, such as
product weight and overall composition. More
detail is available at asosplc.com/fashion-with-
integrity/.
We have conducted sensitivity analysis on our
estimates and assumptions to determine the risk
ofpotential errors in our reported figures. This work
identified that no reasonable possible change in
ourestimates and assumptions would result in
ourreported figures changing by 5% or more
(ourESG materiality based on the SBTi’s triggered
recalculation criteria thresholds). As a result, we do
not consider these estimates or assumptions to be
materially sensitive.
ASOS PLC ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
29
Emissions (tCO
2
e)
Category FY24 FY23
% change
YoY
% change vs
baseline
FY22 baseline
(restated)
FY22
(previously
reported)
Scope 1 Fugitive Emissions 366 372 -2% -34% 557 N/A
Natural Gas 2,416 2,695 -10% -33% 3,608 3,351
Scope 2 Electricity (Market Based) 2,372 2,259 +5% +6% 2,232 2,860
Electricity (Location Based) 9,125 8,743 +4% -10% 10,096 11,497
Scope 3
3.1a Purchased Goods for
resale (Products and Packaging)
766,749 896,023 -14% -37% 1,224,272 913,108
ASOS own-brands and labels 340,485 375,532 -9% -38% 548,438 332,757
Partner brands 426,264 520,491 -18% -37% 675,834 580,351
3.1b Purchased Goods and Services not
for-resale
43,439 51,322 -15% -57% 101,963 23,015
3.2 Capital Goods 34,288 48,464 -29% -35% 52,598 53,780
3.3 Energy-Related Activities
Not in Scopes 1 and 2
4,843 4,291 +13% 0% 4,863 3,609
3.4 Upstream Transportation and Distribution 206,792 308,596 -33% -51% 422,036 349,979
3.5 Waste (Operations) 11,800 13,424 -12% -8% 12,757 519
3.6 Business Travel 2,025 1,242 +63% +46% 1,383 1,535
3.7 Employee Commuting 1,324 1,439 -8% -44% 2,367 9,869
3.8 Upstream Leased Assets 23 23 0% -8% 25 N/A
3.9 Downstream Transportation and
Distribution
1,622 3,550 -54% N/A 0 N/A
3.11 Use of Sold Products 90,981 110,585 -18% -30% 130,639 349,125
3.12 End-of-Life of Sold Products 43,665 51,634 -15% -31% 63,138 27,958
Total 1,212,705 1,495,920 -19% -40% 2,022,438 1,738,708
Plan et
Target
By FY27, procure 100% renewable
electricity across the ASOS estate.
FY24 performance: 82.2%
FY23 performance: 80.3%
YoY (year on year) change: +1.9ppts
Target
By FY30, reduce the absolute emissions
generated by the manufacture of ASOS
own-brands and labels products by 42%
compared to a FY22 baseline.
FY24 performance: -38%
FY23 performance: -32%
YoY change: -6ppts
Climate & Nature
Greenhouse gas inventory
Target
By FY30, ensure 90% of emissions
generated by brand partner products
sold on ASOS come from brands who
have set science-based targets.
FY24 performance: 67.4%
FY23 performance: 60.3%
YoY change: +7.1ppts
Target
By FY50, reduce 90% of the absolute
emissions generated by our entire value
chain compared to a FY22 baseline.
FY24 performance: -41%
FY23 performance: -27%
YoY change: -14ppts
Our emissions have fallen significantly in FY24
against our FY22 baseline. We see two main
drivers of this trend: first, the work we
delivered to become a more efficient
business, including reducing our stock intake
and prioritising speed to market; and second,
a reduction in the number of customer orders
over the same period. As the business returns
to growth over the medium term, we expect
stock intake and customer orders to increase
from FY24 volumes. Our challenge is to
decouple this volume growth from our
emissions footprint.
We’ve updated our carbon calculation
methodology in partnership with a third-party
provider. This has resulted in a restatement of
our FY22 carbon emissions figures, originally
published in our FWI FY22 Progress Update
and our FY23 Annual Report. Our restated
FY22 footprint below is +16% higher than
previously reported. Our previously reported
emissions are disclosed below for comparison
purposes. More detail on our restatement is
available in our FWI Strategy Update on
asosplc.com/fashion-with-integrity/.
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE REPORT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
30
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Material Tonnes acquired
% of overall mix
(to nearest .1%) % of material more sustainable
1
Cotton 6,069 49.5% 49% Better Cotton
2
,
4% recycled, 1% organic
Polyester 3,790 30.9% 13% recycled
Man-made cellulosic fibres (MMCFs) 1,039 8.5% 33% more sustainable
Acrylic 520 4.3% 0%
Nylon 371 3.0% 1% recycled
Other (including elastane, linen,
polyurethane, wool, leather, and suede)
467 3.8% 0%
Total 12,257 100.0% 34%
Progress update:
our strategic pillars
continued
Commitment
Increase our use of more sustainable
materials in our ASOS own brand
clothing products. Each year, we’ll
set a target for the proportion of the
materials in our products that we’d
liketo be more sustainable, and report
back on our progress.
