Industry and non-industry initiatives, such as the Better Cotton Initiative, The Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region, or Sustainable Apparel Coalition, represent valuable opportunities for garment companies to learn from experts and peers. It also helps to lift the industry standard for preventing, identifying, and mitigating modern slavery, labour exploitation, and human trafficking risks, and facilitates effective remediation.
This metric was devised by Walk Free and WikiRate, and is part of a project assessing Modern Slavery Act statements produced by garment companies in the UK and Australia. More on the project can be found here.
To meet this metric, companies must disclose membership of which sector-specific collaborations. Does the company disclose it collaborates with industry and non-industry stakeholders to learn from experts and peers on and/or lift the industry standard for preventing, identifying, and mitigating modern slavery, labour exploitation and human trafficking risks, and enabling effective remedy for harms caused or contributed to?
Relevant industry collaborations include (among others):
- The Better Cotton Initiative,
- The Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region
- Sustainable Apparel Coalition
- Fair Wear Foundation,
- Partnership for Sustainable Textiles,
- Sustainable Fibre Alliance
The statement must mention that the company engages or collaborates with this stakeholder or initiative in some way. The metric is not met if the statement mentions the initiative or stakeholder but no relationship is clearly established.
If the company discloses that it collaborates with industry and non-industry initiatives or stakeholders, please indicate “Yes”, and provide details.
If no collaboration exists or is described in the statement, please select "No".
* Note on choosing the Year of your answer
Read the MSA Statement carefully to find out what year it covers.
When a statement is referring to a Financial Year (FY) ending in Q1 or early Q2, it should be labeled with the previous year. Example:
- Statement for FY2018/19 ending in April 2019 = 2018
- Statement for FY2018/19 ending in May 2019 (or later) = 2019