The Transparency Act and reporting under the Transparency Act
What does Pierre Robert think about the Transparency Act?
At Pierre Robert we are pleased that the Transparency Act has come into force. A requirement of transparency places greater responsibility on producers, and makes it easier for consumers to understand where their clothes come from and how they are made. Getting a clear picture of the actual conditions is essential to holding those of us who make clothing and textiles to account, and it leaves us better equipped as a society to make concrete demands about how the goods we use should be produced.
Pierre Robert has been a member of Ethical Trade Norway since 2005 and has long had established routines around due diligence assessments, as well as a transparency policy covering factory lists. We also believe in sharing photographs, film and information about the factories we use, because we think it matters to show the value chain, and where and how the products are made.
That is not to say it is easy. Our insight into the supply chain is not something we achieved overnight, and we still have a way to go, with dedicated people responsible for responsible purchasing and supply chain oversight. It is also important to us to maintain good, long-standing relationships with our suppliers. We have worked with many of them for more than 12 years, and with as many as a quarter of them for over 20. We visit regularly, and that makes it far easier for us to have an open dialogue about challenges and opportunities.
Even though we feel we have relatively good insight into and oversight of the supply chain, in our view it is impossible to have 100% oversight. Human error and failure can always occur, in any business. We can be more vulnerable at sub-supplier level in particular, because the risk of something going undetected is greater there. Keeping track of supply chains is extremely extensive work, and although we will never be able to guarantee that nothing can go wrong, we do what we can to prevent it. Among other things, the product certifications we hold across many of our suppliers and further back in the value chain help to assure that workers’ rights, the environment and other essential requirements are safeguarded and checked through audits.
