The Sustainable Garment and Textile Agreement in The Netherlands
Corporate Social Responsibility and a Multi-stakeholder initiative in the Garment and Textile sector
18-06-2018 ─
Author: Esmé de Bruijn Student number: 11055790
Address: Mezquitalaan 74 Amsterdam E-mail: esme.de.bruijn@gmail.com Tel: +31634359775
Course: Bachelor thesis SGPL - 734301380Y Mentor: dr. Jeroen Merk
Bachelor: Future Planet Studies Major: Human Geography University of Amsterdam
Inhoudsopgave
Preface 2
Introduction 3
1. Theoretical framework 5
1.1 Background 5
1.2 Corporate Social Responsibility 6
1.3 (Sector chain) Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) 8
1.4 Role of governments in promoting corporate social responsibility 9
2. Methodology 10
2.1.1 Methods for sub-question 1 10
2.1.2 Methods for sub-question 2 11
2.1.3 Methods for sub-question 3 11
2.2 Conceptual framework 12
3. Results 14
3.1 The distinguishment between the SGT Agreement and the FWF & BSCI 14 3.2 New CSR behavior put into practice since the enrollment in SGT Agreement 19 3.3 Stakeholder assessment on the CSR promoting role of public- and civil society 24 3.3.1 Assessing the role of the government in promoting CSR 25 3.3.2 Assessing the role of the civil society in promoting CSR 27
References 32
Preface
This bachelor thesis was a real experience in knowledge searching, empirical research and learning to analyse. I like to thank all the enterprises that filled in a questionnaire and the stakeholders that gave their time for in-depth interviews, because without their information I couldn’t have completed my thesis. It was also an interesting journey to visit the workplaces of some of the interviewed stakeholders. I like to thank my supervisor Jeroen Merk for his helpful remarks during the different steps in the research and writing process. And last but not least, I would like to thank my friends and fellow students for all kinds of support during the writing process.
Abstract
This thesis addresses the new multi-stakeholder agreement in the garment and textile sector (2016). There are high expectations for this Sustainable Garment and Textile (SGT) agreement, because of the alarming news on abuses that have been present in the sector for many years. Literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and on multi-stakeholder initiatives provide tools for evaluating the SGT agreement and the role of stakeholders in improvement or not of corporate social behavior in the garment sector. Three questions were central in the research: ‘What is so remarkably different about this agreement in comparison to previous CSR initiatives?’, ‘What new policies and projects did the garment industries put into practice?’ and last ‘What was the role of the relevant stakeholders in the realization of the SGT agreement?’ Three methods for data collection were used: desk research, a questionnaire and interviews with key persons. Together they provide interesting results to evaluate the innovative character of corporate social behavior due to the SGT agreement.
Introduction
This thesis will dive into the Dutch garment and textile sector addressing a new multi-stakeholder initiative in corporate social responsibility (CSR). In our globalising world most of the clothes we wear are not produced in the Netherlands, but in countries geographically spread out in countries like Turkey, China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and India, but also in other parts of the world. The huge competition between the enterprises in upcoming countries leads to a race to the bottom in terms of lowering wages and working conditions, to produce clothes as cheap as possible. The garment and textile industry has been scrutinized as an important contributor to global and environmental issues at all points in its supply chain (Zeller, 2012). Garment production generates pollution and global transportation of fashion goods negatively impacts the environment. In terms of social cost, the fashion industry helps create a culture of consumerism and waste. Garment manufacturing is negatively associated with human rights, low wages, and labor standards, particularly in developing countries (Ma, Lee, & Goerlitz ., 2016). The apparel industry was one of the first industries to be targeted by public shaming campaigns, and had to respond to growing public pressure to adopt CSR practices. In 2013 a poorly built garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed and 1134 workers passed away (The Guardian, 2015). This so called Rana Plaza disaster became a symbol of what is wrong in the global garment and textile industry. It was a wake-up call for stakeholders in this sector that there should be stronger regulations in the production and supply side. For many critics the Rana Plaza disaster represented the complete failure of CSR. As scholar Vogel states “ Regulatory failures at the global and national level (on CSR EdB) are pervasive, in large measure because both global firms and national governments have not developed adequate mechanisms to effectively govern many of the negative social and environmental impacts” (Vogel, 2011, p.73). Therefore, to study an upcoming new CSR initiative in the global garment sector is challenging. The question arises ‘what would be a good initiative, taken together by relevant stakeholders from the private and public sector and from civil society organizations, to improve CSR in this sector?’
Recently in the Netherlands such a new CSR agreement has been established: The Sustainable Garment and Textile Agreement (from now on SGT Agreement). The SGT Agreement gives the impression of an innovative example of multi-stakeholder cooperation between Dutch garment enterprises, trade unions, industry organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the Dutch government. It is established and coordinated by the Social Economic Council (SER in Dutch) in July 2016:
“55 parties have agreed to work together when producing garments and textiles in countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Turkey to prevent discrimination, child labour and forced labour, to promote the right to collective bargaining by independent trade unions, living wages, healthy and safe working conditions, to reduce the negative environmental impact of raw materials production, to prevent animal suffering, to use less water, energy and chemicals, and to produce less chemical waste and waste water. Dutch consumers will gradually have access to fairer, more sustainable garments and textiles. A growing number of shops will be able to meet consumer demands for fair and sustainable garments and textiles” (SER, 2016).
The Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation launched in 2014 a policy to strive for a series of international sectoral multi-stakeholder agreements (2014), called Agreements on International Responsible Business Conduct, based on the SER advies (SER, 2014).
This thesis aims to investigate whether and why the SGT Agreement is an innovative agreement on CSR. The CSR concept is used in the broad sense of societal responsible entrepreneurship (Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen). This thesis will investigate what is new in the SGT Agreement compared to previous CSR initiatives comparing main features of the agreements like the mission, the used international standards (UN, OECD and ILO), the fields of focus, and monitoring mechanism. Furthermore, the steps that were taken by the participating stakeholders are studied - especially of the global acting garment enterprises in the Netherlands.
To study this SGT Agreement and the influence it has on Dutch garment enterprises can contribute to the body of knowledge on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Studying the role of relevant stakeholders could also contribute to the knowledge about societal responsible entrepreneurship. The social relevance of this research topic is to contribute to a better global garment sector in the end, by studying what Dutch garment enterprises in the field of corporate social entrepreneurship do since participating in the SGT agreement. Moreover, to investigate the roles of the relevant stakeholders is socially relevant. Since the SGT agreement has not been in practise for that long and has been little studied so far, it is an interesting subject for this bachelor thesis. The central question of this thesis is:
How does the new Sustainable Garment and Textile Sector (SGT) agreement in the Netherlands, distinguishable from previous initiatives in the sector, improve (or not) the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Dutch garment enterprises?
