Standardized data collection
By: Jean-Pierre Pellissier - Sustainability Director, Nien Hsing Group
Nien Hsing Group is proud to announce its support to the Social Labor Convergence Project (SLCP).
The SLCP aims to assist the apparel and footwear industry moving away from endless audits by providing a common assessment framework related to social labour compliance. To note, the SLCP is not an auditing tool itself and does not provide a rating, but rather it provides the framework in which the data is collected.
A typical process under the SLCP starts with the factory conducting a self-assessment on its social labour system, after which it is verified by an external party. This verified data then becomes available to all relevant parties—in our case: buyers. Buyers can access this information and based on the verified outcome compile their own ratings and scores.
“We partnered last year with The Children’s Place to test Phase 2 of the SLCP at one of our factories in Lesotho. The moment I saw the tool, I knew that this was an amazing management system framework in terms of social compliance. Any factory that goes through the different parts of the tool and align themselves accordingly with it will have instant progress and improvement in their social compliance.”
“As we clearly see the value in a standardized data collection tool, we decided to get actively on board as a project like this shows great value for the industry moving forward.”
“This year, we will gradually begin to phase the tool in internally…as it’s a matter of no need to reinvent the wheel—we have all these professionals working closely with the brands and the industry to come up with one unified collection approach.” - Jean-Pierre Pellissier, Sustainability Director
There is no doubt that numerous and constant auditing wears factories down and has not proven to actually increase the CSR performance of factories. As such, together with our partners, we are promoting this project as a step forward in the right direction, looking at a well-designed management system tool providing an excellent outline within which facilities can systemically arrange their labour compliance.
