OECD Garment Forum 2023
OECD Garment Forum 2023
Vom 13. bis 17. Februar findet das OECD Forum on Due Diligence in the Garment and Footwear Sector in Paris und virtuell statt.
Das OECD Forum bringt Vertreter*innen von Regierungen, Unternehmen, Gewerkschaften, der Zivilgesellschaft und der Wissenschaft zusammen. Beim Forum können sie wichtige Fragen und Risiken im Zusammenhang mit der Sorgfaltspflichten in der Bekleidungs- und Schuhbranche diskutieren.
Auch in diesem Jahr organisiert das Textilbündnis zusammen mit weiteren Organisationen Side Sessions zu drei von vier Textilbündnis-Fokusthemen: verantwortungsvolle Einkaufspraktiken, Beschwerden und Abhilfe sowie geschlechtsspezifische Gewalt.
Wir laden Sie herzlich ein, virtuell oder vor Ort an den Side Sessions teilzunehmen! Da die Sprache der Sessions English ist, finden Sie auch die Beschreibungen in englischer Sprache.
13 February 2023, 10 am CET
While many grievance mechanisms already make valuable contributions to accountability and remedy in the garment sector, more emphasis needs to be put on cooperation and meaningful engagement with stakeholders to ensure the effectiveness of such mechanisms. The first part of this session will discuss the opportunities and challenges for engaging with local stakeholders, mainly trade unions, in supply chain grievance mechanisms. The second interactive part will ask participants, including operators of grievance mechanisms, trade unions and other stakeholders, to discuss in break-out rooms how engagement and complementarity between international and local levels can be enhanced to support more inclusive and impactful supply chain grievance mechanisms.
The side-session is co-organised by CNV Internationaal (CNVI), the German Partnership for Sustainable Textile (PST) and Fair Wear. CNVI recently conducted a research on the role of local trade unions in building effective international grievance mechanisms, which will inform the discussions. Fair Wear and the PST collaborate together with other MSIs in the CARe (Collaboration on Access to Remedy) Platform, that currently serves as an informal hub to exchange experiences, learnings and best practices on access to remedy, identify synergies and support member companies in fulfilling their responsibility regarding access to remedy for workers. Their ambitions include encouraging collaboration across all levels to find a model of an inclusive supply chain grievance mechanism.
Learnings from the Common Framework for Responsible Purchasing Practices (CFRPP), the STTI White Paper and a community-based approach
14 February 2023, 10 am CET
Brands are increasingly turning their attention to their purchasing practices, however, progress towards responsible purchasing practices (RPP) across the sector is being slowed due to a number of repeatedly reported barriers.
The panel will focus on how brands can revise their purchasing practices and the importance of the supplier voice in making these changes. Besides that,experts will present the necessary steps when embarking on this mission, especially with regards to companies’ human rights due diligence (HRDD) process, and will provide practical examples that can be built on. We will also demonstrate how to overcome the barriers that brands are facing, such as obtaining company-wide buy-in as well as supplier feedback and its involvement in improving a brand’s purchasing practices.
Moreover, the session will highlight good practices in tackling these barriers based on our learnings within the Learning and Implementation Community (LIC). The LIC is a collaboration between Fair Wear, Ethical Trading Initiative, Ethical Trade Norway, the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles and Solidaridad (as a negotiating party to the Dutch Next Generation Agreement), with support of the Sustainable Terms of Trade Initiative (STTI).
To learn more about the Common Framework for Responsible Purchasing Practices, please take a look at the website here.
Learnings from the „Dindigul Agreement”
14 February 2023, 11 am CET Paris
Despite numerous programs, initiatives and repeated calls for action, gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) remains widespread in global supply chains of the fashion industry and little progress has been made so far. Will worker-led agreements be the game changer? The Dindigul Agreement has been signed in April last year and it is the first legally binding brand agreement that seeks to address gender and caste-based violence in an Asian garment supply chain.
This session will discuss the key learnings from the process of the development of the agreement, and the significant impacts the agreement has had on the factory floor through a trade union led program, in improving both worker well-being and productivity.
Please join us for a panel discussion with the different parties to the agreement, including Eastman Exports, the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), and a signatory brand, as well as one external party, the women’s NGO FEMNET. The session will start with an opening from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and a brief presentation of the Dindigul Agreement, its initial impact and lessons learned so far by the supporting organizations Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) and Global Labour Justice – International Labour Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF). The session will be moderated by gender expert, author and professor Jane Pillinger.
About the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector
A common denominator of the discussions at the Forum is the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector (OECD Garment Guidance). The Garment Guidance establishes a common understanding of due diligence in the sector to help companies meet expectations on due diligence laid out in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD MNE Guidelines).
Since its adoption in 2017, the OECD Garment Guidance has become accepted as the landmark framework for due diligence in the sector, supported by 50 governments, aligned with OECD, UN and ILO instruments, and negotiated with business, trade unions and civil society. It provides ambitious but pragmatic guidance to all companies – large and small – operating in global garment and footwear supply chains, to prevent and address the negative impacts of their activities and contribute to sustainable development.
