A story elicited from a report

In March 2006, Gaiqi became one of the first pilot enterprises of CSC9000T, which draw extensive attention at home and abroad. A Canadian client read the report and then placed an order of more than one million US dollars with Gaiqi. In addition, Gaiqi was not required to go through the factory inspection procedure by the Canadian company.

 

The story of a piece of underwear

 In July 2006, China National Textile and Apparel Council organized some excellent Chinese apparel enterprises to visit Europe. After a series of activities, both parties exchanged gifts among themselves. The representative from Aimer Group, a famous Chinese enterprise, sent an Aimer pajama valued at RMB 860 yuan to the lady president of European Trade Union Confederation.

 

Five days later, this lady indirectly asked to meet the representative of Aimer and said that she could not fall asleep the whole night after in the Aimer pajama. Aimer’s representative was worried that there might be something wrong with their product. However, the European representative said, “I like the design, quality, and the workmanship of the pajama very much.”   

 

One of the reasons why she couldn’t fall asleep was that as a representative of all European workers, she could tell that the design and quality of the Chinese products could meet the requirements of the European consumers and were very popular in the market. In addition, the Chinese products enjoyed the great advantage of low cost and high quality. Under such circumstances, the Chinese textile and apparel enterprises still came to Europe to learn about social responsibility.

 

Another reason why she couldn’t fall asleep was that why these products with such good quality and price advantage did not dominate the overseas market?

Aimer’s representative remained silent…

Why Europeans and Americans dare not buy clothes of high quality and low cost? That is because they don’t know if there is any stamp of “Unethical Practice” during the design and manufacturing of clothes. For example, was it made by child workers? Was it made by a sick worker working overtime? Did the sewage discharge seriously damage the environment while the clothes are made?

Although Aimer is a pioneer in China’s apparel industry in terms of the management of key factors such as, social responsibility, labor, environmental protection, Europeans and Americans can’t see it themselves, neither is there any way to prove it. Therefore, they take the simplest way: give up buying the product that they are not sure about.

 

The “economic meaning” of social responsibility was presented undisguisedly in front of the Chinese apparel entrepreneurs for the first time.

 

With the rapid development of international trade and the increase of trade disputes, a lot of enterprises began to adjust their philosophy of operation and management. More and more enterprises realized that while China is developing from a big textile country to a powerful textile country, it must accomplish the changes from quantity increase to quality improvement, from manufacturing to innovation. More importantly, we must establish a sustainable mechanism of the industry that is responsible for people, society, and environment with a civilized production mode and self-disciplined industrial standards.

Taking advantage of social responsibility to obtain a green pass for their brand in the upmarket has become the focus of Chinese apparel entrepreneurs.

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A special experience of factory inspection

From April 18 to April 19, 2007, six experts from the Department of Purchase and Social Standards of Hugo Boss, Germany, inspected the material factory of Shandong Ruyi Group. It was found that the factory inspection standards provided by Hugo Boss at the early stage were similar to the contents of the social responsibility management CSC9000T of Chinese textile enterprises and the former did not exceed the requirements of CSC9000T. Therefore, Ruyi did not make special preparation and took the inspection as an internal examination. Six experts carried out strict inspections on facilities such as production and subsidiary departments by means of field inspection, document examination, and employee interview. When Ruyi presented the systematic documents and records according to the requirements of CSC9000T, the experts were impressed and sang high praise for Ruyi’s achievements. The experts also asked for the CSC9000T systematic documents and the Social Responsibility Management System CSC9000T of Chinese Textile Enterprises. When they saw the production, fitness, entertainment facilities and the employee hospital of the company, they said humorously that they would ask their boss to build such facilities according to the pictures taken here. In the end, Ruyi scored 44 out of 48 in the inspection of 12 items. These experts thought that very few Chinese enterprises could establish a corporate social responsibility management system in such a systematic way.

 

A story of a business card

In May 2007, during the review of the CSC9000T social responsibility system establishment in Gaiqi, Mr. Li Mingsheng, general manager of Gaiqi (Suzhou) Textile Co., Ltd., took the initiative to exchange business cards with the expert team members. He said that all the business cards of Gaiqi’s employees had been added the note of “RSCA member enterprise” obviously. It is evident that CSC9000T did bring benefits to the company.

RSCA: Responsibility Supply Chain Association

 

 

    On the afternoon of November 19, 2007, Erik (Chinese name: Kong Anrui), responsible person of Sweden H&M company in Shanghai office, led ten shareholders of the company to visit Beijing Topnew Co., Ltd.

    The purpose of the shareholders’ inspection was to evaluate whether the Chinese suppliers chosen by H&M met the requirements of social responsibility; whether the suppliers had polluted the surrounding environment during production; whether the suppliers were responsible for the health and safety of employees during production. H&M recommended Beijing Topnew Co., Ltd. to the shareholders. They were very satisfied with the social responsibility management of Topnew Co., Ltd. after inspecting the workshops, sewage treatment station, employee canteen, and dormitories. During the communication, Mr. Gu Zhezhao, deputy general manager of Topnew Co., Ltd., introduced that Topnew was one of the pilot enterprises implementing the social responsibility management system CSC9000T of Chinese textile enterprises and he also presented the certificate to the guests. Shareholders of H&M were very interested in it. They looked at each other and were surprised that China National Textile and Apparel Council and Topnew had developed social responsibility in such a systematic way. They took pictures of the certificate at different angles.

 

 

Backgrounder:

FTA (Foreign Trade Association):

Foreign Trade Association (FTA) is headquartered in Brussels, whose members are enterprises and associations engaging in import and export trading in European countries, mainly consisting of large import retailers. This association mainly represents the interests of the European importers. The association is the sole European trade association representing the trading interests of European Chamber of Commerce. It advocates international free trade, free economic development, and improving multi-lateral trading system under the framework of World Trade Organization.

    Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), initiated by Foreign Trade Association, is a general monitoring system of social compliance. Its purpose is to improve the social compliance performance of the production and supply facilities of its members. It emphasizes social compliance and environment standards, and makes detailed regulations and strict requirements of safe production, production environment, and labor etc.

WRAP is the initials of Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production and the registered trademark of Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production. It was an international organization initiated by American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA). It is a non-profit organization, responsible for managing accreditation plans. The accreditation plans of WRAP are developed according to WRAP principles. Its purpose is to promote and ensure that products are made worldwide under lawful, human, and ethical conditions. WRAP accreditation plan requires producers to observe 12 WRAP production principles to ensure the safety and health of the work sites and the rights of workers. All participating companies agree that they and their contractors accept the assessment standards of WRAP.

 

The project “10+100+100” of social responsibility management system of Chinese textile enterprises intends to establish the CSC9000T system in 100 key enterprises chosen from around 10 textiles and apparel industrial groups, and provide trainings of social responsibility for thousands of small and medium-sized textile and apparel enterprises. During the implementation of the project, trainings will be provided for around 1500 management staff from the key industrial enterprises and small and medium-sized textile and apparel enterprises.