More Brands Should Reveal Where Their Clothes are Made

Update:

In December 2019, Human Rights Watch published a follow-up report to Follow the Thread titled Fashion's Next Trend.
 
Since Follow the Thread was published in April 2017, there has been a significant increase in the number of companies that have published names, addresses, and other details of their tier-1 supplier factories. Building on our previous efforts, Fashion’s Next Trend takes stock of supply chain transparency as of late 2019, updates information from the 2017 report, provides an overview of positive new developments in the industry, and makes additional recommendations aimed at improving apparel companies’ due diligence practices on human rights. Annexes I and II of Fashion’s Next Trend will be periodically updated. Please refer to Annexes I and II for the most recently updated information about companies.

 

(London) – More apparel and footwear companies should join 17 leading apparel brands that have aligned with an important new transparency pledge, a coalition of unions and human rights and labor rights advocates said in a joint report issued today. The pledge commits companies to publish information that will enable advocates, workers, and consumers to find out where their products are made.

 

The 40-page report, “Follow the Thread: The Need for Supply Chain Transparency in the Garment and Footwear Industry,” comes just ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse disaster in Bangladesh. It calls for companies to adopt the Apparel and Footwear Supply Chain Transparency Pledge. Companies that align with the pledge agree to publish information identifying the factories that produce their goods, addressing a key obstacle to rooting out abusive labor practices across the industry and helping to prevent disasters like the Rana Plaza collapse.

 

The coalition contacted 72 companies and asked them to adopt and carry out the pledge. The report details their responses and measures their current supply chain transparency practices against the pledge.

 

 

“A basic level of supply chain transparency in the garment industry should be the norm in the 21st century,” said Aruna Kashyap, senior counsel for the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. “Openness about a company’s supply chain is better for workers, better for human rights, and shows that companies care about preventing abuse in their supply chains.”

 

The Rana Plaza building collapse on April 24, 2013 killed over 1,100 garment workers and injured more than 2,000. It was preceded by two large factory fires – one in Pakistan’s Ali Enterprises factory and another in Bangladesh’s Tazreen Fashions factory – that killed more than 350 workers and seriously injured many others. Afterward, labor advocates could not determine which companies’ products were made at these factories and had to hunt for the brand labels from the factory sites and interview surviving workers to determine who was responsible

 

By the end of 2016, at least 29 global apparel companies had published some information about the factories that manufacture their products. To build on this momentum, in 2016, a nine-member coalition of labor and human rights organizations and global unions endorsed the Transparency Pledge. Its aim is to create a level playing field in the industry and move it toward a minimum standard for publishing supplier factory information.

 

The coalition consists of Clean Clothes Campaign, Human Rights Watch, IndustriALL Global Union, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, the International Labor Rights Forum, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Maquila Solidarity Network, UNI Global Union, and the Worker Rights Consortium.

Coalition members wrote to 72 companies – including 23 industry leaders that were already publishing supplier factory information – urging them to adopt and carry out the Transparency Pledge standards. At the time, many apparel companies, including some that source from countries with persistent labor rights problems, were not publishing any supplier factory information.

 

The Transparency Pledge draws upon existing good practices of global apparel companies and sets a floor, not ceiling, for supply chain transparency. It asks apparel companies to publish important information about supplier factories and their authorized subcontractors. These efforts to publish supplier factory information help assert workers’ human rights, advance ethical business practices and human rights due diligence in apparel supply chains, and build stakeholder trust, in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

 

Many significant investors have begun to urge apparel companies to make their supplier information public. Most recently, the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, endorsed by 85 investors representing US$5.3 trillion in assets, score-carded apparel companies’ supply chain transparency, requiring them to publish at least the names of factories that produced for them.

 

“After Rana Plaza and other disasters, human rights groups, unions, and some companies and investors have seen how important transparency is for preventing abuses and for efforts at accountability,” said Ben Vanpeperstraete, lobby and advocacy coordinator at the Clean Clothes Campaign International Office. “Companies need to put transparency into practice to show that they respect human rights and decent working conditions.”

 

Transparency is a powerful tool for promoting corporate accountability for garment workers’ rights in global supply chains, the coalition said. It allows workers and labor and human rights advocates to alert the company to rights abuses in its supplier factories. Information about brands’ supplier factories facilitates faster access to grievance redress mechanisms for human rights abuses.

