Transformers Foundation has come up with a report that explores the systemic barriers preventing meaningful supplier engagement in some of the industry's most influential multi stakeholder initiatives or MSIs, including Cascale, Textile Exchange, SLCP and ZDHC.
- The report, ‘Collective Action Reimagined: A Call for Fair Process and Supplier Inclusion in Fashion’s Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives’, uncovers how rules, governance, and processes often perpetuate supplier exclusion.
- The findings reveal that these organisations, though well-intentioned, often reinforce systemic barriers that limit supplier participation, leading to a cycle of distrust, disengagement, and ineffective sustainability strategies.
- It examines the pivotal role of MSIs in driving sustainability within the fashion industry by drawing from the experiences of suppliers working and/or affiliated with MSIs. These experiences explore the extent to which MSIs are succeeding in their efforts to drive sustainability within the fashion industry.
- The report looks at four key and influential MSIs—Cascale (formerly Sustainable Apparel Coalition), Textile Exchange, the Social & Labor Convergence Program (SLCP), and Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC)—examining how—if at all—their processes include suppliers.
THE CHALLENGES: Few suppliers are actively engaged in MSIs due to systemic problems. Though MSIs did not cause the resource-based constraints that suppliers face, these organisations’ own rules, governance processes, and norms often replicate them, fuelling a cycle of supplier distrust and disengagement that undermines agency and ownership in the solutions put forward by these groups.
- Suppliers who were part of the research often perceive MSIs as having developed strategies and standards, tools, and assessments that are enacted solely by the supply chain for the benefit of brands and retailers without their full participation or buy-in.
- Suppliers tend to see them as organisations whose primary activities come at a higher cost to the supply chain relative to brands and retailers, and who fall short of their missions and goals.