FY24 achievement: 34%
FY25 minimum target: 45%
To increase uptake of sustainable materials
we’ve started to set seasonal targets for
each product category across our three main
fibres (cotton, polyester, and man-made
cellulosic fibres).
We’ve also enhanced engagement with our
key suppliers on materials. Our top suppliers
are now set KPIs and scored on their use of
more sustainable materials. This is supported
by individual supplier meetings, enabling us to
monitor their sustainable materials
capabilities and usage.
1 Defined broadly as a material whose production has on average a lower environmental impact than the production of the conventional form of that material.
For a full definition and a list of the materials and certifications we accept, head to page 54 of our Fashion with Integrity Strategy Update on asosplc.com/
fashion-with-integrity/.
2 Although Better Cotton is not physically traceable to end product and operates on a mass balance system, the movement of Better Cotton through the supply
chain is tracked by a system of credits which ensures that, for every 1kg of Better Cotton that ASOS sources, an equivalent amount of raw cotton is being grown
somewhere in the world using Better Cotton Production Principles. Read more about the mass balance system at bettercotton.org/massbalance.
Product
All material calculations below, except Better
Cotton
2
, are based on our internal tonnage
methodology, which uses a series of
documented estimates and assumptions, such
as product weight and overall composition.
More detail is available at asosplc.com/
fashion-with-integrity/.
We have conducted sensitivity analysis on our
estimates and assumptions to determine the
risk of potential errors in our reported figures.
This work identified that no reasonable
possible change in our estimates and
assumptions would result in our reported
figures changing by 5% or more (our ESG
materiality based on the SBTi’s triggered
recalculation criteria thresholds). As a result,
we do not consider these estimates or
assumptions to be materially sensitive.
Commitment
Test and introduce innovative packaging
materials and solutions, reducing
overall usage where appropriate. By
FY26, we’ll increase recycled content in
mailing and garment bags to a minimum
of 95%.
Our mailing bags currently contain at least
80% post-consumer recycled material, and
our garment bags (for ASOS own-brands and
labels) contain at least 90% post-consumer
recycled material. We use Low Density
Polyethylene in our garment and mailing bags.
This is certified to Recycled Claim Standard
(RCS) or Global Recycled Standard (GRS)
orISO 14021.
Projects delivered this period include a
three-month staff trial of paper mailing bags
for ASOS staff orders. We’ve also switched
tolinerless labels in our UK returns centre,
estimated to reduce general waste
collections at the site by approximately
30metric tonnes per year. Working with
ourpartners, we capture approximately
400metric tonnes of plastic waste per
yearwithin our supply chain for recycling.
Raw Materials
ASOS PLC ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
31
Commitment
Train the manufacturers of our ASOS
own brand clothing products on our
ASOS Circular Design Strategies. By
FY27, we’ll have launched a phased
training programme prioritising
suppliers based on their level of
business with ASOS.
Over the period, we worked closely with five
key suppliers and delivered bespoke training
on circular design, which was instrumental in
developing the capability of these suppliers.
This has directly informed our new
commitment to train our supply base on
circular design.
We also tested a new circular design tool,
developed in collaboration with the Centre
forSustainable Fashion in 2023. The tool
walksour internal product development
teams through a step-by-step process to
develop a product that adheres to our
circular design techniques, with the ambition
that this can be used to scale up our circular
design assortment.
Commitment
Facilitate recovery programmes to keep
products in use at their highest value.
By FY27, we’ll pilot or launch new
circular business models across resale,
rental, takeback, and repair.
Our focus this period has been on scaling our
rental proposition with Hirestreet. Over the
period we added over 2,000 new products to
the platform from ASOS DESIGN, ASOS LUXE,
and ASOS EDITION. The top 10 styles have
each been rented an average of 110 times,
while the most popular dress style has been
rented over 176 times.
Design & Production Use & Recovery
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32
ASOS PLC
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
Progress update:
our strategic pillars
continued
Commitment
Implement our human rights strategy
to enhance the human rights of workers
across our value chain.
1. Develop a modern slavery strategy
for Goods Not For Resale (GNFR)
suppliers and a toolkit for suppliers,
factories, partner brands and
non-stock partners.
We’ve started working with Anti-Slavery
International to develop a programme of
work relating to GNFR. It will cover key risk
areas across our supply chain, our head
office operations, our procurement
practices, and our key strategic partners.
Activities delivered so far include:
• Revising a self-assessment questionnaire to
identify human rights risks in our third-
party operated fulfilment centres. We have
also developed a Warehousing Social
Standard to support the SAQ rollout.
• Reviewing human rights risks associated
with land transport and shipping activities
linked to ASOS, and identifying a partner
tosupport with due diligence in this area.
