Avainsana: GOTS

Julkaistu

Governments, business and stakeholders need to work together for supply chain sustainability

Supply chain social responsibility is on the move this spring. The tripartite ILO International Labour Conference will be a high point with governments, employers and trade unions debating how best to secure human rights and promote decent work. Countries around the world are following up on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, setting their own National Action Plans. Many sustainability schemes and initiatives are developing and stepping up their own work. The professional social auditors have established their own organisation APSCA to secure and develop audit quality.

It is important to ensure that the activities and programmes are efficient and help bring about positive change. The attention to policy and structures should not move away the focus from real and concrete efforts to improve labour conditions. Taking care of the tools and using them effectively should complement each other, not compete about our attention.

We need broad engagement for sustainable supply chains

Public-private cooperation is an important element of any effective sustainability efforts, also in consumer countries that work on their own social and environmental responsibilities in global supply chains.

Governments need to influence supplier countries to play an active role in ensuring human rights and decent working conditions. They must also set rules for buyer companies and other supply chain participants to follow. Bringing together business and stakeholders around joint objectives and tasks, such as Germany is doing in its textile alliance – – Bündnis für nachhaltige Textilien – is equally essential.

Buyer brands and retailers can and must use their commercial power and know-how to require and help their business partners to behave responsibly. Carefully designed buying practices and agreements can both encourage and enable this.

Trade unions and non-governmental organisations are important partners in this work, enabling and helping workers to participate in setting labour conditions.

GSCP has created a solid base for convergence and cooperation

The Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP has done much to help brands and retailers translate their sustainability commitments to concrete action. The GSCP Reference Code and a collection of sustainability tools now form a solid base for effective sustainability engagement. They were all created through a multi-stakeholder process and aim at securing full respect for universal human rights. Furthermore, they set minimum requirements for decent working and employment conditions, based on ILO International Labour Conventions. Key toolbox elements deal with sustainability management systems, both for suppliers and for buyer companies. Others cover all aspects of social auditing and auditor competence, setting minimum standards that should ensure reliable audits.

GSCP was created to drive an upward convergence of social responsibility codes and standards, based on the ambitious reference code and the application guidelines in the toolbox. This would enable mutual recognition of social audit results and help direct more resources to capacity building and remediation at supplier workplaces. The GSCP equivalence process was developed for the analysis and benchmarking that serves this process.

This important initiative by many of the world’s largest brands and retailers has had a much broader impact than only driving its core convergence objective. We have seen a remarkable growth of both awareness and engagement in the business community with activities levels stepped up across many industries. A good and welcome example is the commitment made by the Consumer Goods Forum CGF to play an active role in working for the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG’s.

The first concrete joint measure by the CGF companies will be launching of an ambitious and welcome project to eliminate forced labour from their supply chains. This will also be reflected in the work of GSCP now that the Reference Code, toolbox and equivalence process are in place. This does not mean that other parts of the Code would be neglected, they will continue to be as important as ever on the agendas and programmes of the individual brands and retailers.

Sustainability schemes and initiatives update their own approaches

Buyers need to be actively engaged if we really want to secure human rights and decent working conditions in global supply chains. Corporate social responsibility CSR schemes and initiatives can contribute to the quality and efficiency of this engagement. To achieve this, both transparency and full civil society engagement are needed.

There have been big changes and efficiency boosts also on the standard and code application side. As an example, Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS has further increased the reliability of the already demanding SA8000 Social Standard. The sustainability auditing industry itself has established a new organisation to safeguard audit quality and reliability. The Association for Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) is an important initiative and I was happy to accept an invitation to join their Stakeholder Board.

Also other sustainability programmes such as Social Accountability International SAI and the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI have updated their codes or standards. They have continued to add more emphasis on remediation and capacity building and have developed new innovative approaches for this. Others, such as the Better Cotton Initiative BCI and the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS are also working on code and standard revisions and the Fairtrade movement has just released a new textile standard.

Improvements in conditions are the test for schemes and initiatives

To improve the instruments is of course not enough. Supply chain workers are still too often working under sub-standard conditions and paid far below what is needed for a decent life. Voices that reject voluntary business initiatives and call for far reaching legislation instead will grow stronger unless concrete and significant improvements at supplier workplaces are made at a faster pace.

