Anchor Workwear has shown progress on performance indicators. Anchor Workwear has monitored 100% of its purchasing volume and meets the threshold for third-year members. This monitoring threshold combined with a benchmark score of 65 means Anchor Workwear is awarded the ‘Good’ category.
Anchor Workwear has a compact supply chain. They own one production location. In a second location, they have 100% leverage as well as both financial and family ties. In a third location, they have committed to a set number of labour minutes. This allows for great insight into operations at these production locations, which is demonstrated by the fact that audits indicate no excessive overtime.
In addition, at the two main production locations, wage levels are above the industry average and are close to or above living wage. The company, however, has not made an explicit calculation to determine how they contribute to these wages and how they can help production locations increase wages. FWF recommends that Anchor Workwear uses the information it already has to make these calculations. This will increase transparency, further informing its customers.
As Anchor Workwear is a small company, there is less need for formal processes. However, FWF recommends that the company keeps track of certain discussions and decisions, for example, those related to CAP follow-up. This contributes to external verification and internal consistency.
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Continental Clothing Ltd. (Continental) has shown shown progress and met most of FWFs’ performance requirements. Continental has a relatively small number of suppliers. It sources from five suppliers in India, China, Bangladesh and Turkey. High leverage and long-term relationships with suppliers give the company a strong basis for effectively improving working conditions. Continental monitors 100% of its purchasing volume, which, in combination with a benchmarking score of 79, means that Continental comfortably maintains its Leader status.
In 2018 Continental has improved its internal system to follow up systematically on complaints and audit findings. Continental works towards resolution of corrective actions with all of its suppliers. After audits, remediation steps were taken and follow up is closely monitored
Continental has a strong production planning system with stable orders throughout the year, which does not put pressure on suppliers to conduct overtime.
Continental is implementing a living wage project at its main supplier in India. It is also initiating steps to implement a similar approach at its supplier in Turkey. This is commendable. However, Continental is advised to work with its suppliers and expand its living wage approach proportional to the entire leverage Continental has at its suppliers, rather than for selected ‘fair share’ products.
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Acne Studios (hereafter: Acne) has shown advanced results on performance indicators and has made exceptional progress. With 98% of production under monitoring, Acne surpasses FWF’s monitoring threshold for members after three years of membership. The benchmarking score of 80 places Acne in the Leader category of FWF brand performance check. Although there seems to be a small decrease in the score compared to the last performance check, this was due to the change in how FWF assesses several indicators and the increasing expectation of FWF towards members.
Acne has further improved its production planning, which could help suppliers to reduce overtime. The company has also demonstrated efforts to monitor working conditions and remediate when issues arrive. Acne has a system to communicate and follow up with suppliers on the Corrective Action Plans.
Acne made steps towards more transparency and tried to identify all production locations. In high-risk issues and areas such as abrasive blasting and Turkey, Acne could show efforts to mitigate the risks. In addition, Acne continues to enrol factories in the Workplace Education Programme, so that workers receive awareness training on labour standards.
Working towards living wages remains challenging to Acne. FWF encourages Acne to start by assessing the hypothetical cost effects of increasing wages towards benchmarks included in the wage ladder. Acne could also select a stable supplier as a project partner to monitor and improve wages gradually.
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2018 marked another year of growth for Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), with the addition of many new faces and roles to the team. Most notably, Alexander Kohnstamm became the organisation’s new executive director. With its growing team, FWF is expanding its role as a thought leader in collecting and spreading evidence on sustainable solutions in the garment industry.
This extra capacity has had a positive effect on external relations. Among other things, FWF was able to engage more with stakeholders and actively participated in several important events. And as part of the MSI Emergency Response Group, FWF conducted advocacy efforts aimed at a range of issues, from freedom of association in Cambodia to the importance of upholding the Bangladesh Accord. Work with member brands also benefited greatly from the expansion. Practical expertise in key CSR areas was strengthened and provided to members through various means, including the new Member Hub.
This past year was also productive for FWF’s ongoing contribution to the Strategic Partnership for Garment Supply Chain Transformation. Joint activities included a lobby week and a trip to Indonesia to strengthen the partners’ collaboration and align activities. The partners have also been working to influence the upcoming debate for the proposed ILO Convention on ‘Ending violence and harassment against women and men in the world of work’.
FWF continues to develop and share its expertise on the Partnership’s three thematic pillars: living wage, gender-based violence, and social dialogue. Beyond lobbying for the ILO Convention, FWF also focused on putting ideas from the 2017 Gender Forum into action in production countries. Meanwhile, emphasis on social dialogue is becoming increasingly important. FWF joined two major social dialogue projects last year, one in connection with the OECD and the other with Cornell University. On living wage, FWF launched a project with ASN Bank to encourage investors to work toward living wage with the garment companies in their portfolios. FWF introduced its Labour Minute Value Calculator, a living wage tool for Bangladesh that has since been modified for use in other countries.
The increasing global push for brand transparency reminds us that times are changing, and the moment for concrete action in the garment industry is now. With a positive year of growth behind us and ambitious goals for 2019, FWF is well positioned to help lead the industry toward a new, fairer way of making garments.
