River Island has signed The Transparency Pledge, meaning it will now upload a list of its approved tier 1 factories online by the end of March.
The group joins signatories including Asos, Clark’s, New Look, Next and Pentland Brands.
The Transparency Pledge was introduced in 2017 by nine trade union federations and human rights organisations, including the Clean Clothes Campaign.
It aims to help the garment industry reach a common minimum standard for supply chain disclosures by getting companies to publish standardised, meaningful information on all factories in the manufacturing phase of their supply chains.
Each company participating in the Transparency Pledge commits to publishing on its website on a regular basis (such as twice a year) a list naming all sites that manufacture its products. The list should provide the following detail in English:
- The full name of all authorised production units and processing facilities (processing factories include printing, embroidery, laundry, and so on).
- The site addresses.
- The parent company of the business at the site.
- Type of products made (apparel, footwear, home textile, accessories).
- Worker numbers at each site (by category: less than 1000, 1001 to 5000, 5001 to 10000, more than 10000).
“This is an important step in driving greater transparency in the fashion industry, in order to ensure fair and safe working conditions in factories worldwide. It also enables industry collaboration to prevent serious global issues such as Modern Slavery,” River Island posted in a statement to its website.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataAccording to campaign group Labour Behind the Label, while River Island is the 40th company to sign the pledge, it is only the sixth UK garment and footwear company to do so.
“Considering the amount of garment and footwear brands headquartered in the UK, the industry should be doing better,” it comments.