There is today a genuine disappointment over the slowness or lack of visible improvements in labour and social conditions in global supply chains. These sentiments go also beyond the many advocacy organisations and trade unions that are actively voicing their frustrations.

The best way for the business community to respond is to step up their contributions to bring about real improvements of human rights and labour conditions in the supply chain. The new Consumer Goods Forum CGF forced labour initiative is a good example of this and can lead to substantial positive change. This is a sign of success also for the patient work done by GSCP, to build awareness and drive convergence in the sustainability work of global buyers. The challenge is now to use the significant commercial power of these world class companies to translate this commitment into real action. GSCP will have an important role in making this possible, as will also cooperating sustainability schemes and initiatives.

Sustainability initiatives and mainstream labour relations can complement each other

The best approach to improve labour conditions includes organised social partners, effectively applied labour legislation, collective agreements and an efficient labour inspection system. As this is still a distant dream in large parts of the world also other approaches are needed. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is a manifestation of this.

Voluntary schemes and initiatives are there also to help buying brands and retailers respect their obligations. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights could hardly be applied without these business-driven or multi-stakeholder programmes which build on social auditing and focus on remediation and capacity building.

We should remember that all leading schemes demand full respect for freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. Also unions and advocacy organisations could and should use this for supporting organising efforts.

Colder labour relations climate hurts supply chain cooperation

Buying brands and retailers are targeted also without valid reasons and the CSR concept itself is put in question. Often this relates to anti-globalisation drives and is more general and political than referring to concrete supply chain issues. It does also reflect an overall polarisation of opinions and a deterioration of labour relations where social partnership gives way for the struggle over dwindling resources.

Recession pitches business and unions against each other. Having negotiated how the fruits of growth are shared, capital and labour are now engaged in a combat over who shoulders losses. High unemployment and deteriorating social services add to conflicts. Unions are pushed into defence by business circles and their political supporters who want to get rid of collective agreements and legal regulations that are seen as restrictive.

Supply chain sustainability cooperation is clearly affected by this lack of confidence.

Conflicts at home is not an excuse to forget joint obligations

The commercial workers’ trade unions engaged themselves for improving supply chain conditions during the time that I was in charge of UNI Commerce Global Union. We joined the advisory and stakeholder boards of initiatives such as Social Accountability International SAI, the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI and the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP.

These decisions were not made without thorough considerations. Many of the large retailers that we came to work with were formidable opponents in their own employer roles. What made us sign up to these initiatives was the conviction that our own conflicts should not be played out at the expense of the already hard pressed and badly treated supply chain workers and their families.

This was a very mature and responsible stance by the large commerce trade unions around the world that were our members. Something of the same spirit would be needed also today. This would require also many buyer brands and retailers to take a more positive stance to involving workers and their unions in supply chain sustainability work.

Julkaistu

Law or Codes – Germany Works on Business and Human Rights Plan


Germany would be a good role model for supply chain cooperation between business and unions. Of course there are major disagreements but this does not stop the social partners from taking joint responsibilities for human rights at work in producer countries. This picture is from the last of three multi-stakeholder Conferences arranged in 2015 by Development Ministry BMZ, to prepare the German National Action Plan for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Will brands, retailers and other buying companies voluntarily respect human rights in their global supply chains? Are voluntary commitments reliable, or do we need legislation? Can consumer country laws help improve working life in producer regions?

These questions were very much present when German businesses and stakeholders met recently for a third and final conference in the run-up to a National Action Plan for implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  Next step will be drafting a proposal to be discussed with all stakeholders, beginning early next year.

How will Germany build a balance between civil society expectations and business preparedness? All of us who are engaged in promoting supply chain responsibility are surely waiting to see how the country will apply the business part of the UN Guiding Principles – “Protect, Respect and Remedy”.

Germany’s National Action Plan will influence also other countries. Europe’s biggest economy is actively promoting sustainability in global supply chains. We have seen this clearly during its 2015 G7 Presidency when the country has put business and human rights on the leading industrialised countries’ common agenda.

Business concerned over unwanted negative effects

In Berlin, business representatives and social advocacy organisations were far from each other when speaking about voluntary initiatives and binding legislation.

