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News - The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (Textiles Partnership)

20 April 2021 Civil society in the Textile Alliance: Seven years of the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles: How much ambition is there?

Press release of civil society in the Textile Alliance

At the end of 2021, civil society in the Textile Alliance will take a critical look at the roadmaps of member companies.

Textile alliance far from the goal of living wages

The Alliance for Sustainable Textiles started in 2014 to demonstrably improve the social and environmental conditions along the entire textile supply chain. Living wages have been on the agenda since then, but so far there has been a lack of demonstrable progress on this issue. On the contrary, the COVID-19 crisis has shown how reckless purchasing practices of local textile brand and retail companies, such as order cancellations or lower or delayed payment of orders, plunge workers in their supply chain into the bottomless. Tomorrow's 7. The General Assembly therefore focuses on fair purchasing practices. "Companies must not stop at an exchange, but must also implement the existing ideas quickly with a progressive spirit. We demand that companies commit to fair purchasing practices in order to finally achieve living wages, but also social security for workers," says Berndt Hinzmann from the INKOTA network.

Civil society will evaluate Textile Alliance on the basis of roadmaps submitted by companies

For civil society, the review process launched this month is a trailblazer to assess whether the Alliance and its member companies are still on a credible path to demonstrable improvements. In the review process, member companies report on the human rights, environmental and corruption-related risks in their supply chains and how they want to achieve improvements. The reports will be reviewed and are expected to be published in October. Sabine Ferenschild from the SÜDWIND Institute announces: "Civil society in the Textile Alliance will then analyse in detail whether the published roadmaps are comprehensible and whether companies are tackling the manifold problems of the supply chain in an ambitious and impact-oriented manner: Hunger wages, use of hazardous chemicals, corruption, gender-based violence and discrimination, forced labour in Xinjiang, violations of freedom of association in Myanmar, to name but a few. Companies should see this as training for future supply chain legislation in Germany or the EU."

Textile alliance must prove itself as a catalyst for best practices

The roadmaps must reflect that companies translate their participation in the Textile Alliance into effective measures for improvement. “In 2020, gender-based violence was an annual theme in the Alliance. We expect this to be reflected in the companies' roadmaps in the form of ambitious goals and impact-oriented measures. As far as living wages are concerned, as many companies as possible should join an alliance initiative in order to jointly close existing gaps between paid and living wages,” says Gisela Burckhardt of FEMNET. At the same time, the textile alliance itself must catch up on best practices. In the Textile Alliance, only 23 out of 85 companies are willing to voluntarily publish their suppliers in an aggregated list. Other initiatives obligatory require their members to disclose suppliers. Lack of supply chain transparency undermines an effective review of roadmaps in the review process.

Contact persons:

Berndt Hinzmann, INKOTA network, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0160 94 69 87 70
Dr. Sabine Ferenschild, SOUTH WIND Institute, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel: 01578 9606450
Dr. Gisela Burckhardt, FEMNET, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0152 01774080