I have spent the better part of this week in Ho Chi Min City Vietnam visiting apparel factories. And part of that visit has been to look at what traceability and certification of certain materials looks like. Ever wonder, when a brand says that their apparel is ORGANIC or RECYCLED, how they know it is true? Is it even true? Luckily, there are really great standards and certifications for these things.
The strange thing is very few brands actually require and use these certifications to ensure that is exactly what the end customer is getting.
So for instance a brand can source ORGANIC and the product gets made and could even be labeled that way. But few brands take the next step and require proof of that claim. A company that I work with requires traceability for all products with claims. There is an internal system for verifying that what is claimed has proof behind that claim.
The next step is to have that certification go all the way through to the brand and they can then label the products.
This brings me back to my visit this week. While walking around a factory that makes apparel for many brands in the industry, we reviewed their new garment factory processes to get certified by a certifier next week. At one point I asked who will benefit from this certification and my contact said, "Oh, just your brand." I was shocked, we are easily the smallest client of this factory. How could any of our requirements really get heard.
He answered, "It is the right thing to do and we know that more companies are going to start asking and because this is a requirement of working with your brand, it allows us to test the process."
This moment was a win for me, I have been a [sometimes annoyingly] strong advocate for traceability and certifications for environmentally preferred materials. But it has been an uphill battle to get entire supply chains on board. Now I have my case study that I can refer to, even a little company when persistent enough, can make a change.
Step by step the work gets done.
The strange thing is very few brands actually require and use these certifications to ensure that is exactly what the end customer is getting.
So for instance a brand can source ORGANIC and the product gets made and could even be labeled that way. But few brands take the next step and require proof of that claim. A company that I work with requires traceability for all products with claims. There is an internal system for verifying that what is claimed has proof behind that claim.
The next step is to have that certification go all the way through to the brand and they can then label the products.
This brings me back to my visit this week. While walking around a factory that makes apparel for many brands in the industry, we reviewed their new garment factory processes to get certified by a certifier next week. At one point I asked who will benefit from this certification and my contact said, "Oh, just your brand." I was shocked, we are easily the smallest client of this factory. How could any of our requirements really get heard.
He answered, "It is the right thing to do and we know that more companies are going to start asking and because this is a requirement of working with your brand, it allows us to test the process."
This moment was a win for me, I have been a [sometimes annoyingly] strong advocate for traceability and certifications for environmentally preferred materials. But it has been an uphill battle to get entire supply chains on board. Now I have my case study that I can refer to, even a little company when persistent enough, can make a change.
Step by step the work gets done.