 

Of the 72 companies that the coalition contacted, 17 will be in full alignment with the pledge standards by December 2017.

Many other companies fell short of the pledge standards: five fall just short of the pledge, 18 are moving in the right direction by disclosing at least the names and addresses of cut-make-trim factories, and seven are taking small steps toward publishing supplier factory information – for example, a part of their supplier factories, or at least the names of their supplier factories by country of manufacture, by December 2017.

 

Another 25 apparel companies do not publish information about factories that manufacture their products. Those companies either did not respond or made no commitment to publish any of the information requested.

 

The coalition urges companies that have not aligned with the pledge to do so by December and to help galvanize the apparel industry toward a basic threshold level of supply chain transparency.

 

“Adhering to a minimum level of supply chain transparency in the pledge is important for accountability efforts,” said Judy Gearhart, executive director at the International Labor Rights Forum. “Companies can do more, but they should at least start with this basic step.”

 

Some companies claimed that disclosure would put them at a commercial disadvantage. But that justification is clearly contradicted by the other companies that are publishing such information, the groups said. As Esprit, one of the companies that made a commitment to align with the pledge, said, “[R]eleasing this information is not comfortable for many companies, but the time has come to do it.”

 

Apparel companies that had previously published supply chain information and made a commitment to publish additional supplier factory information by December 2017 in full alignment with the pledge standards are adidas, C&A, Cotton On Group, Esprit, G-Star RAW, H&M Group, Hanesbrands, Levis, Lindex, Nike, and Patagonia.

 

Apparel companies that had previously not published any supplier factory information and have made a commitment to publish information in full alignment with the pledge are ASICS, ASOS, Clarks, New Look, Next, and Pentland Brands. These global apparel companies will help break new ground by promoting an industry-wide minimum standard for supply chain transparency.

 

John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Gap, and Mountain Equipment Co-op adhere to transparency practices that fall just short of the pledge standards.

 

Coles, Columbia Sportswear, Disney, Hudson’s Bay Company, Kmart and Target Australia, and Woolworths Australia were already publishing the names and street addresses of supplier factories and have not made additional commitments to meet pledge standards. Puma and New Balance were publishing the names and addresses of supplier factories and have made a commitment to add more details to align more closely with the pledge standards.

 

ALDI North and ALDI South, Arcadia Group, Benetton, Debenhams, LIDL, Tchibo, Under Armour, and VF Corporation are taking steps in the right direction and have begun or will begin to publish names and street addresses of at least all cut-make-trim factories in 2017. Fast Retailing published the names and addresses of its UNIQLO brand’s “core factory list” in 2017.

 

Target USA had previously published the names of their supplier factories with country of manufacture but made no commitment to do more. In 2017, Mizuno, Abercrombie & Fitch, Loblaw, and PVH Corporation have taken steps to publish the names of suppliers, but only with the country of manufacture.

 

BESTSELLER and Decathlon have promised that they will publish supplier factory information in 2017 without specifying precisely what will be included. 

 

American Eagle Outfitters, Canadian Tire, Carrefour, Desigual, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, Hugo Boss, KiK, MANGO, Morrison’s, Primark, Sainsbury’s, The Children’s Place, and Walmart did not make a commitment to publish supplier factory information. Inditex declined to publish supplier factory information but makes this data available to IndustriALL and its affiliates as part of its reporting under its Global Framework Agreement.

 

Armani, Carter’s, Forever 21, Matalan, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Rip Curl, River Island, Shop Direct, Sports Direct, and Urban Outfitters did not respond to the coalition and do not publish any supply chain information.

 

H&M Group and Mizuno; Tchibo will begin publishing in 2017.

 

Accord members that have been publishing supplier factory information are adidas, C&A, Cotton On Group, Esprit, G-Star RAW, H&M Group, Kmart Australia, Lindex, Marks and Spencer, Puma, Target Australia, and Woolworths.

 

Accord members that have begun or will begin publishing some supplier factory information in 2017 are Abercrombie & Fitch, ALDI North and ALDI South, BESTSELLER, Debenhams, Fast Retailing, John Lewis, New Look, Next, LIDL, Loblaw, PVH Corporation, Tchibo, and Tesco.

 

Adidas, C&A, Esprit, H&M, and Puma; others including ALDI North and ALDI South, LIDL, and Tchibo began or will begin publishing supplier factory information in 2017.