The policies and actions of some Dutch enterprises since their enrollment in the SGT Agreement are examined. What did they change or not in their corporate responsible behavior or where are they enforced to, according to the SGT agreement. The agreement is a multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI). The roles of relevant stakeholders are investigated, like the role of the branches in the sector, the role of the trade unions, the NGOs and the government. It is might be hard to find already clear evidence of corporate social behavioral changes because the agreement is quite new. Nevertheless, there is an arousing curiosity to assess what makes the SGT Agreement different from previous initiatives, why did the different stakeholders choose to start this type of agreement, what expectations do they have, and how did the agreement work so far.
Outline
The first chapter contains the theoretical framework, the main concepts in the field of CSR and the role of different stakeholders in corporate social responsibility regulation. The literature study leads to the the main questions that are addressed in this thesis. The second chapter contains the methodology used in this thesis. Three methods of data gathering are addressed: desk research, the use of a questionnaire and the conduct of interviews. The third chapter describes the results of the data gathering and gives an analysis of the data. The final chapter provides answers to the research questions, compares the main results with the literature form chapter 2 and draws conclusions. The chapter notes also some limitations of the study and indicates further research suggestions.
1. Theoretical framework
The first paragraph of this chapter gives a (historical) background of the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The second paragraph presents two theories on CSR that set the stage for the research and debate on CSR. In the third paragraph presents literature and debate in the body of knowledge on stakeholders and multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI). The theoretical framework leads to the questions to be answered by empirical research.
1.1 Background
CSR in the broad meaning of societal responsible entrepreneurship has a long history. It starts in fact at the time of the industrial revolution when enterprises heavily exploited workers and children. After 1850 trade unions and political labor parties started to address these social issues and influenced governments to draw up labor laws. In the Netherlands the Child Labour Act of Van Houten in 1874 was the first step. Rare philanthropic employers took care of their workers by providing education, health care and housing (Nijhof et al., 2005). In the 20th century, societal pressure slowly led to more laws and regulations and discussions about who is responsible for corporate behavior. When in the sixties western economies started booming, labor shortages were soaring. Wages increased so rapidly that labor intensive industries (e.g. clothing, shoes, shipbuilding) could not keep up (Plantenga, Schippers, & Siegers, 1990). The ‘solution’ was to move these industries to “ low wage countries” in Asia and other parts of the world. The garment producingindustries in Europe and the US gradually closed their doors and the garment and textile sector transformed into a global value chain (Reich, Gordon, & Edwards, 1973). According to Gereffi & Memedovic (2003) a global value chain encompasses all of the people and activities involved in the production of a good or service and its global level supply, distribution and sales activities. These scholars distinguish two global value chains: buyer-driven and producer-driven. In buyer-driven value chains, large retailers, marketers and branded manufacturers play leading roles in decentralizing the production networks in different exporting countries, especially in low-income developing countries. The industries that have buyer-driven value chains are usually the labor-intensive, consumer-goods industries such as apparel, toys, footwear, handicrafts and consumer electronics. In these buyer-driven value chains the enterprises do not make the branded clothes they order and, thus, are so-called “manufacturers without factories”. Whereas in producer-driven value chains, large manufacturers play the leading roles with the coordination of the production network (i.e capital- and technology-intensive industries such as automobiles, aircraft, computers and heavy machinery) (Gereffi & Memedovic, 2003, p.3).
National governments, who normally drew up laws and regulations on labour rights, on health and safety and on environment issues inside national borders, lost their grip on these global chain industries. At the same time the garment production factories arose in countries with little compliance on labor rights or workers health and safety. Moreover, neoliberal economic policies in the eighties made room for fast growing transnational enterprises (TNCs) and a huge international financial sector with no ethical CSR whatsoever (Ruggie, 2017; Luyendijk, 2016). In response to, on the one hand, a weakening of national regulatory systems, also due to retiring governments under neoliberal politics, and on the other hand the strengthening power of TNCs and increasing importance of brands, there came a growing
demand fromcivil society actors for new mechanisms of corporate accountability (Braithwaite & Drahos, 2000). Especially NGOs world wide have to get the credits for their continuous awareness raising and activities to increase pressure on the apparel businesses to take at least some social responsibility and to interact with other stakeholders about CSR. It is interesting to see that these civil society actions came partly from bottom up, local initiatives of citizens, workers, unions, environmentalist, etc. and partly from international non-governmental organizations like the United Nations (UN), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO) or Amnesty International (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997).
According to Vogel (2010) a whole interesting area of so-called civil regulations, as soft law initiatives, on an international scale, are being developed to address the CSR of these increasingly complex global supply chains and TNCs. Since governments and national laws have little to no control and therefore fall short. One of the first global CSR initiatives was the Global Compact. It was the first agreement of the UN and the private sector formalized in the UN Guidelines for Business (UNGB) in 2000 (Ruggie, 2017). John Ruggie was one of the principal architects. He states that there have been previous waves of globalization, but today’s globalization is of a complete different kind: “ We have
moved from national economies, engaged in external transactions that governments could mediate at the border by tariffs and exchange rates, to global markets leaving behind national social bargains .” (Ruggie, 2017, p.17). He is a big proponent of global civil regulation. More than a decade ago he stated that civil regulation will“not replace states, but . . . (rather) embed(s) systems of governance in broader global frameworks of social capacity and agency that did not previously exist” (Ruggie, 2004, p.519)
1.2 Corporate Social Responsibility
Two theories on CSR will be presented. The first one is the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) theory from Elkington (1998), in which he addresses the three dimensions of Profit, People and Planet. This theory 1
poses that enterprises should not only go for profit, but for people (labor rights) and the planet (environmental impact) as well. The second theory is the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility of Carroll (1991). According to this theory CSR should exist of four responsibilities; economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. Enterprises start with profit and see this economic responsibility as their only ‘raison d’être’. Friedman (1970), the promoter of neo-liberal economics, even stated that if enterprises keep themselves busy with other responsibilities than maximizing returns for their shareholders, they act against the law.