Most business representatives preferred voluntary action as the best way to apply the due diligence required by the UN Guiding Principles. They were concerned that legislation and possible sanctions could lead many buyers to leave sensitive supplier countries and regions when they should stay and help improve conditions. If Germany would introduce more obligations for buyer companies than those of competing countries it would put the country’s business sector at a clear disadvantage, it was said.

Corporate speakers questioned whether small and medium enterprises really have the knowledge and capacity to deal with new regulations.

Business is not a uniform group but consists of companies on very different levels when it comes to sustainability issues. For ‘the best in class’, even a demanding National Action Plan would bring little change as their voluntary approaches already go much further.

This has been all too slow. Fully understanding that changes take time there should already be major improvements in the big picture.

Sub-standard wages and uncontrolled excessive working hours remain the reality in many parts of the supply chains. There is less child labour, but still too much. Forced labour continues to be a problem in some industries and regions, and freedom of association is frequently ignored. Farming is a weak area for many schemes and initiatives.

If buying companies and other businesses want to be credible when pushing for voluntary due diligence approaches they need to show more concrete results, on all fundamental human and workers’ rights issues.

Unions question CSR effectiveness 

Global unions have a more negative attitude towards voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives than before. They say that there have been little if any results from corporate social responsibility programmes. This has driven them to close alliances with social advocacy organisations.

Deteriorating labour relations has a negative influence on supply chain cooperation. Collective bargaining has turned into a defensive union struggle as new wealth to share in negotiations is not generated anymore. Social dialogue suffers and aggressive campaigning has increased.

Trade unions do have a point when they criticise brands and retailers for largely ignoring freedom of association in supply chains. Many buyers demand that suppliers comply with child labour, forced labour and anti-discrimination rules but are quick to leave trade union rights out. This can give suppliers the impression of having a free hand to resist organising efforts. Many companies are also reluctant to engage in joint projects with worker organisations, although here the distrust is often mutual.

Unions and advocacy organisations are calling for binding legislation in consumer countries, as part of the National Action Plans. This would include the right to initiate collective legal proceedings, something like the U.S. class action lawsuits. They also call for legal sanctions against companies in these countries if they ignore their due diligence obligations.

The role of social standards and codes

Social standard and codes will continue to be important tools, as will social auditing. Collective bargaining and social dialogue between employers and workers’ trade unions can often not replace these functions.  There are no structured labour relations in many countries and regions, and all governments do not effectively guarantee decent conditions. This will continue into the foreseeable future. The aim must be that labour conditions are eventually set by local partners, through mainstream tripartite procedures. Also corporate responsibility initiatives and activities must be geared in this direction.

Environmental and other initiatives pay increasing attention to human rights and labour conditions. They are responding to business demands but also protecting their own quality and reliability. The Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS where I am engaged certifies organic textiles through a highly demanding process. The same serious and demanding approach applies to human rights and labour conditions. Many others are doing the same which does not mean their standards or codes or other tools would be as detailed as those of specialised social responsibility initiatives. There is in fact already much cooperation around capacity building, training and other activities, as well as in auditor accreditation. The National Action Plans will surely intensify this cooperation.

Whether a scheme or initiative calls itself multi-stakeholder or business driven does not have to make a big difference. Important is that they are serious, demanding and committed and produce results. Social Accountability International SAI, the Ethical Trading Initiative ETI, the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI, the Fair Labor Association FLA and the Fair Wear Foundation FWF are examples of cross-industrial initiatives which have set their standards and ambitions high, and which are working actively with remediation programmes. The Fairtrade movement has a similar approach in its own niches of the global economy.

None of these initiatives can guarantee that every workplace audit produces absolutely reliable results, but as verifying and certifying demands and social auditors’ skills grow, also reliability increases.

More than voluntary, less than legislation?

I would expect an approach by the Berlin government that goes further than only demanding voluntary commitments by businesses to apply due diligence in global supply chains. This would not necessarily mean that sweeping legal responsibilities or tight sanctions for buying brands and retailers would be put in place.

A National Action Plan is of course exactly what it is called, an action plan, not legislation. It is more about the process towards more responsible business practices than about a set end result.

