News - The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (Textiles Partnership)

Many companies joined: What about the Textile Alliance?

Textile workers in Bangladesh. Photo © G.BurckhardtTextile workers in Bangladesh. Photo © G.BurckhardtIt was only after tough negotiations that a number of companies joined the Textile Alliance in June 2015. They had refused to do so when the alliance was founded in October 2014. The action plan they helped develop was too demanding for them at the time, while other companies such as Hessnatur and Vaude immediately joined. FEMNET is also involved in the development of the action plan from the outset and is represented in the interim steering committee. But what ultimately led companies to join?

 

Too fast, too binding

For one thing, companies initially seemed overwhelmed by the speed of the process. They wanted time to examine the content of the action plan. In particular, the commitment of the timelines set out in the Action Plan to achieving social and environmental standards for the entire supply chain went too far for many. Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, some of which do not even know their producers, felt overwhelmed. For the first time, they and their associations textile+mode and Germanfashion were under great pressure. And for the first time, it seems, they had to deal more intensively with questions of working conditions at their producers. For about half a year, the companies and their associations struggled for a common position with the help of a consulting company.

Process orientation

As a compromise, it was agreed that the objectives of the action plan should be pursued in a more process-oriented manner, but that the objectives of the action plan should not be called into question. Every company is asked to develop its own roadmap with time goals, which it must be able to measure by their goal tracking and goal achievement. The details will be worked out in the coming months. This also applies to the criteria according to which an independent supervisory board is to assess members' progress and make it transparent to the public.

The next few months are crucial.

FEMNET will continue to actively accompany the process in the future. But only the next few months will show us and the Clean Clothes Campaign whether the Textile Alliance will produce serious, binding approaches. Only if we can clearly see that joint steps are being taken to improve the working conditions of workers, especially women, along the entire supply chain will we continue to participate in the future. However, if the textile alliance becomes a platform of empty promises and greenwashing, we will leave it.

Since the beginning of July, the alliance has 120 members, including FEMNET, other member organizations of the Campaign for Clean Clothes (CCC), the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the DGB and many companies.