During the 20thcentury complying to the law, starting
with labor laws enforced by the state, became a responsibility of the enterprises. In the seventies a more comprehensive definition of CSR was set forth. A four-part conceptualization of CSR included the idea that the corporation has not only economic and legal obligations, but ethical and discretionary (philanthropic) responsibilities as well (Carroll, 1991). Ethical responsibilities concern human, environmental and consumer rights. Philanthropic responsibilities freely aim at good corporate citizenship, contribute to resources and the
1 These terms became famous because Shell used them in another sequence for the title of their first sustainability report in
community and improve the quality of life. Both theories, the TBL theory and the Pyramid of CSR formed the basis for many studies in the body of knowledge of CSR. Like Dahlsrud (2008), who analysed many definitions on CSR, came to five more or less similar dimensions as Carroll, the social, environment, economic, multistakeholder dimension and an ethical “going beyond the law” dimension.
The already mentioned UN Global Compact is currently the largest global CSR initiative and developed the five dimensions of Carroll into ten principles in the areas of human rights, labor rights, environment impact, and anti-corruption (Baumann-Pauly, Nolan, Van Heerden, & Samway., 2017). The UN Global Compact agreement defined CSR as “the commitment of businesses to contribute to
sustainable economic development—working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve the quality of life, in ways that are both good for business and good for development” (Ward, 2004).
The concept of CSR refers originally to a form of corporate self regulations (e.g. on safety standards), but that it has shifted over the last decades to a concept that recognizes that enterprises are part of society, and that they have the responsibility to make a positive contribution to societal goals and aspirations (Ward, 2004). Enterprises could do this for strategic reasons like a positive impact on consumers, workers, environmentalist and investors, forlegal reasons, compliance to the law, but also for ethical and philanthropic reasons. Scholars Darnall, Potoski, & Prakash (2009) critically remark that because governments failed to deal adequately with environmental degradation and human rights abuses in global production processes, it became a strategy to make regulatory programmes on these issues with voluntary engagement of multinational enterprises, under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility. On the contrary scholar Steurer (2010, p.49) stated that “CSR started out as a neo-liberal concept that helped to downscale government regulations, but that it has in turn matured into a more progressive approach of societal co-regulation in recent years. ” Enterprises were asked and expected to voluntarily contribute, as corporate citizens, to sustainable development, for today's and future generations, by maximising synergies and minimising trade-offs between economic, social, and environmental stakeholder interests (Steurer, Martinuzzi, & Margula., 2012). The number and scope of global civil regulations began to expand significantly during the 1990s (Vogel, 2010). Since then a remarkable body of knowledge on CSR developed and gradually included more and more issues of responsibility (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012).
One of the academic issues became that researchers felt an increasing the need for clear uniform criteria to assess the quality of (new) non-governmental initiatives in CSR. One of them, O’Rourke (2006) aimed to develop an assessment model for evaluating such initiatives. Therefore O'Rourke evaluated a number of leading non-governmental initiatives in the United States and Europe. He compared the codes of conduct of the enterprises and also the monitoring systems within these initiatives. Moreover, regulation models are discussed and criteria are set for evaluating their effectiveness. O’Rourke came up with four criteria for effective non-governmental regulation: substantive participation of local stakeholders; public transparency of methods and findings; mechanisms that bring market pressures to TNCs, but also multi-stakeholder support for problem solving within factories and global supply chains. These evaluation criteria will be addressed in this thesis for assessing the SGT agreement and for evaluating the policies and practices made by Dutch garment enterprises acting upon the SGT agreement.
1.3 (Sector chain) Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs)
As shown in the previous section business oriented CSR initiatives were gradually more criticized by society as well as by scholars. Vogel (2010) criticizes that CSR initiatives only induced by enterprises are
too narrow to develop a broad sustainability agenda. The author starts with critically assessing the achievements and limitations of the private regulation of global corporate conduct. The author argues that such private regulations have some substantive improvements in corporate behavior. Nevertheless, there is clearly a need to integrate such private regulations and reinforce them by effective state-based and enforced regulatory policies, at both national and international levels. Vogel (2010, p.70) states: “civil regulation does not privatize business regulation in the sense of removing it from public scrutiny. Rather it represents an effort to develop new non-state, political mechanisms for governing global enterprises and markets.”
His theoretical framework offers assessing tools to evaluate multi-stakeholder initiatives particular on the lacking governmental affiliation. On the role of NGOs Vogel states that “ At the same time, many
NGOs have been repeatedly frustrated by their inability to promote stronger and more effective international treaties and domestic regulatory policies” as they become one of the stakeholders in a multi-stakeholder CSR initiative (Vogel, 2010, p.74). Some NGOs like to stay independent to continue with emphasizing the “naming and shaming” of global enterprises. Other NGOs “have chosen to
cooperate with enterprises and industry associations to develop voluntary standards and participate in their enforcement. Their willingness to enter into alliances with global enterprises has been critical to the emergence, legitimacy, and relative effectiveness of many civil regulations” (Vogel, 2010, p.74).
O’Rourke indicates the already described development“from factory-centered, state regulation
focusing on individual sites of production, towards supply-chain and ‘brand’ regulation” (O’Rourke, 2006, p. 900).He relates this to the multiple actors in a production chain and states that “the aim of the new non-governmental governance is to create a network of regulators, involving multiple stakeholders along global supply chains using NGOs, enterprises, and sometimes government agencies in setting standards and monitoring protocols.” In his view “Enforcement relies largely on market sanctions—either through
inter-firm purchasing decisions or NGO consumer campaigns that seek to influence consumer purchasing. A diverse family of regulatory strategies are involved” (O’Rourke, 2006, p. 900). He sees strategic alliances of NGOs and trade unions in CSR initiatives as essential to exert pressure and demand accountability over the factories. Braithwaite and Drahos (2000) show that the absence of state regulation presents major business challenges for enterprises. Therefore, CSR has become increasingly an issue on government agendas, like in the EU (Steurer, 2010). According to Steurer if each of the involved stakeholders has an equal voice in decision-making processes, his theory states that this will improve CSR behavior.
Reineke and Donaghey (2015) empirically investigated complementary capacities of different stakeholders. They combine two bodies of knowledge: one on the role of organised labour (trade unions) and the other is by social movement scholars focusing on the role of social movement organisations in mobilising consumption power (like fair trade NGOs). They examined the coalitional power for labour rights between unions and (consumption-based) social movement organizations after the Rana Plaza disaster and showed how the complementary capacities of actors based on production and consumption have contributed to the establishment of the 'Fire Safety and Building Safety
Agreement in Bangladesh'. Scholar Fransen (2011) investigates in his article if there is evidence that the MSIs with government and civil society involvement do better than the MSIs that exclude public- and societal stakeholder groups. He compared a variety of multi-stakeholder programs primarily in the retail industry. He assessed the legitimacy and limitations of the different initiatives.