A solution is surely now sought that meets at least part of the civil society expectations while protecting and promoting German business interests. Responsible politicians and government agencies will have a difficult task as there seems to be a mutual lack of confidence especially between business organisations and social advocacy movements. When political positioning now is giving way to concrete drafting, Germany’s influential trade unions could well play a constructive role in looking for balanced and realistic compromises.

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I represented the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS at the meeting in Berlin. Human rights and labour conditions are important concerns for this organisation which is engaged in updating its certification standard. Above all, training and capacity building ‘on the ground’ is developed and growing.

This article does not express the views of GOTS and I do not write it as a GOTS representative.  These are my personal reflections and opinions, of course influenced by my background in the global trade union movement and my very active board engagements in the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP and Social Accountability International SAI,which owns the SA8000 Social Standard.

Julkaistu

Governments step up supply chain involvement – business and civil society need to work together

Germany-G7

Germany has placed supply chain sustainability high on the agenda of the G7 Group of leading advanced economies. At a stakeholder conference in March in Berlin, the German Presidency announced its intentions to work for a common approach social and environmental standards. Some leading brands and retailers who form a critical mass of global buyers have sent signals that they are prepared to play an active role. This could well be through GSCP, which can make its Reference Code and other tools available.

Seeing a clear engagement of global brands and retailers to improve supply chain conditions makes me optimistic. Last week’s members meeting of the Global Social Compliance Programme GSCP in Los Angeles confirmed this commitment.  And no, it is not really a result of anyone ‘putting pressure on’ or ‘forcing’ them, or any other adverse campaigning and publicity.

The UN Principles for Business and Human Rights – the Ruggie principles – and their follow up both by the public and private sector are of course important. International buyers understand the need for due diligence when managing supply chains, be it about their own work or that of their suppliers and contractors. Universal human rights conventions and international labour norms create a solid basis for this.

This task is not new for most large brands and retailers. They have their own sustainability personnel and are active on the ground, working with their supplier factories and farms. Smaller companies go even further than most, like Swiss apparel retailer Switcher and German Hess Textiles. Both have a hands on approach to ensure social and environmental compliance in the supply chains.

Corporate social responsibility initiatives such as Social Accountability International (SA8000), the Business Social Compliance Initiative BSCI, the Ethical Trading Initiative ETI and the Fair Labor Association FLA have been working for decades to support and promote human rights and decent working conditions in global supply chains. The Fairtrade movement has long traditions as well, as does the Fair Wear Foundation FWF, to mention two others.

These are just some of the many initiatives that contribute to better supply chain conditions, some on a multi-stakeholder basis and some business driven with a civil society contribution. More important than their structures are the code framework withing which they operate, and their concrete support for remediation and capacity building. Of course there are problems, even failures at times, and these schemes cannot cover all needs.

On the environmental side we have a similar situation with dedicated initiatives like the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS and the Rainforest Alliance – and many others – certifying compliance, informing consumers and supporting companies and supply chain workers.

Better and mutually recognised social auditing
liberates resources for training and remediation

Much is now happening on the social responsibility agenda. The factory catastrophes in Asia exposed limitations and also shortcomings, and led to tighter auditing rules and other improvements. Capacity building and remediation at workplaces is being stepped up. Harmonisation and convergence of codes and standards through GSCP and its Equivalence Process enable mutual recognition of audit results and liberate resources for real positive change.

The social auditing industry itself has been an active partner in these developments. Two years ago at a GSCP conference in San Francisco, I stressed the need for these companies to get organised and establish their own ethical guidelines. This is now happening and the social auditing industry has created its own association.

There has also been much done by specialised organisations such as the Social Accountability Accreditation Services SAAS. SAI has linked SA8000 certification and social auditing to supplier self assessment and remediation, through its innovative Social Fingerprint approach. BSCI – which has the by far largest membership of all schemes – has also tightened up and clarified its auditing rules.

GSCP Supply Chain Conference Shenzhen April 2012

The first years of GSCP were spent on building up a toolkit for applying the principles of the Reference Code. Meetings with buyers and suppliers were an important part of this work. The final tools were then dealt with and agreed by the Executive and the Advisory Board. All tools are freely available. Here, buyers from leading global brands and retailers meet with representatives of both boards in Shenzhen in China in April 2014. This meeting was hosted by Wal-Mart, world’s largest retailer.

