The Social & Labor Convergence Program (SLCP) today (6 June) announced that its Converged Assessment Framework (CAF) is now ready for use.
The CAF is designed to eliminate audit fatigue by replacing current proprietary tools with a single framework for social and labour compliance. It has launched in India, China, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.
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The initiative is a result of three years of work between the SLCP’s 200 signatories brands — including Nike, Timberland and VF Corp — retailers, industry groups, international and governmental organisations, service providers and civil society groups, that aim to solve the problem of audit fatigue within the apparel and footwear industry.
Research conducted by SLCP in 2018 showed that adoption of the Converged Assessment Framework could unlock resources worth over US$1.5m spent on duplicative audits in 2019 alone, rising to $200m by 2023, for re-deployment to improve working conditions at garment manufacturing facilities worldwide.
A key feature of the SLCP Converged Assessment Framework is its data hosting and sharing system. SLCP has worked closely with the International Trade Centre (ITC) to develop a distribution gateway in which completed SLCP Verified Assessments are securely stored, and from which they can be shared.
An SLCP Verified Assessment is standard-agnostic, which means it contains a data set with no value judgement or scoring applied to it. SLCP works with a system of Accredited Hosts, with data shared from the Gateway to one of these Hosts where a layer of scoring and analysis is added to meet the specific needs of the end-user. This means the same dataset can be used by a wide range of stakeholders and be interpreted according to their interests and criteria. This eliminates the need for repetitive audits to be carried out on the same production facility.
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By GlobalDataIn 2019, the SLCP Accredited Hosts will be Fair Factories Clearinghouse (FFC), Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and Sedex.
Darren Chastain, SLCP lead and senior manager, systems and data insights Gap Inc, global sustainability and foundation said: “As a long-standing signatory of the SLCP, Gap Inc is pleased to see the start of implementation at scale. Our goal is to fully transition to the SLCP assessment and verification process. We hope and expect other brands will start leveraging the SLCP, so the industry as a whole garners the benefits of convergence and collaboration, such as reducing audit fatigue, which benefits the entire supply chain.”
Nikhil Hirdaramani, director at Hirdaramani Industries, added: “Having taken part in SLCP Light Operation, we are confident that the SLCP Converged Assessment Framework has the potential to not only solve the current issue of audit fatigue but also to bring about a mindset shift in terms of social and labour compliance.”
India’s launch takes place tomorrow. Tamar Hoek, senior policy advisor sustainable fashion at Solidaridad said now the framework is in place, the focus must be on implementation and scaling. The framework will be rolled out to Mexico, Spain, Turkey, and the USA later this year, with further roll-outs in other key production countries planned from 2020 onwards.