1.4 Role of governments in promoting corporate social responsibility
Public policies to endorse CSR are increasing in European countries over the last two decades. The literature identifies a variety of aspects as key drivers for governments to take action regarding CSR: social and environmental consequences of the transnationalization of business activities, transformation of welfare states and societal governance challenges (Albareda, Lozano, & Ysa., 2007). For governments, CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation between business and social organizations. Governmental initiatives converged with the actions of different international organizations such as the UN Global Compact, the ILO and the OECD. Governments increasingly realize, or are forced by political parties and NGOs to do, that they have a role to play in encouraging the corporate social responsibility of enterprises in the interest of the public and the society. According to Ward (2004) there are potentially five public sector roles in strengthening CSR: mandating, facilitating, partnering, endorsing and demonstrating. which could be used for assessing the role of the government in a MSI. Based on the possible roles of governments in promoting CSR Steurer (2010) indicates four fields of action: awareness for CSR, transparency, socially responsible investment, and leading by example. The role of the government in the case of the SGT Agreement will be assessed by the interviews with stakeholders (paragraph 3.3.1).
Research questions and relevance
The main thesis statement presented below is deduced from the bodies of knowledge in the previous paragraph. In this paragraph the sub-questions are presented. They will be operationalized in chapter 2. Thesis statement: The Dutch Sustainable Garment and Textile (SGT) agreement, with private, public and civil society stakeholders, is supposed to improve sustainable Corporate Social Responsible behavior (CSR) in a different manner than previous CSR initiatives.
The SGT Agreement is a multi-stakeholder initiative, a new initiative with voluntary participation of the Dutch garment enterprises and with a remarkable number of stakeholders (11 in total). To evaluate whether this SGT Agreement is innovative or not the agreement will be compared to previous CSR initiatives in the same sector. This leads to the first sub question: How does the SGT Agreement
distinguish itself from previous CSR initiatives? The work of O’Rourke (2006) will be used for the evaluation.
The second part of the research for this thesis is focussed on potential new corporate social behavior by the enterprises affiliated with the SGT Agreement. How do they actually act upon after the enrollment of the agreement? This leads to second sub-question: What new corporate social behavior did the
and practices differ from what they previously did?) As a theoretical context the work of Vogel (2010) and Fransen (2011) will be used.
The third part of this thesis research addresses the role of the government and the role of civil organizations as stakeholders participating in the SGT steering committee. How do they contribute or not to corporate social behavior of garment enterprises. There are 11 stakeholder parties in partnership. This leads to sub-question 3: How do the different types of the stakeholders (private, public and civil society) assess the role of the government and civil society organisations in enhancing corporate social responsibility? As a theoretical context the work of Steurer (2010) and of Ward (2004) will be used. Steurer distinguishes four fields of action for governments and other stakeholders: awareness for CSR, transparency, socially responsible investment, and leading by example. Ward (2004) uses five public sector roles for assessing strengthening of CSR:, mandating, facilitating, partnering, endorsing and demonstrating, will be applied to assess this role of the state.
2. Methodology
In the previous chapter the theoretical framework of the thesis was presented. This chapter describes the different methods that are used to answer the three sub-questions. Paragraph 2.1 describes the methods per sub-question. In paragraph 2.2 the conceptual framework is displayed to give an overview of the operationalization of the research.
2.1 Data collection methods per sub-question
This section explains how the data for each sub-question are collected and gives the operationalization of the key concepts in the questions .The type of research in this thesis is mixed methodsresearch, as described by Bryman (2012, chapter 27). This includes qualitative as well as quantitative research. In this thesis three methods for data collection were used: desk research, a questionnaire and interviews with key persons. For the desk research documents and website materials were studied. The questionnaire was sent to the garment enterprises that reacted on a request to participate in this research. The interviews were conducted with key persons of the relevant stakeholder parties participating in the SGT Agreement.
2.1.1 Methods for sub-question 1
Sub-question 1: How does the SGT Agreement distinguish itself from previous CSR initiatives?
For sub-question 1 desk research on the SGT Agreement was done. Relevant materials, like the agreement itself, background information and the list of enterprises that signed the agreement were all available on the SER website. Then a choice had to be made out of previous CSR initiatives in the garment sector. Due to time constraints I had to choose two previous CSR initiatives which were suitable to compare them with the new SGT agreement. I have chosen for the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) and the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF). I chose these two CSR initiatives, because they originate from Belgium (BSCI) and the Netherlands (FWF). Therefore many Dutch enterprises have signed one or both of these initiatives. The BSCI is an agreement, the FWF is an organisation with membership. Both are CSR initiatives with monitoring mechanisms on firm level, with codes of conduct
and other policies and practices concerning CSR. The enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement are also enterprises located in the Netherlands. Therefore the choice for BSCI and FWF seemed to be a good choice. The same enterprises could be affiliated with all three initiative. To find out which enterprises of BSCI and FWF signed also the SGT agreement, firstly, all the names of the Dutch enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement were collected. Secondly, the names of these enterprises were filled in one by one on the Amfori BSCI website to see which enterprises are also member of the BSCI. Thirdly, the list of members of the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) was consulted, to find out which brands corresponded with the list of the SGT Agreement. An overview of these lists was made (see appendix A). The three initiatives were compared on topics used by O’Rourke in his studied of CSR initiatives in the EU and the US. The chosen topics were: governance of the initiative, the mission, the used (international) standards, the monitoring processes and the substantive focus points.
2.1.2 Methods for sub-question 2
Sub-question 2: What new corporate social behavior did the garment enterprises put into practice since their enrollment in the SGT Agreement (how do their policies and practices differ from what they previously did?)
This part of the research is aimed at what new policies and practices garment enterprises actually put in practice under the SGT Agreement. For this sub-question a quantitative research method was used. A request for participation in the research was sent to the 65 Dutch garment enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement. The enterprises normally have a website and by the request I could find out who could fill in the questionnaire. Only ten entreprises react on the request for participating and they all filled in the questionnaire. The questionnaire is enclosed in this thesis. The reason I chose for this research method is because I intend to reach a lot of the 65 enterprises to get representative data for the whole population of enterprises. It could have provides quantitative data for statistical analysis (Bryman, 2012, p. 237). Although repeated email requests have been sent (2 time) and also many telephone calls have been made with information services of the enterprises, the result became not higher than ten questionnaires. Looking back one can imagine that the enterprises in their busy schedules do not prioritize a questionnaire of a student. However the monitoring process by the SER secretariat could also have played a role. The enterprises had to answer already more or less the same question in the context of the SGT agreement. Nevertheless the ten enterprises that react gave interesting results to answer sub-question two.
