Six prominent standards operating in the textile and footwear sector show a high level of preparedness for convergence and, subsequently, work toward increased convergence, according to the findings of a preliminary study conducted by the Standard Convergence Initiative (SCI).
The six standards were assigned an overall percentage for each SCI principle based on their coverage of each of the SCI criteria. Green scores represented a score of 70%-100% within each SCI principle and illustrate a good preparedness to converge. Orange scores represented a score of 50%-69% within each SCI principle and show that some effort is still required. Red scores represented a score of 0%-49% within each SCI principle and showed that much effort was still needed toward preparedness to converge.
None of the six standards assessed fell into this category, which suggests that standards have already begun to lay the ground work, intentionally or not, for more converged efforts.
The SCI is an initiative of the International Apparel Federation (IAF) and the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) with the aim of having third party and brand/ retailer proprietary standards align across four key areas to help combat growing audit fatigue in the textile and footwear sector.
With the help of the Standards Map of the International Trade Center (ITC), the SCI released these preliminary results of assessing to what degree standards are prepared to converge across 4 key areas.
The four SCI Principles are:
- Principle 1: Level of preparedness to harmonise standards
- Principle 2: Alignment with OECD Due Diligence Guidance and ILO Standards
- Principle 3: Level of preparedness for sharing audits
- Principle 4: Level of preparedness to integrate quality assurance oversight
The six standards selected for this study were amfori BSCI, Fair Labor Association (FLA), Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Made in Green by Oeko-Tex, SA8000 and WRAP.
The highest level of preparedness under Principle 1 was WRAP with 89%; under Principle 2 it was amfori BSCI with 83%; under Principle 3 it was amfori BSCI with 90%; and, under Principle 4 it was SA 800 with 92%.
