Sustainability is always a top priority at HAKRO. That is why we are continuously working to further develop our entire supply chain and make it even more sustainable. Together with the clothing company OLYMP Bezner KG, we have developed a comprehensive audit programme as part of our corporate duty of care, which will serve as the basis for our sustainability management along the entire supply chain.
‘The growing challenges within global supply chains can be solved much better together, which is why it is worth leaving familiar thought patterns behind and joining forces in co-operations. Especially if you want to achieve a big impact,’ says Carmen Kroll, Managing Director of HAKRO. How can apparel brands improve the sustainable development of their global production facilities in future and use audits as part of their corporate duty of care less as a monitoring tool and more as a basis for sustainability management? ‘Our teams first defined the requirements that an audit must fulfil for us. Together with ELEVATE Ltd. in Hong Kong, one of the world's leading providers of sustainability and supply chain services, we then developed our audit programme in a nine-month process,’ says Jochen Schmidt, Head of Quality, Values & Sustainability at HAKRO.
As two of the approximately 140 members of the multi-stakeholder initiative Fair Wear Foundation, both HAKRO and OLYMP are among the clothing brands that have committed themselves to ensuring fair working conditions in the textile industry. ‘That's why it was important to us right from the start to involve the experts from the Fair Wear Foundation in the development process and incorporate their valuable suggestions into the audit programme,’ reports Jochen Schmidt. The result: a joint audit programme called the ‘iMPACT Programme’. The acronym iMPACT is formed from the English terms ‘Insight’, ‘Motivation’, ‘Partnership’, ‘Action’, ‘Capacity Building’ and ‘Transparancy’, which characterise the principles of the programme.
The iMPACT Programme focuses primarily on the people within the supply chain, provides honest and in-depth insights into production conditions and is intended to motivate partner companies and clients alike to act together and in partnership, develop expertise in safeguarding social standards and ensure the highest possible level of transparency. In this way, the iMPACT programme creates the basis for continuous further development in a spirit of partnership with the aim of actively improving the situation of people in the supply chain. To this end, employees within the production facility are also involved in evaluation processes so that any problems can be identified directly and effective improvements can be made. Our aim for the future is to make our jointly developed iMPACT PROGRAMME available to other companies in the textile and clothing industry.
