Assessing local production compliance for a global brand

Client: Heritage luxury brand with a keen interest in heritage materials

Services: Compliance assessment

Project

A global brand looking to produce textiles in Kenya for its apparel and accessories collections assigned us a project to assess the compliance of a shortlisted textile mill. Compliance was based on the client’s well-defined framework of production standards.

Methodology

The focus of the assessment was five-fold:

Bio data: Presence of formal structures, government recognition, employee profiles (age, gender, etc.), and employment agreements.
Social Accountability: The facility’s mindfulness of social concerns and stakeholder priorities.
Occupational Health & Safety: The health, safety and welfare of employees at the workplace / production facility. Mindfulness of social concerns and stakeholder priorities.
Environmental Management: Overall resource use and waste management.
Provenance: Source of materials used to produce textiles.

Implementation

Step 1:

Using the framework provided by the client, we created a comprehensive and practical assessment tool that would be administered alongside the standard Crafting Kenya audit tool.

Step 2:

Our team visited the production facility, administering the tool in person and meeting with key facility personnel - from senior management to factory floor personnel. We conducted a site inspection to ascertain data accuracy.

Step 3:

We aggregated and scored the data, which indicated that the mill scored above average in all categories. The facility was purifying up to 80% of its production effluents and reusing the water for production. They had invested in solar panels, ensuring that part of their energy was renewable. Additionally, the mill had remarkable staff retention rates, even choosing to retain all their staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Step 4:

In addition to recommending them highly to our client, we also shared the audit results with the mill and advised them on how they could tell their story better, highlighting their successes. Our client chose to source textiles from this mill.