The social audit companies themselves work closely with GSCP on minimum auditing standards which create a common base for helping achieve proper conditions, which satisfy the needs of buyer companies, are accepted by civil society, and are supported by the concerned public authorities. A dedicated, efficient and competent social auditing industry needs to play an important and active role in developing the best ways to protect human rights and improve working conditions.

GSCP Reference Code and other Tools
are good basis for G7 supply chain work

All this is now related to important government activity in the consumer regions. The UN Guiding Principles are transposed in national legislation of many countries. Germany, which has this year’s Presidency of the G7 group of major advanced economies, has committed to drive these issues within the common agenda.

At a recent G7 meeting in Berlin, where I had the opportunity to be present as a representative of GOTS, the top directors of OECD, ILO and the World Bank committed their support and pledged cooperative action of their own to help achieve the goals.

GSCP has an important role in channeling a concrete business contribution to the public-private partnership that will be needed to bring about real change and improvements. An initiative of the Consumer Goods Forum CGF, GSCP groups together a critical mass of global buying companies both within and outside this consumer goods industry itself. Its Reference Code as well as the extensive and publicly available toolbox can form both a demanding and realistic base for any standard-setting and implementation.

There are clear signals coming from the Consumer Goods Forum and its member companies that there will be an important upgrading of social and environmental supply chain issues on their agenda. At the same time, there is a solid understanding of the necessity to ensure the acceptance and credibility of this work with civil society.

This underlines the importance of GSCP which is based on always seeking consensus between the business driven Executive Board and the Advisory Board that represents civil society. As an Advisory Board member coming from a trade union background I can vouch for the serious and respectful approach to these principles. Indeed, the boards have never had to vote.

Time to move away from adversarial relations
that make supply chain workers pay for other conflicts

We may see major commitments made and steps taken already this year to tighten up the defence of human rights, improve labour conditions and support environmental sustainability in global supply chains. To ensure that this process will be effective we should move forward from the all too common adversarial attitudes that we have seen when dealing with global supply chains after the fire and building catastrophes of the last years.

The present labour relations climate is of course not particularly favourable for seeking compromises and consensus. Still, it should not be allowed to hinder a constructive cooperation in global supply chain matters.

The GSCP Reference Code as well as leading standards such as the SA8000 provide, when seriously applied, a solid base for a joint approach. They are clear also on common issues of contention between employers and unions in many of the consumer countries. If we are serious about respecting the rights of supply chain workers and improving their social conditions, we should not let these differences reflect on the supply chain cooperation.

Real differences should be approached
through honest and respectful dialogue

There will remain important issues to solve also if we can ensure a positive supply chain cooperation between business, trade unions and engaged non-governmental organisations. We can see this in the living wage discussions, in how to apply freedom of association and the effective right to collective bargaining, in applying working hour rules, and in many other areas. This is normal and acceptable, and the answers should be found through common deliberations, resulting in a clear message from the international community to governments and employers in supplier countries on how worker’s rights and needs have to be protected and promoted as a condition for participating in the global economy.

The common aim must be a situation where employers sit down with workers and their trade unions to freely and respectfully negotiate employment and working conditions, enabled and supported by governments through solid legislation and guarantees for an effective application of what has been agreed. We know that it will take a long time for this to become a reality and that an active involvement of consumer countries – governments, businesses, trade unions and other civil society representatives – will continue to play an important role.

Julkaistu

Genetically modified GMO crops make me uneasy – thoughts when preparing for G7 sustainability conference in Berlin

I am preparing for a G7 Conference in Berlin on sustainability and social standards in global supply chains and have spent much time on reading about both environment and labour dimensions.

Working conditions is of course a familiar subject while other sustainability issues formed a major part of my report to the German cooperation and development ministry BMZ on Fairtrade cotton. As I will be in Berlin on behalf of the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS, both will be important to follow.

One particular subject keeps coming up, genetically modified food and other agricultural products. I have approached this with an open mind, trying to close out the more extreme GMO views, for and against.

What strikes me particularly is that so many of those who defend the agribusiness interests don’t even hide their contempt for environmentalists and other concerned people. This has surely fed my already suspicious mind – are these scientists and others afraid of getting into an intellectually honest discussion?

