In order to stream line the process of implementing corporate social responsibilities or integrating green or ethical manufacturing practices in to businesses code of conduct have been developed. Companies develop basic principles to address the labour rights and working condition in order to do business ethically (Fletcher, 2008). But due to globalized supply chain of apparel manufacturing and offshore manufacturing the scope of developing code of conduct has also been expanded and many non-profit organiza- tions and international bodies have started to play their role in devising principle of eth- ical business conduct or minimum international standards to follow. Organizations like International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations global compact (UNGC), as can be seen in Figure 3.5 the 10 principle of global compact and many NGO’s are now official bodies to voice the concerns of apparel manufacturing workers (Elliot & Free- man, 2003). Increasing awareness of ethical business practices have also driven media attention towards this issue and due to the importance of brand image and its direct rela- tion to the customer loyalty companies are bound to adopt ethical conduct and address labour rights to avoid media trial (Wong & Taylor, 2000; Taylor, 2003; Kaufman, Tiantubtim, Pussayapibul, & Davids, 2004; Fan & Lo, 2012). To exemplify this there was an incident where a Chinese firm was caught discharging waste water without treatment in to the waste waters. Upon testing the quantities were found to be approx. 20 tons more than the legal limit the report also found that the same supplier was deliv- ering for big names like Nike, Adidas, Levis and Gap. Later it was admitted by Nike that the samples tested from the factory were voluntary sent by the factory and it could have been breached to change in secrecy (Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, 2012). Nike also submitted a report in 2012 stating that at least 36% of its supplier con-
tracting factories is in China which is world’s fastest developing nation but still strug- gling with the implementation of ethical business conduct (Nike Inc., 2012).
Despite the importance of codes of conduct the effect of implementing ethical conduct still needs to be thoroughly researched and explored by the industry in order to reduce the violation of labour rights and ensure occupational health and safety of the workers. In a study about twenty four ethical code of conducts from different organizations in united states by Adam it appeared that the conducts have lack of consistency, precision of details and working procedures to follow (Adams, 2009). Therefore along with inter- nal policy making and procedure to monitor the adherence to those policies, it is manda- tory to get those companies audited by the outside firms in order to ensure implementa- tion and compliance to code of conduct (Dickson et al., 2009). In 2012 UNGC collabo- rated with Nordic Initiative Clean and Ethical (NICE) to unveil first sectorial code of conduct for apparel manufacturing industry (NICE, 2012).
Figure 3:5 The ten principles of the global compact (Hower, 2013)
Another major organization that is strongest in the apparel industry third party monitors of ethical conduct is Fair Labour Association (FLA). Because FLA also share the results of their audits of the apparel manufacturing firms on their website where people can ac- cess these reports which helps apparel manufacturing firms develop more credibility for the customers (Epstein, 2008). Currently there are many external organizations that have come to consensus to form code of conducts for ethical apparel production such as United Nations (UN) its human rights declaration, Rio declaration on environment and development and international labour organization (Dickson et al., 2009). Due to diver- sification of international bodies and development of many organizations for principles of ethical business conduct many apparel brands are coming at suppliers with their own
particular type of external audit for compliance. This frequent check and balance does create frustration and problems at the end of suppliers as it is challenging for the suppli- ers to meet the code of conduct of their customers specially when there is lack of con- sistency among the policies of different brands (Locke, Qin, & Brause, 2007). However this issue is also addressed to some extent by the joint initiatives taken by different bod- ies in order to unify the standards to follow for the apparel manufacturers for example UNGC-NICE code of conduct is a step towards solution of such problems.
On contrary to that the engagement of apparel brands are mostly restricted to the facto- ries, dyeing houses or transportation companies but they hardly reach down to the root bottom of textile raw material production and the conduct they are following for exam- ple cotton growing regions in the world are vastly comprise of developing nations like Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. All of these countries have lack of ethical laws implementation and monitoring systems for human rights violation. For example Uzbekistan a major cotton producer in Asia is facing problems of child labour, as can be seen in Figure 3.6 a child picking cotton flower in a farm in uzbekitan, (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2012). According another research reports WHO (world health or- ganization) has claimed at least 20,000 deaths in developing countries due to pollution and contamination created by use of the pesticides (Glin, Kuiseu, Thiam, Vodouhê, Dinham, & Ferrigno, 2010).
Due to the serious reputation damages big companies like Nike, Adidas and Gap faced because of getting products manufactured from the sweat shops, these brands are now the leading good practicing businesses among the world of fashion and apparel. The na- ture of monitoring and keeping track of the activities of the suppliers is a challenging task, as they have to comply with the multiple codes of conduct due to diversification of apparel customers but still ethically responsible brands are managing well in monitoring to ensure social responsibilities are met (Dickson et al., 2009). Suppliers’ ethical code of conduct has been developed by numerous apparel manufacturing companies now as a principle resource to discourse the labour rights their health and safety issues and pri-
marily exclusion of the child labour from face of apparel manufacturing (Esbenshade, 2004).