The Sustainable Fibre Alliance (SFA) is consolidating its existing codes of practice for animal husbandry, rangeland stewardship, and clean fibre processing into one global standard: the SFA Cashmere Standard.
- This would be a performance-based, impact-oriented global standard to avoid a proliferation of similar, but slightly differing codes of practice in different regions, and to integrate Decent Work, Management and Fibre Quality principles to better address a wider scope of relevant issues to cashmere production and herder livelihoods and align with SFA’s 2030 strategy.
- A round of public consultation on the Standard is now open.
- The online feedback form will be available till 2 December 2022.
- The information is available in English, Chinese and Mongolian.
The Backdrop: The SFA has published codes of practice which have been rolled out and applied in stages in Mongolia and China since 2018.
- The pilot projects and application of these codes of practice have enabled a deeper understanding of the critical issues in cashmere production and supply, and the management systems needed to record, verify and track them.
- Now, the SFA wants to consolidate these codes into one standard.
The New Standard: The new standard will comprise five principles: Goat Welfare; Natural Resources; Fibre Quality; Decent Work and Management.
- The principles and criteria focus on the production of cashmere in a way that creates positive, measurable impacts for animals, the environment, and herding communities.
- The principles are the essential material issues or elements of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable cashmere production.
- The desirable outcomes are the intended short- and medium-term positive outcome or effect that application of the standard will deliver.
- The criteria and achievement indicators provide the means of applying the standard and judging whether or not a principle has been fulfilled (through verification, audit and impacts measurement activities).
The Review: The standard review is being conducted as per the SFA’s Standard Setting Procedure which follows ISEAL’s codes of good practices.
A draft model of the standard, including principles, themes and criteria was produced by an independent consultant, and a first public consultation was launched to gather initial feedback in October 2021.
- This was then followed up with further drafts and consultations which were conducted in early 2022 including input from the RSPCA, International Cooperation Committee of Animal Welfare (ICCAW), Johnstons of Elgin and John Lewis.
- Herder families and producer organisations in Mongolia attended in-person workshops on the new standard during the Natural Fibre Connect Conference in September 2022. This is being replicated in China facilitated by the Chinese in-country partner, ICCAW.