2.1.3 Methods for sub-question 3
Sub-question 3: How do the different types of the stakeholders (private, public and civil society) assess the role of the government and civil society organisations in enhancing corporate social responsibility?
According to the literature (Vogel, 2010; Fransen, 2011; Steurer, 2010; Ward 2004) the role of relevant stakeholders is of decisive importance for the improvement of corporate social behavior or of CSR initiatives. In this case there are 11 stakeholder parties participating in the SGT steering committee. Two trade unions participate, five NGOs, three industry organisations, the Dutch government and the SER
secretariat form the steering committee. Requests for an interview were send to all the stakeholder parties and the SER secretariat. Except for the NGOs all parties were available for an interview. The NGOs stakeholders were too busy. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted either at the workplace of the stakeholder or at another place of the interview were conducted via skype.
The choice for these face-to-face interviews were multifold. First such an interview is more in-depth, it gives the possibility to elaborate on questions. The use of this method creates more completeness of research data and potentially a more comprehensive study (Bryman, 2012, p. 633). A second reason for the use of this method is the notion of Silva and Wright (2008, p. 3) that “the qualitative interviews were
conducted to ‘check and correct the quantitative data’ and make the survey data more robust” (Bryman,
2012, p. 635). Table 1 shows an overview of the four different stakeholders parties, the SER secretariat and the interviewed key persons. All the interviewed stakeholders were asked if they want to stay anonymous. None of them had objections to be mentioned with full names in the thesis. Mixed methods data can be used for illustration, for completeness and for triangulation. In this thesis the data gathered with the interviews were used party to illustrate the results from the questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire could be reinforced or not by the outcomes of the semi-structured interviews (Bryman, 2012, p. 638).
No. of resp. Type of organization Key person
NGOs 0 - UNICEF Netherlands
- FOUR PAWS - Solidaridad - Stop Child Labour
- The India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) trade unions 1 - CNV - FNV Jacob Plat (FNV) Industry organisations 1 - VGT - Modint - INretail
Jeroen van Dijken (VGT and Steering Committee)
The Dutch Government 1 Ministry of Trade Jos Huber
SER 1 Secretariat Jef Wintermans
Dutch Enterprises 1 Schijvens Corporate Fashion Shirley Schijvens (Steering Committee)
Table 1. Overview of the stakeholders and key persons for semi-structured interviews.
2.2 Conceptual framework
Summarizing the questions and the relationships between the main concepts lead to the following conceptual framework. In the figure below the conceptual framework is displayed and gives clear view of how the research will be executed.
3. Results
In this chapter the research results will be presented per sub-question. However the first section 3.1 starts with a short overview of the developments in the Dutch garment and textile industry and with the raise of problems. Then the results of sub-question one are given, addressing the differences between the SGT Agreement and the two other CSR initiatives BSCI and FWF. Section 3.2 shows the results of the questionnaire to the garment enterprises. The focus is on what new CSR behavior did garment enterprises display hitherto under the SGT Agreement, and what projects did they actually put into practice. Section 3.3 presents the CSR promoting role by the government and civil society organisations including trade union, assessed by the interviewees of the stakeholders parties in the SGT steering committee.
3.1 The distinguishment between the SGT Agreement and the FWF & BSCI
Background in the garment and textile industry
Till the 70’s the Netherlands and most countries in Europe had their own garment and textile industries. In the Netherlands it was located in Groningen, in Twente, around Tilburg, and Amsterdam. The booming economy in the 60’s led to higher wages for laborers. A lot of labour intensive industries like the garment and textile and the shoe industries closed in the Netherlands and other EU countries and moved to “lower wage” countries (Huisman, Leeuwen, & Plantenga, 1984). Between 1980 and 1995 the textile production in Asia increased with 98 %, while in Europe the production decreased with 32 %. Within the garment and textile sector the movement of production locations has always been present. Prominent factors to this movement are: 1. low labor costs and flexible workers, 2. incentive schemes for foreign enterprises by other production countries, 3. rapid laborers and low costs of new communication technology and 4. lower transport costs (Clean Clothes Campaign, 2016).
The global garment and textile industry has between 60 to 75 million people working in the sector (Clean Clothes Campaign, 2018). The industry has grown enormously. The top countries of production are China, Bangladesh and India. In these countries there are many abuses within the garment and textile sector and the local governments almost never comply with the international labor standards. One of the main issues is the poor working conditions of laborers. They have long working days, up to more than 10 hours a day, freedom of association is prohibited, health insurance is poorly to non-existent, women are paid less than men and people are exposed to toxic chemicals (Awareness Fashion, 2016).
In order to address the issues concerning the garment and textile industry, several CSR initiatives were implemented. The latest initiative is the Dutch SGT Agreement. Previous CSR initiatives that were implemented are the FWF that was established in 1999 and the BSCI of 2002. In the BSCI the trade unions and NGOs are part of the Advisory Council, which comes together twice a year to advise BSCI members on the implementation of their CSR. However, the council does not have direct influence on BSCI decision-making and is therefore not a MSI (Egels-Zandén & Wahlqvist, 2007). The SGT Agreement and FWF are so-called MSIs. They include different parties - NGOs, trade unions, industry organizations and enterprises - which have a role in the improvement of the circumstances in the garment and textile industry. They are all working together to achieve this goal. MSIs were established because some issues are too complex to tackle by an enterprise on its own. This is the reason why
enterprises work together with the government, trade unions and NGOs within the SGT agreement. This creates more opportunities to address these problems in a structured and solution-oriented way (SER, 2018).
How does the SGT Agreement distinguish itself from previous CSR initiatives?
In this section the Dutch SGT Agreement is compared to two previous CSR initiatives - the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) and the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), to show where the SGT agreement can be distinguished from the previous ones. And does the differences mean improvement in corporate social behavior? The differences are described by the five topic deduced from the work of O’Rourke (2006), namely differences in governance and participating stakeholders, in used standards used, in monitoring processes, in focus points and in mission statement. For the comparison the overview of Merk (2017) is used as well as website material, especially for the SGT agreement. Table 2 gives an overview of the three agreements BCSI, FWF and SGT, categorized by the topics of O’Rourke (2006) in his research on CSR initiatives. A list is made of the Dutch garment enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement and are also member of the FWF or the BSCI. Due to the length, this list is presented in Appendix A.