• Developing interview questions and tools to
assess human rights risks within our head
office operations, with a focus on security
and cleaning contractors.
• Launching a new partnership with Unseen,
allowing us to gain visibility of trends in
modern slavery, access opportunities for
collaboration, and receive advice, guidance
and monitoring on safeguarding for any
cases linked to ASOS.
People
2. Renew Global Framework Agreement
(GFA) with IndustriALL Global Trade
Union.
We have an ongoing GFA with IndustriALL
Global Union, signed in 2017. This
agreement provides a robust framework
for protecting and strengthening the rights
of workers within our global supply chain
and highlights the importance of freedom
of association and collective bargaining
infostering positive industrial relations.
Wehave opened conversations with
IndustriALL regarding a renewal of
ourGFA.
3. Develop a methodology to collect
wage data during audits.
Work on this strand will commence in FY25.
4. Develop and pilot a Gender
Programme at factory level to
empower women workers in our
supply chain.
During the period we started the pilot
phase of an innovative women’s
empowerment initiative in two factories in
Morocco, in collaboration with our
programme partner, Mobilising for Rights
Associates (MRA). The programme is
dedicated to fostering an environment
where women can thrive and assert their
rights, with a focus on creating sustainable
and meaningful change by helping to
establish women’s committees in garment
supplier factories. The committees, formed
by freely elected women workers and
representatives from independent women’s
rights organisations, serve as a support
mechanism for women workers, facilitating
their empowerment and promoting their
rights.
Commitment
Maintain and build our foundation of
effective own-brand and partner brand
due diligence.
1. Review and enhance current due
diligence mechanisms and introduce
a global grievance channel structure
with the aim of maximum accessibility,
transparency, confidentiality, and
enhanced remedy for workers.
If the pilot initiative for establishing women’s
committees in factories proves successful,
we’ll review our supply chain to select
another strategically appropriate region
and begin to scale the model accordingly.
This will serve as a grievance mechanism
that is easily accessible to all workers,
ensuring their concerns can be addressed
promptly and effectively.
2. Ensure that partner brands sold on
our platform are committed to
transparency.
This period we’ve continued to engage with
brand partners to ask them to disclose
their factory lists, either to us, on their
own website, or preferably through the
Open Supply Hub. As of August 2024,
85% of apparel and footwear brands have
shared their lists with us directly or publicly,
aligning with the Transparency Pledge. New
brands being onboarded are required to
provide us with evidence of their Ethical
Trade Policy, Modern Slavery Statement,
Restricted Substances List, and animal
welfare policy, and how these have been
applied in their supply chain.
Human Rights
ASOS PLC ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2024
33
Commitment
Implement our external Diversity, Equity
& Inclusion strategy to drive a safer
society for women, girls, and LGBTQIA+
people; create fairer economic
opportunity for global majority
creatives; and ensure an inclusive
product offering for customers with
disabilities and neurodiversity.
1. Establish new charitable partnerships
delivering change for those of
marginalised gender identities and
sexual orientations.
We’ve selected two partners to support
our work in this area. First, Beyond Equality,
a UK-based charity engaging men in the UK
in working towards gender justice,
preventing gender-based violence, and
creating a safer and more equitable
society. Second, Just Like Us, a UK-based
charity focused on preventing bullying,
creating safe spaces and building allyship
for LGBTQIA+ young people. In June 2024
we launched an ASOS Design Pride range
created in collaboration with LGBTQIA+
artists, in support of Just Like Us.
2. Develop a plan and process to support
and grow our network of global
majority-owned brand partners,
including scaling our annual incubator
programme.
Working with our partner the (Fashion)
Minority Report, we’ve delivered our annual
incubator programme for global majority-
owned brands. The cohort of six brands
received a senior industry mentor, a
programme of workshops and panel talks
covering key topics in the industry, and a
press event to showcase their brand and
products. Two of the six brands received
additional opportunities, including a grant
of £20k each to upscale their business, and
support developing a new range to be
stocked on ASOS in FY25.
We’ve also finalised our approach to
support the collection of data on global-
majority owned brands on ASOS. In FY25,
our brand partners will be able to disclose
whether they are global majority-owned in
our onboarding process and in our annual
ASOS Self-Assessment Questionnaire
(SAQ).
3. Launch the rst ASOS Design adaptive
collection.
We’ve established an internal working
group for the ASOS Design adaptive
collection and have selected a disability
inclusion consultancy to support with its
development.
Target
By FY30, achieve 50% female and 15%
ethnically diverse representation
across our senior leadership team.
1
FY24 performance:
Female: 41%
Ethnically diverse: 12%
FY23 performance:
Female: 42%
Ethnically diverse: 11%
1 Defined as “Head of” and above positions. Please
see pages 92 to 93 of our Nomination Committee
Report for further information on our Senior
Leadership diversity.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion