Report 2023
We look forward to continuing our trusting cooperation with our suppliers, especially Purecotz, in 2024.
Together with our customers, we want to help eliminate the most serious risks (child labor and discrimination/harassment) identified by our risk analysis within our supply chain so that people in textile production can work under decent working conditions, free from discrimination and without the use of child labor. The aim of paying a living wage is to enable parents to send their children to school instead of making them work. In order to achieve this goal and fulfill our duty of care, we are prepared to implement appropriate measures: We pay our suppliers the prices they charge us in order to implement living wages in accordance with the Fairtrade Textile Standard. At the same time, we obtain reports on which wages are paid at the lowest level and monitor developments over the coming years. In accordance with the certifications we require, our producers must have a democratically elected workers' representative body (Compliance Committee) to which workers can turn in confidence and submit complaints about grievances. In addition to this internal complaints mechanism, complaints can also be submitted directly to us or via certifiers (e.g. FloCert). In 2023, 15 complaints were reported to this body. This is almost double the number of cases compared to 2022. However, the content of the complaints is not considered to be serious. Most of the complaints were written to point out non-functioning lights and sanitary facilities in need of improvement. Against this backdrop, the increase in complaints can also be seen as a positive indicator, as the complaints mechanism is being used more actively by employees.
In addition, no binding delivery dates were given to our supplier in 2023 in order to prevent possible capacity bottlenecks and the resulting risks (overtime, pressure on employees). We are constantly adapting our measures in line with our lessons learned. If the Code of Conduct is not passed on to suppliers by our direct producer in accordance with our requirements, we will explicitly check compliance with this requirement in future.
To implement fair working conditions, we are in constant contact with our producer, their employee representatives and with representatives of Fairtrade Germany, who know our producers and our entire supply chain well.