Governance format and stakeholder membership
The SGT Agreement is the latest initiative in Corporate Social Responsibility in the garment and textile sector. In terms of governance format it is the same as the FWF as they are both MSIs. The SGT Agreement differs substantially from the BSCI because BSCI is only a business-driven initiative. SGT is a multi-stakeholder initiative with 11 parties, including garment enterprises organized in three branche organisations, five NGOs, two Dutch trade unions and the Dutch government. After signing the agreement the parties set up a Steering Committee to lead the implementation process. Whereas the BSCI only includes businesses and not the other parties stakeholders. The difference between the SGT Agreement and the FWF is that the SGT Agreement includes the Dutch government for regulation and financing. The Dutch government is committed to 1. put the subject Multi-stakeholder collaboration on the agenda in the European Union, 2. to contribute maximally that it is clear for enterprises which possibilities there are to make policies upon human rights, environment, biodiversity and animal welfare, 3. support the signatories of the agreement, 4. promote the agreement and ensure that foreign governments make the execution, monitoring and verification of the agreement possible (SGT Agreement, 2016).
Standards used; Due diligence
Table 2 gives under names of standard what kind of standards the three CSR initiatives use as a basic for their codes of conduct for social responsibility. The agreement BSCI (2002) based their BSCI Code of Conduct on the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), on the ILO’s
fundamental labour standards and on the OECD Guidelines. The FWF Code of Good Labor Practices (1999) is also based on the UNGP and ILO guidelines but nót on the OECD’s Guidelines. The SGT Agreement comprised their standards under the termDue diligence,which is also based on the UNGPs, the ILO’s fundamental labour standards and on the OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (SER, 2018). But the SGT agreement gives with the choice for Due diligence a whole new base and
innovative incentive to corporate social responsibility as will be shown later in the interviews as well. UNGPs describes the Due diligence principle as the ultimate business responsibility to protect human rights. Due diligence relies on corporate practices in defining, implementing, monitoring and communicating strategies limiting their negative impact on society, on the people and the planet. Committing to self reflection about the impact of every step in doing business, is seen a soft regulation approach but could be seen at the same time as the most strongest commitment. It encourages enterprises who signed the SGT agreement to institutionalise internal processes of investigation and stimulates the OECD to elaborate sector specific guidelines to allow enterprises to act in line with human rights due diligence responsibilities (SGT agreement 2016).
Monitoring
One of the core issues of agreements always is how to monitor what is agreed and how to act upon. In the SGT agreement, the monitoring of the enterprises concerns the due diligenceon all the agreed focus points (table 3) and is executed by an assessment form of the AGT Secretariat . This form recently 2
published in April 2018 and is be put in practice since then. The participants of the agreement have to report their results annually to the AGT Secretariat, which then will be aggregated and published online on the website of the SER, without the possibility of tracing the results back to the specific garment businesses. Thus, only partly public disclosure. This form of self-assessment by criteria has been established by the AGT Secretariat and the SGT Agreement. The BSCI Code of Conduct is monitored through self-assessment and external Auditors . 3
Both the BSCI and the FWF use factory audits (i.e self-assessment). However, in addition to self-assessment, the FWF makes also use of verification audits not only in the factories of their members, but also in their headquarters. This is comparatively of added value.
The big difference between the SGT agreement and the both previous one is that the SGT agreement monitoring is a permanent process. New policies and practices are directly registered, as well as new information on production enterprises in the garment value chain. Therefore there is a permanent building of a database, to be used by all enterprises and all stakeholders, without the possibility of tracing back to the enterprises. The BSCI and FWF use audits, which are only assessment at that moment, while the SGT agreement is a permanent proces.
Name Start date HQ Country Scope Governance format Membership Business Trade NGOs
Unions Name of standard Focus Monitoring
Sustainable Garment and Textile Agreement (SGT) 2016 Nether- lands Garment and Textile Multi-stakeholder: including the government, enterprises, unions and NGOs and a steering committee under guidance of the Social Economic
✓ ✓ ✓
Due diligence based on: • The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights • The fundamental labor standards of the ILO (the starting point for international CSR) Human rights, environmental & animal welfare violations Assessment framework of the AGT Secretariat - members report results annually 2
The secretariat of the Agreement on Sustainable Garment and Textile 3
Council • The OECD-guidelines for multinational enterprises Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) 2002 Belgium Sector: Multi-sector, including garments 1877 members, and 26,583 producers (suppliers), 21000 audits (2016) Industry-led (steering committee under guidance FTA) ✓ ✗ ✗
BSCI Code of Conduct based on:
• The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights • International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions and declarations • The OECD-guidelines for multinational enterprises Labor, community & environment Self- assessment & External auditors (accredited by SAAS ) 4 Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) 1999 Nether- lands Garments, including work-wear Multi-stakeholder: including unions and NGOs ✓ ✓ ✓
FWF Code of Good Labor Practices based on: • The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights • International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions and declarations Labor Multi- stakeholder verification by the use of audits internal and external.
Table 2. Overview. Note: Merk (2017), SER (2018), Amfori (2018), & FWF (2018).
Focus points
The focus points of the three initiatives are elaborated on in table 3 below. The first five points are the same in all three initiatives. The BSCI differs from FWF and the SGT Agreement on payment of a living wage.Payment of a living wage covers an adequate income for workers and their families which meet
legal or industry minimum standards in order to meet the basic needs, such as meals, rent, health care, education, clothes and transport (SGT Agreement; SER, 2016). Whereas the BSCI speaks of a ‘fair remuneration’ and does not elaborate on what this actually means. A critical distinction between the two can be made, because fair remuneration does not cover all the standards that a living wage does. Next, thereasonable hours of work and employment contracts are included in FWF and BSCI, but are not specifically taken up in the SGT Agreement as separate focus points. Moreover, environmental violation
or protection are included in the BSCI and SGT, but is not included in the FWF. The FWF is specifically focussed on labor rights and not as such on the environmental impacts. This is also mentioned in the interviews with the stakeholders. The BSCI addresses two additional labor focus points (nr 10 and 11).