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Social reports are an integral part of FWF’s requirements on brand transparency. They are also important tools to communicate a brand’s effort towards improving working conditions. They give FWF member brands the opportunity to show consumers, customers and other stakeholders their achievements under FWF membership and other areas of Corporate Social Responsibility, strengthening accountability towards consumers and stakeholders.
FWF provides a template with the minimum information necessary for the social report, and member brands are free to include more information. FWF then collects and publishes the report, but does not verify its content upon publication. The quality of the social report is checked and reported on as part of the annual Brand Performance Check for each brand.
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Social reports are an integral part of FWF’s requirements on brand transparency. They are also important tools to communicate a brand’s effort towards improving working conditions. They give FWF member brands the opportunity to show consumers, customers and other stakeholders their achievements under FWF membership and other areas of Corporate Social Responsibility, strengthening accountability towards consumers and stakeholders.
FWF provides a template with the minimum information necessary for the social report, and member brands are free to include more information. FWF then collects and publishes the report, but does not verify its content upon publication. The quality of the social report is checked and reported on as part of the annual Brand Performance Check for each brand.
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Social reports are an integral part of FWF’s requirements on brand transparency. They are also important tools to communicate a brand’s effort towards improving working conditions. They give FWF member brands the opportunity to show consumers, customers and other stakeholders their achievements under FWF membership and other areas of Corporate Social Responsibility, strengthening accountability towards consumers and stakeholders.
FWF provides a template with the minimum information necessary for the social report, and member brands are free to include more information. FWF then collects and publishes the report, but does not verify its content upon publication. The quality of the social report is checked and reported on as part of the annual Brand Performance Check for each brand.
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Social reports are an integral part of FWF’s requirements on brand transparency. They are also important tools to communicate a brand’s effort towards improving working conditions. They give FWF member brands the opportunity to show consumers, customers and other stakeholders their achievements under FWF membership and other areas of Corporate Social Responsibility, strengthening accountability towards consumers and stakeholders.
FWF provides a template with the minimum information necessary for the social report, and member brands are free to include more information. FWF then collects and publishes the report, but does not verify its content upon publication. The quality of the social report is checked and reported on as part of the annual Brand Performance Check for each brand.
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Paptex has met most of FWF’s performance requirements. It monitored 94% of its total purchasing volume, which is well above the 80% required by members after three years of membership. The benchmarking score of 64 places Paptex in the ‘Good’ category.
In 2018, Paptex further consolidated its supply chain by moving production from suppliers where it has does not have much leverage and that are not cooperative in implementing the FWF Code of Labour Practices, towards suppliers where it has more leverage and that are more transparent and cooperative in implementing the Code of Labour Practices. Paptex also changed its planning system to increase flexibility and work more closely with its main supplier in realising constant order flows. Although not all audit findings are remediated, Paptex showed that it has been active and persistent in following up. Furthermore, Paptex actively stimulated worker awareness of the Code of Labour Practices by organising training at suppliers responsible for 98% of its total production.
This year, Paptex needs to continue to follow-up on production locations that have not signed and returned the questionnaire and/or not posted the Worker Information Sheet yet. Although Paptex does conduct due diligence, a formal process should be in place to evaluate the risks of labour violations. Furthermore, more active risk mitigation measures should be taken. Moreover, a systematic approach for evaluating Code of Labour Practices compliance of its entire supplier base should be implemented. Paptex is required to be more active in working towards implementing a living wage at its suppliers. The first step in this process is getting insight into the link between buying prices and wages through open costing. Then, Paptex should define a target wage together with its suppliers and start implementing measures to close this gap.
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Iriedaily has shown good progress and met most of FWFs’ performance requirements. With a monitoring percentage of 94% exceeding the monitoring threshold required for third-year members and a benchmarking score of 76, the brand is in the ‘Leader’ category.
Iriedaily’s supplier base consists of a small number of mostly long-term suppliers within two countries, China and Portugal. This allows Iriedaily to work effectively on improving working conditions.
In 2018, Iriedaily continued its efforts to ensure that its production planning process supports reasonable working hours at its production locations. FWF recommends Iriedaily continuously evaluate the impact of these efforts on audit findings pertaining to overtime and make changes to its approach accordingly.
Iriedaily has mapped out its supply chain in detail and has been able to estimate and track FOB at CMT sub-contractors. The mapping has provided Iriedaily with a more realistic overview of its production locations to further implement measures towards consolidating its supply chain, where possible.
The brand has also engaged with all suppliers to understand the link between its prices and wages at production locations. While the brand has not been able to achieve complete transparency in terms of access to open costing, some key suppliers have shared wage information and ‘labour minute costs’ for a few styles. This information is being used by the brand to make an informed estimate of its contribution to living wage at some of its production locations.
For the upcoming year, the challenge for Iriedaily will be to obtain more accurate insights into the price composition of its products and how labour costs link to Iriedaily’s FOB price. On top of that, a lack of active dialogue mechanisms at production locations in China also makes the process of involving workers to define living wage pay-outs and ensure it reaches them more complex. FWF recommends that the brand continue to focus on addressing issues pertaining to overtime and living wage at key suppliers in China, document learnings to evaluate and define a broader strategy on these issues.
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