News - The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (Textiles Partnership) 21 September 2017 Textile Alliance needs legal support: Few companies publish their 2017 roadmaps Spinning mill in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Photo: © Gisela Burckhardt, FEMNETPress release of the Clean Clothes Campaign For 2017, the members of the Textile Alliance had to set targets for the implementation of environmental and social standards in their supply chains for the first time in so-called roadmaps. The publication of these roadmaps is still voluntary this year, but mandatory from 2018. The first roadmap process was therefore still in the ‘trial run’ this year and thus a challenge. Contrary to civil society expectations, only a few member companies published their roadmap in 2017. In total, this was 19 out of 87 reporting member companies, i.e. around 22 percent. All the more, civil society in the Textile Alliance welcomes the fact that a total of 40 members (including the Federal Government, two trade unions, 12 NGOs, 4 standard organisations, 2 associations and 19 companies) have already published their roadmap this year. The development of a framework for creating the roadmap was pioneering and therefore still shows some errors that need to be corrected: Due to a lack of specifications for formulation criteria, the target formulations vary greatly and roadmaps are not comparable. Targets are often not formulated precisely (measurable, specific, realistic) because there are no time and quantity targets as minimum standards. The desired progress compared to the previous year can often not be traced, as the initial situation is known only to the external auditors, but not to the public. The published roadmaps of the companies have a very different level of ambition. Important alliance goals such as living wages are mentioned by some companies, but without setting ambitious and clearly measurable goals. The exclusion of discrimination against women, among others, and the guarantee of health and safety at work are hardly mentioned in the published roadmaps. Few companies set targets for disclosing their supply chains. In addition, numerous objectives do not show the degree of coverage, i.e. the proportion of suppliers that a measure is intended to achieve. This makes it impossible to understand whether the objective concerns only pilot projects or covers all suppliers. This clearly shows that the Textile Alliance needs mandatory time and quantity targets for the formulation of the target as well as for the topics to be covered. The respective initial situation should also be known. These requirements are currently being negotiated and are an important prerequisite for the success of the alliance. The campaign for clean clothing therefore calls on the next federal government to take legal measures on disclosure obligations for supply chains and on human rights due diligence obligations for the textile industry. Developments in the Textile Alliance show that this level of commitment is necessary to achieve substantial improvements. The Textile Alliance can be a useful addition to this, as problems can be worked on together and a greater impact can be achieved. Contacts:Tim Zahn, Coordinator of Civil Society in the Alliance for Sustainable TextilesThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0176 4765 6294 Civil society members in the Steering Committee of the Textile Alliance:Dr. Gisela Burckhardt, FEMNET, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0152 01774080Dr. Sabine Ferenschild, Südwind Institute, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 0228 7636 9816Berndt Hinzmann, INKOTA network, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel.: 0160 94 69 87 70 20 civil society organisations are members of the Textile Alliance and are represented in the steering committee by the following three NGOs: FEMNET, INKOTA network, Südwind Institute. All three are also sponsors of the Clean Clothes Campaign