The nine focus points that are covered by the SGT Agreement cover what Dutch garment enterprises need to achieve in order to comply with their due diligence. The SGT Agreement is a bit more extensive than the other two CSR initiatives, as it takes into account raw materials and animal
welfare as focus points. Dutch enterprises have to provide information on which materials they used for their garment production and identify the risks that come along. As for animal welfare, animal suffering has to be prevented and exterminated in the production and supply chain of enterprises (SER, 2016).
4 Social Accountability Accreditation Services (i.e
The Four Paws Foundation was the main NGO to establish this focus point in the SGT Agreement (pers comm., 2018).
FWF BSCI SGT
1. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining 2. There is no discrimination in employment 3. No exploitation of child labor
4. Employment is freely chosen 5. Safe and Healthy working conditions 6. Payment of a living wage
7. Reasonable hours of work
8. Legally binding employment relationships
1. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining 2. No Discrimination
3. No Child Labour 4. No Bonded Labour
5. Occupational Health and Safety 6. Fair Remuneration
7. Decent Working Hours 8. No Precarious Employment 9. Protection of the Environment 10. Ethical Business behavior
11. Special Protection for Young Workers
1. Freedom of association 2. Discrimination and gender 3. Child labour
4. Forced labour
5. Safety and health in the workplace 6. Living wage
7. Water pollution and use of chemicals, water and energy
8. Raw materials 9. Animal welfare
Table 3. Focus points of the CSR initiatives. Note: SER (2018), Amfori (2018), & FWF (2018).
Mission
In table 4 the missions of the three CSR initiatives is shown. They do not differ that much in their core message. The distinguishment of the SGT with the other two is that there are more parties involved, including the government in order to fulfill the mission to improve the circumstances of the garment and textile industry. However, what is interesting to see is that the mission of the SGT Agreement is more to the point on what they actually want to achieve. The BSCI’s mission is to support the garment enterprises. This formulation of the mission can be linked to the fact that the BSCI does not include a binding factor for its members. The mission of the FWF only includes improvement of the working conditions of laborers and not the other abuses in the sector, which are addressed in the SGT Agreement’s mission.
Mission
SGT Agreement BSCI FWF
‘The mission of the SGT Agreement is to improve - together with enterprises, NGOs, trade unions, industry organizations and the Dutch government - the due
diligence on human rights (working conditions), environmental or animal welfare violations in the global garment and textile industry.’
‘The Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) is a leading supply chain
management system that supports enterprises to drive social compliance and improvements within the factories and farms in their global supply chains.’
‘FWFs mission is to improve – together with enterprises, factories and stakeholders - working conditions in the global clothing and textile industry.’
Table 4. Mission of the CSR initiatives. Note: SER (2018), Amfori (2018), & FWF (2018).
Summarizing, the differences between the SGT agreement and the two older CSR initiatives BCSI and FWT, based on O’Rourke’s assessment topics for CSR initiatives, it can be concluded that on the topic
governance of the initiatives, the three initiatives differ clearly because the BSCI is drawn up by enterprise initiatives only, without the government and NGOs. The SGT initiative is in this respect the
most broad in stakeholders (enterprises, industry organisations, NGOs, trade unions and the government) and is also the most elaborated in the monitoring process. The most notable difference lays in the basic standards that are used. All three base their standards on the UN Guidelines for Business (UNGP) and the OECD guidelines. The SGT and BSCI are also based on the ILO guidelines. The SGT agreement clearly distinguishes itself from the other two by taking the Due Diligence principle as a red line through the whole agreement. It is a complete different standard than in the previous initiatives. Moreover, the monitoring shows worth knowing different elements, particular the continuous monitoring and knowledge building in a database in the SGT agreement. On main focus points the three initiatives cover more or less the main ethic topics according to the Triple Bottom Line theory of Elkinton (1998), around planet and people. Furthermore, the ethic stage of the Model of Carroll (1991) is visible in the main focus points of all three initiatives. The SGT agreement has included one new special focus point namely animal welfare. Unique is the SGT agreement in the due diligence principle. This principle is the core of the agreement mission statement. Also the stakeholder interviews will elaborate (section 3.3) on the special attractiveness of this principle. It offers a vision for the future, for enterprises and for all other stakeholders.
3.2 New CSR behavior put into practice since the enrollment in SGT Agreement
This section presents the results of the questionnaire that was sent to the Dutch garment enterprises affiliated with the SGT Agreement on what new corporate social behavior they put into practice since their enrollment in the SGT Agreement. Moreover, the section starts with general background information of the Dutch enterprises.
General background information of the Dutch enterprises
The first annual report (2016/2017) of the SGT agreement, published by the SER (2017), shows where the production locations of Dutch enterprises are. Figure 2 shows that most of the production takes place in China (74 %) and in Turkey and India (61 %). The compilation of such a production location list is an important first goal that the SGT agreement had to be achieved, which is emphasized in one of the interviews: “Well, I think that's a great achievement, because they were a whole bunch of enterprises, who had never done that before and they had to dive completely in their supply chain.” (J. Huber, personal communication., April 16, 2018).
Figure 2. Production locations of the Dutch enterprises participating in the SGT Agreement.
To investigate whether the new SGT agreement had influence on the policies and practices of the enterprises, a request to participate in this research was sent to the 65 garment enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement. The response was ten enterprises. Nevertheless this response is entirely usable as results in a continuous process of new steps of improvement of corporate social behavior of the enterprises.
All ten enterprises are independent enterprises. By size one enterprise is small, with less than ten employees, four enterprises are middle sized, with 10-100 employees and five enterprises large, with more than 100 employees.
The main reasons for the enterprises to participate in the SGT Agreement were a) jointly purchase of sustainable clothing, b) strive for human rights such as the right to earning a living wage and to have no child labour, and c) purchase of clothing from enterprises with less negative environmental impact. Two of the enterprises mentioned cooperation with trade unions as an advantage. The participating enterprises saw other advantages as well, like ‘the whole chain of production- and supply enterprises becomes more transparent’ (9 out of 10 enterprises), and ‘ we get more information about sustainability
of production- and supply enterprises (social aspects and environmental impact)’ (7 out of 10 enterprises) and ‘our enterprise is therefore well known to the public’ (6 out of 10 enterprises).
Figure 3. New Corporate Social Behavior.
