SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSPARENCY & RESPONSIBILITY

The design and sales of our clothing is done by us. Specialized suppliers carry out the production. The supply chain for clothing has many links, from the cotton farmer to the factory where your favorite products are sewn. In order to work more sustainably and to have clarity regarding our impact, it is imperative that we are familiar with our chain. Our aim is to have 100% transparency within the supply chain by 2025.

What have we done already to achieve this goal? We started by mapping our most direct suppliers and we are moving deeper into the chain every year; getting to know our indirect business partners such as laundries and textile manufacturers. Below figure shows each step (tier) in the supply chain and what percentage of our suppliers have already provided us with information about the factories in these tiers.

As you can see, the deeper into the chain you go, the less we know about our suppliers, but we are constantly enlarging our insight. Knowing where our products are made is the first step, it enables us to monitor the production locations and work on improvements with the suppliers.

So where are our products made?*

* based on purchase value in 2022

Supplier contracts

America Today wants to achieve honest and long-lasting relationships with suppliers. We want to help our suppliers to achieve a work environment where respect for human rights and environment is key. We know that the way we purchase can influence risks in the chain, which is why we have drawn up purchasing principles for ourselves. Our purchasing team endeavors to work in accordance with these principles, to prevent risks and to support suppliers. Our values and standards are recorded in our Supplier’s Declaration for Social and Environmental Sustainability. This agreement describes our requirements and guidelines for suppliers on topics such as transparency, how to protect the rights and safety of employees, which chemicals are prohibited in production processes, and which materials are preferred or prohibited. Our purchasing principles and the amfori BSCI code of conduct are recorded in this document. All of our direct suppliers have signed this declaration.

Monitoring manufacturing factories

We visit all our sewing workshops in high-risk countries at least once a year to see the factory conditions and quality of our products with our own eyes. Our local sourcing and quality teams carry out inspections around the working conditions, safety, and quality of the products.

We also monitor the conditions at our suppliers through independent audits, primarily through the amfori Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), which we joined in 2013. By working together with others in the industry, we can join forces and achieve more. Amfori BSCI is an independent organization with the aim to improve working conditions within the production chains worldwide. An independent auditor checks the entire factory, talks with the employees, and inspects the administration. The aim of this audit is to see where the factory can carry out improvements. BSCI audits take place twice a year, with one or more follow-up audits, depending on the points for improvement found. Please visit amfori for more information.

We try to help our suppliers to make improvements by offering them constructive feedback on their improvement plans. Our suppliers can also follow BSCI trainings, and we work together on projects for specific topics (see for example ‘Respecting human rights’). In doing so, we can help our suppliers improve their working conditions step by step. Currently, all of our sewing workshops that we work with in high-risk countries are audited by the BSCI or another recognised, independent social auditing system. Our requirement is a minimum of a C-result in the BSCI system or an equivalent outcome. By 2025, our aim is for 70% of our products to originate from A or B rated factories or equivalent. In 2022, our goal is for 44% of our products to be manufactured in factories with an A or B rating. This means that we are well on the way to meeting our target for the year.

Monitoring wet processing factories

In addition to monitoring the manufacturing factories, we also aim to assess the situation at factories deeper in the supply chain. We are starting with the factories where our products are washed, dyed, or printed. This requires specific knowledge, because these factories work with various processes that make the fabric look great, but that can have a negative impact on the environment or people working in the factory. They require a lot of energy, water, and chemicals. In 2021 our colleagues from the local sourcing teams followed trainings on what risks are related to these processes and what questions to ask the factory, so that we can improve together with our suppliers. Our goal is to assess 60% of wet-process factories by 2023.

Would you like to know more about Transparency? Read our sustainability report for 2021.