Social responsibility standards and labels

Now that we have exposed the definition of the corporate social responsibility of a company, we will see how this applies, concretely, in the fashion company. Compliance with the law is a fundamental duty of any organisation and an essential part. However, in the sustainable field, there is still a low degree of enforcement, and policies mostly rely on incentives and encouragements. Thus, the development of standards and labels is a way of creating criteria to which companies can refer to improve their behaviours and practices. Also, one of the main pathways towards the CSR for fashion company is to get a label, or certification regarding social responsibility standards. Thus, we will start by reviewing the main standards that a company can target in terms of CSR.

1. ISO 26000

ISO is the international Organization for standardization, which is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from national standards organizations of members countries, founded in 1947 and with headquarters in Geneva.

ISO defines sustainability as a wide concept corresponding to a global state of the worldwide system, including several sub-systems: environmental, social and economic, inside which the current needs should be satisfied without compromising the capacity of future generation to fulfil their own needs.

In 2005, ISO launched a new norm, the ISO 26000 as an answer to the increasing globalization and the necessity to create business practices that are socially responsible. ISO 26000 is a code of ethical conduct that offers guidance to companies to improve their sustainability and transparency. The objective of this norm is to assist organisations in contributing to sustainable development, beyond legal compliance.

2. GRI

GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is an independent international organization that has pioneered sustainability reporting since 1997. ​GRI helps businesses and governments worldwide understand and communicate their impact on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human rights, governance and social well-being. This enables real action to create social, environmental and economic benefits for everyone. The GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards are developed with true multi-stakeholder contributions and rooted in the public interest. GRI offers general multisector guidelines, however, it also work on sector level. As GRI provide guidelines at sector level, they are currently working on a GRI Sector Standards project for Textiles and Apparel, that would apply to textile production, apparel manufacturing, footwear manufacturing and apparel and footwear retail.

The objective of this new Sector Standard is to:

• Identify and describe the topics that are likely material for a reporting organization in the textiles, footwear, and apparel sector based on the sector’s most significant impacts.
• Provide evidence and authoritative references for these topics to assist organizations in identifying if they are material for them.
• Identify and list appropriate disclosures for reporting on those topics

This standard is expected to be released in approximately 2 years.

3. GOTS

GOTS stands for Global Organic Textile Standard. The GOTS Standard is an international standard that establishes requirements for the certification of organic textiles by third parties and the maintenance of the chain of custody. This standard was developed with the aim of promoting and protecting organic textile product claims by developing criteria for the entire supply chain. As organic production is based on the farm standard, GOTS seeks to maintain the integrity of the supply chain to promote increased organic production and decrease toxic fertilizers, pesticides, and other toxic substances that are applied to the fiber.

4. Others

We have focused this section on the major global and sector standards that can be found. However, there are multiple other labels that you can work within the fashion industry. The Organic Content Standard (OCS) for instance focuses on the certification of the organic content of your product, The Global Recycled Standard (GRS) on the certification of recycled inputs, you might work with the EU Eco Label, Fairtrade, but also Cradle to Cradle, CMiA (Cotton Made in Africa), or Bluesign, among many others.

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In most of the cases getting certified starts with completing the requirements of the chosen standard, then contacting the certification office and accepting their conditions and submitting your company to their audit, before receiving the certification.