Before the enterprises decided to participate in the SGT Agreement five of them were already engaged with CSR, the other five little to very little. Figure 3 shows the results on the new CSR behavior the enterprises put into practice since participating in the SGT Agreement. Eight of the ten enterprises made an Annual Report for the AGT secretariat at the end of the first year. All of them made either a Project Plan or a whole new CSR policy. Other policy practices the enterprises answered were ‘ introduction of a Code of Conduct ’ (2 out of 10) , ‘ introduction of a monitor for the new activities ’ (3 out of 10) and ‘ to
enroll an audit’ (2 out of 10). The most proud are some enterprises on the mapping of the production chain. Only seven of the ten enterprises answered this question, where one enterprise critically suggested that“CSR policies are not set up as something to be proud of, but as a matter of civilization.” I
have to state that the question was not intended in such a way. It was meant as a platform for the enterprises to give insight on how far they have come on CSR behavior. Nevertheless, for the enterprise which was already engaged with all the matters concerning CSR, it is a logical statement to make.
The SGT Agreement has formulated ten focus points on all three levels of the TBL theory (Elkington, 1998): people, planet, profit. When the enterprises were asked in the questionnaire to prioritize, they indicate that their purchasers are still guided by the price of the garment products in the
first place (= profit) , in the second place by the social conditions under which the garment is produced like living wages and no child labour (= people) and in the third place by environmental impact ( =
planet). enterprises could rank the answers from 1 to 3, with the highest ranking going to price and the lowest ranking to environmental aspects. Thus, the respondents prioritize in their firm purchase policy in the following order: profit, people, planet. This is somehow in contrast with the outcome of the interview with the representative of the garment enterprises in the SER steering committee. He indicated that, listening to the consumers as an important stakeholder group, most ‘questions’ raised by consumers are aboutanimal welfareand child labor.On the other hand the consumers concern about a living wage is low. He attributes this to the fact that animal welfare and child labor are more recognizable for the consumer (J. Van Dijken, personal communication, May 31, 2018).
One of the new practices under the SGT Agreement is the implementation of special policies in the garment and textile supply contracts on the issues of living wage, child labour, environmental impact or other sustainable issues. Eight out of ten enterprises made policies on environmental impact. Seven out of ten enterprises also made policies on child labor and living wage. Two enterprises mention they take up all 9 focus points up in their subcontracting contracts. Since all the issues cannot all be addressed at once, all enterprises have to perform a risk assessment and prioritise on what they are going to address first (J. Van Dijken, personal communication, May 31, 2018). It needs to be taken into account that two of the enterprises already had policies on most of the focus points and thus it cannot be stated that they were made because of signing the SGT Agreement.
The enterprises were also asked which specific new projects they have developed in the context of the SGT Agreement towards or in cooperation with production- and supply enterprises in production countries or with local authorities and with local NGOs in those countries. One enterprise addressed a project focussed on less environmental damage by less use of water, energy and chemicals. A second enterprise mentions a project directed to less use of chemicals in process of coloring textiles. Another enterprise addressed contacts with local production managers in the countries of production on improvement directly on the workfloor and one enterprise is busy with a project that specifically tackles child labor. Two enterprises are busy with a project searching for sustainable vibers. One enterprise mentioned that they have projects running prior to the SGT Agreement. Two enterprises mentioned they have more than one project running . 5
All ten enterprises (strongly) agreed on the statement “When purchasing clothing, an
entrepreneur must also take into account the violation of human rights in the factories where the clothing is made ”. Reflecting back on this question it is a quite obvious statement to agree with. It would have been more interesting to state if all entrepreneurs are actually taking into account the violation of
5 Unfortunately the option to select more than one answer was not available, thus with this question it is possible
human rights in production factories and to see how many enterprises agree or disagree with this statement.
The organisation for societal responsible entrepreneurship,MVO Nederland (2015), states that corporate social behavior leads to higher profits and absence due to illness. Rather on the questionnaire statement “enterprises who are very active in CSR have a lower illness absenteeism ” most enterprises (7 of 10) have no opinion on that (yet), two enterprises agree with the statement and one disagrees.
In the SGT Agreement the Dutch government is one of the important stakeholders that has to play a role in enhancement of the CSR in the garment and textile chain. Since 2010 the Dutch government has a sustainability purchasing policy and is since 2016 affiliated with the SGT Agreement and is the prominent financer (J. Huber, personal communication, April 16, 2018). The enterprises in the questionnaire were asked if they agree with the statement “ The governments should only buy
sustainable clothing and textile (e.g. army uniforms)”. Seven enterprises (strongly) agree, two have no opinion and one enterprise strongly disagrees with the statement. Mr. Plat (FNV) also agrees with this statement: “I was someone who brought this under attention in the past when we had to come up with new uniforms for the army. We have a very good uniform producer in the Netherlands, but nevertheless China was chosen. And China is not well known for its recognition of trade union rights, or its working conditions, or its human rights. We have seen that if you are going to support things like that in those countries, abuses occur more and more and I think that the Dutch government, also with its procurement policy, must start looking at if it does indeed meet the IMVO requirements that we find so important. That is something that we have contributed to the covenant and has been included.” (J. Plat, personal communication, May 9, 2018).
In line with this, enterprises were asked if they think that the Dutch government in her international trade (business) missions should bring to the fore the SGT Agreement conditions (e.g. on social issues and environmental impact). Most enterprises (9 out of 10) agree or strongly agree with this idea, one enterprise has no opinion about this.
The NGO Clean Clothes Campaign is strongly oriented to increase the public consciousness on sustainability improvements in the garment and textile industry (social and environmental impact). The enterprises are asked if they think this NGO will bring in the long run an important contribution to the garment and textile sector. Eight of the ten enterprises agree or strongly agree. Two have no opinion on the role of this NGO. Six of the ten enterprises commented on this question. One states that it will take a long time before the consumer will put sustainability before fashion. Another enterprise states that the public awareness is mostly one-sided on the supply chain and that the consumer behavior is underexposed. This is in line with one of the other enterprises stating “put your money where your
mouth is” meaning that the consumer can be aware, but has to pay a higher price for the products in order to create a more sustainable fashion industry. Another enterprise states that consumer awareness is crucial when it comes to taking steps towards a sustainable garment and textile industry. The consumer has to comprehend what CSR is and which dilemma’s are concerned with it. In addition, it could help if enterprises were positively mentioned in the context of CSR. This question of the survey did not intent to answer the sub-question. Nevertheless, it does contribute to the knowledge that CSR could be improved by consumer awareness.
Since the SGT Agreement is a MSI, the enterprises were asked what they consider as the main advantages on the fact that all these stakeholders are on board. Eight of the ten enterprises find it an advantage that a great variety of knowledge is shared by the different stakeholders. The second
