New Look

New Look have beaten me to the punch with punny titles! 'A New Look at our ethics' is a subheading to their ethical brochure (click here to read), which is worth a mosey over. New Look are a member of the ETI (ethical trading institute) and state their objective is to 'be fair and ethical in the way we trade: to our customers, suppliers and the people who make our products'. The brochure is a fairly encouraging read, New Look state how many countries they manufacture goods in, how many factories they use, and in what countries the main production is in. The issues found from audits are published, including what improvements have been made, and how they are tackling the tougher issues that have not shown so much improvement. It's great to see a retailer publishing this kind of information, however i still had some questions, particularly over how their audit process was carried out, and if they encourage trade unions to be set up in factories they use.

 New look state that they carried out 16 audits working with Impactt, backed up by 184 standard audits. They explained this by saying that the 184 standard audits are the regular type of audits carried out by large commercial audit companies, but that New Look were 'sceptical of the ability of bulk auditing using large commercial audit companies to diagnose problems and tackle the root causes of problems in factories'. So they then carry out other audits (16  in this case) with Impactt and local partners to that carry out the same process, but focus on the views of the workers. They say this gives them a great understanding of what the issues are for the workers themselves, they talk to workers at homes and outside the factory to limit the risk of the worker feeling intimidated to answer honestly in the factory, and in China have used ex-workers to carry out the interviews. 

 However the brochure also stated that New Look use 1016 factories, and the audits have covered about 10% of these. New Look say that all factories must sign up to their code of conduct, and that their is infrastructure set up for New Look sites to share audit reports with New Look.

 It seems as though New Look is doing some good stuff with audits, they appear to be being honest about problems they find, and their methods do appear to be having improvements. However the fact that only 10% of factories are audited is a concern, and is an area I'd hope to see New Look expand on in the future.

 The brochure was quiet on the area of trade unions. Trade unions help to give power to the workers, and give them a voice to talk about their problems. New Look recognised that penetration of trade unions in the garment industry was low, but said that they have actively supported factories that do have trade unions, and encouraging factories to join up to programmes such as Better Factories Cambodia (programme of the International Labour Organization). 

 For factories that do not have trade union, New Look say they prioritise the rollout of their worker committee model, but admit this is not ideal. I'm still trying to find out exactly what this means!  However it is part of the 'Benefits for Business and Workers' project that other retailers such as Arcadia, Marks and Spencers, Mothercare, Tesco and Sainsburys have joined. BBW will roll out the methodology to 110 factories supplying retailer participants in India and Bangladesh, reaching an estimated 83,000 workers by February 2013.

So New Look do appear to be making steps in the right direction, which is great to see! Looks like i'm going to have to do some more reading up on Impactt, and the 'Benefits for Business and Workers' project however!

The 'Next' best thing?

Long time, no blog! In fact, no blog for the entire month of December, the Christmas effect! Despite my belief that new year resolutions don't actually work, I've set myself one - To sit down at least once a week and write a blog, email a shop, or read articles about clothes production. Let's hope I can prove myself wrong!



So on to the next shop I've been emailing, Next. Every year they publish their 'Corporate Responsibility Report', which makes for a fairly encouraging read. It talks about the importance of ethical trading, the minimum requirements their factories must have, the fact that auditing is done by Next themselves and not a third party, and the progress they are currently making. Next say they are working on understanding 'country specific issues' suppliers are facing, and working to help develop local communities, and workers conditions. They have launched 'project autopilot', which they hope will deliver sustainable work place improvements, and eventually replace the need to audit factories. The idea behind the project being increased responsibility to the employers and employees of the factories, with improved communication channels.

'A supportive and committed management is vital to the potential success and long term sustainability of this project, and this has been a key factor in the selection of the suppliers we want to partner with in this programme.' (Next Corporate Responsibility Report 2011).

I still had a few questions about how their auditing process actually worked, what effects 'Project Autopilot' would actually have on workers wages, and just how far Next was willing to go to improve conditions for their workers. Usually when i send these emails i get either ignored, very short replies that don't mean anything, or just copied and pasted pre-written waffle. I couldn't believe it when I saw the length of the reply I received back from Next's 'Code of Practice Manager'.
I was told that Next audit factories every 6 months to 2 years, and that if a complaint is made about that factory they revisit the factory and offer support to bring the factory up to at least the minimum standards, and that they only disengage with suppliers if all avenues for achieving change have been explored.
They say 'Project Autopilot' will help achieve living wages for workers, but that the success of living wage campaigns is also dependent on governments, NGO's (Non-governmental Organisations) and trade unions. Referring to the problem that simply paying a factory more does not guarantee that the workers will actually see that money!
Although Next do not have any fair trade products they said they do support the principle (paying a fair price for a product) and want their brand to be a 'force for good'. They also pointed to work they do such as 'Soul of Africa' where they support women affected by HIV/AIDS to help them develop sewing and business skills.

I replied again asking questions such as how is Next supporting the groups they mentioned who are influential in the success of a living wage, and why they are not more public about things such as 'Project Autopilot'.
The reply I received to this was much more brief, offering me a phone conversation, or a face to face meeting where we could discuss things further! So i should be off to London before too long to meet Next's 'Code of Practice Manager' (lets hope its not some big conspiracy to knock me off!)

So while i may not be shopping at Republic anymore, I did venture in to the ever so slightly scary world of the Next January sale...I bought a hat!