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News - The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (Textiles Partnership)

26 November 2024 10 years of the Textile Alliance. Achieving more together. A statement by civil society in the Textile Alliance

FEMNET has been involved in the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles since its foundation in 2014. Together with three other NGOs, we publish a statement on the occasion of the 10th anniversary in order to give more emphasis to the declared goal of the alliance.

A joint statement by FEMNET, SÜDWIND, Inkota and HEJSupport.

We value the Textile Alliance as a platform that has enabled a systematic exchange between business, politics, standard organisations, trade unions and civil society on social and environmental conditions in the global textile industry over the past decade. This also includes alliance initiatives that address individual focus topics. This cooperation is an important basis for improving production conditions in global supply chains. Nevertheless, implementation on site often falls short of our expectations. The current measures are not sufficient to speed up the social and ecological transformation of supply chains.The Alliance's ambition is to work ambitiously beyond the legal requirements on due diligence (LkSG, CSDD, CRSD). The alliance has the potential to act as a pioneer for a sustainable textile industry. The review of recent years shows that issues such as living wages, reshaping purchasing practices, binding complaint mechanisms and a healthy environment require even greater priority and effective implementation. Only in this way can the Textile Alliance contribute to a truly sustainable change.

A key issue here is the need to increase the involvement of rightholders – people directly affected by production conditions – in decision-making processes. The 10-year memorandum of understanding to strengthen trade unions and civil society is therefore a correct and important accent. By involving workers, local actors and other rights holders more intensively, the Alliance could achieve more comprehensive and sustainable improvements. This is because: Why do complaint and redress systems work so badly, for example? Because a fair participation of the workers cannot be ensured and there is often an environment of fear and immense work pressure. Even though the inclusion of rights holders has been discussed a lot in the Textile Alliance, little has happened here so far.

In the context of the broader challenges, a targeted, ambitious further development of the textile alliance is needed, which is supported by all stakeholders. It is time to move from declarations of intent and structural discussions to concrete measurable progress and to ensure that the social and environmental goals set in the supply chains are actually achieved. This is the only way to live up to our motto ‘Together we achieve more’.