"More Brands Should Reveal Where Their Clothes are Made", 20 Apr 2017

More apparel and footwear companies should join 17 leading apparel brands that have aligned with an important new transparency pledge, a coalition of unions and human rights and labor rights advocates said in a joint report issued today. The pledge commits companies to publish information that will enable advocates, workers, and consumers to find out where their products are made. The...report, "Follow the Thread: The Need for Supply Chain Transparency in the Garment and Footwear Industry," comes just ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse disaster in Bangladesh...The coalition contacted 72 companies and asked them to adopt and carry out the pledge. The report details their responses and measures their current supply chain transparency practices against the pledge...Many significant investors have begun to urge apparel companies to make their supplier information public…

Of the 72 companies that the coalition contacted, 17 will be in full alignment with the pledge standards by December 2017 [whereas]…25 companies…did not respond or made no commitment to publish any of the information requested…Some companies claimed that disclosure would put them at a commercial disadvantage. But that justification is clearly contradicted by the other companies that are publishing such information…