I am not opposed to genetic modification science as such and I accept that much good has come out of it. What makes me concerned is that so much of this research and development is purely business driven, by large multinational companies.

As I said about genetically modified Bt cotton in my Fairtrade textile report, we may see these innovations being applied already before we know what longer term effects they will have on people and environment. There seems to be a belief that when new problems arise they can be addressed by modifications to the modified seeds.

When the Bacillus Thuringiensis pesticide produced by the genetically modified Bt cotton is not strong enough to kill the bugs that have developed a resistance, pesticide use goes up again and new generation GMO seeds are developed that are more effective. I am not comfortable about this approach, and not confident that responsibility for the environment and for human health will always prevail against economic short term interests.

This is an area where mistakes cannot be made. When the card has been played it remains on the table. Just that here the stakes are much higher than in any poker game.

Why then does something like 80 per cent of world cotton come from GMO farming?

Undeniably, yields increase considerably and pesticide use goes down in the years after having moved to these cotton varieties. Any future risks seem to be far away, if the farmer even knows about them. In the poorer countries of the world, where cotton is often one of the most important crops, there are obvious reasons that short term benefits prevail. Active marketing of GMO seeds contributes to these choices, marketing where risks are surely not often mentioned.

The lack of alternative seeds is a huge problem in many parts of the world. Even if a farmer would like to stay with other cotton varieties, this is often impossible. Also a cross contamination is a real risk, especially in environments where farms are small and education levels not very high. To apply the rather demanding buffer zones in these circumstances is not really realistic.

As the GMO seeds are produced by private companies, they are also their intellectual property. The producer multinationals like Monsanto are of course actively protecting their interests and either selling the seeds for every growing season, or requiring royalties.

This would not be a real problem in the developed world where most farmers already for long have bought seeds rather than collected them when harvesting. In poorer parts of the world the situation is different. There, millions of small farmers have been pulled into a ‘modern’ monetary economy in a situation where neither financial nor social support networks often exist. We have heard of many family tragedies when a harvest season has gone badly wrong.

Maybe we will still see something similar to the pharmaceutical industry, which has had to accept that cheaper generic drugs are produced and marketed in poorer countries?

Would I eat GMO food? Yes I would, even if I avoid it whenever possible. Would I serve GMO food to my children if they were still young? No, I would not.

Julkaistu

Pleased to be part of the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS Technical Committee

I am preparing for the Global Organic Textile Standard GOTS Technical Committee next weekend in Frankfurt. There is indeed lots to read, but also lots to learn…

No, I have not gone over into agricultural science but will focus on social issues in textile production and supply chains.

The organisation describes itself briefly on its website, which also contains a very solid documentation about this initiative.

“The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) was developed through collaboration by leading standard setters with the aim of defining requirements that are recognised world-wide and that ensure the organic status of textiles from harvesting of the raw materials through environmentally and socially responsible manufacturing all the way to labelling in order to provide credible assurance to the consumer.

Since its introduction in 2006 the Global Organic Textile Standard has already demonstrated its practical feasibility. Supported by the growth in consumption of organic fibres and by the remarkable demand for unified processing criteria from the industry and retail sector, it has gained universal recognition, enabling processors and manufacturers to supply their organic textiles with one certification accepted in all major markets. With the introduction of the logo and labelling system the GOTS is already visible not only on the shelves of natural textile shops but large-scale retailers and brand dealers as well. This is a milestone in consumer recognition and a strong acknowledgement of our reliable quality assurance concept.”

So why did I join this committee? An important reason is that I am impressed with the approach and work of this Standard, which is the only one of its kind and widely recognised. Working on my recent project for the German development ministry BMZ on Fairtrade textile certification GOTS did stand out as a reliable, solid and very practical approach.

There is a growing interest for organic textiles by both consumers and retailers, and it is important that also the people who are engaged in this industry can work under safe, good and dignified conditions.

I am pleased to have been invited to be part of this work and motivated to learn more.

With my experience from and board engagement in two leading corporate social responsibility organisations GSCP – Global Social Compliance Programme – and SAI – Social Accountability International SA8000 – I hope and believe that there are things I can contribute with.