Metrics
Supply Chain

Fair Factories Clearing House ... an initiative that seems to be more PR than progress ... its mission, its history, etc.

Burgess COMMENTARY
My message to CCH

Dear Colleagues

I am incredibly impressed by what can be done with modern information technology. It drives decision making in the most efficient corporate organizations and contributes to modern business productivity.

At the same time, I am appalled at the puny amount of data that informs public dialog about socio-economic performance whether in connection with government activities or in connection with corporate activities.

Your initiative seems to be at the cutting edge of what is possible ... but I have not found anything on the website that really informs me.

I come to Manhattan quite frequently. May I request a meeting with someone to discuss.

Peter Burgess, TrueValueMetrics

Open a PDF Guide about FFC

Technology enables cost-effective, well-informed ethical business transactions and continuous improvements in global workplaces. Our collaborative technology facilitates continuous improvements in social, environmental and security standards - and safe, humane working conditions for workers - making consumer goods globally.

Enhancing the Capacity of Business To Conduct Ethical Sourcing Our technology tools and shared expertise enables cost-effective, well-informed ethical sourcing transactions.

Experienced Partners Share Capability and Enhance Effectiveness FFC members act together to ensure benefit to each of us, from all our experience. Our shared information database and shared expertise helps provide compliance capability beyond any single company's experience. Industry-wide collaboration becomes commonplace and result in greater efficiency and cost savings, risk mitigation and assurance in factory monitoring for all participants.

Global Clearinghouse Contributes to Factory Improvements Data collected by any participant in the global marketplace is shared for accessibility and transparency among all the participants, in accordance with antitrust, creating a global clearinghouse of factory information. The clearinghouse improves the availability, comprehensiveness, and standardization of information regarding factory workplace conditions. We use the information to advance knowledge about workplace conditions and the steps companies are taking to address them. The clearinghouse significantly advances global efforts to improve factory conditions in the global marketplace.

Tools to better manage compliance
'Starbucks believes that the Fair Factory Clearinghouse provides us a tremendous opportunity to work across industries to positively impact factory conditions. Participating in the FFC is one way we hope to focus our efforts on monitoring supplier practices by providing the tools to better track compliance with our code of conduct and social responsibility standards.'

Laura Olson Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, Nordstrom

A valuable tool that enables collaboration

“We believe that increased partnership between peer companies is important in creating better working conditions for factory workers across the globe. The FFC has taken a large step toward this end, creating a valuable tool that takes the uncertainty out of sharing factory and audit information, and giving brands an organized forum to work together. Safely sharing this information allows for more unified remediation messages and approaches for suppliers while also using audit time and dollars more effectively.”

A conference organized by Worldmonitors, Inc. November 2002 in NYC titled: 'Making It Right: Lessons and Solutions in Global Sourcing ' exposed the urgent need for a better way for companies to systematically find and use factories monitored for human rights standards.

In January 2003, Reebok and the National Retail Federation joined forces to explore how a database could be offered, on a non-profit basis, as a way for companies to more effectively manage factory compliance programs. In April 2003 World Monitors Inc. proposed a 'Fair Factories Clearinghouse' to the U.S. Department of State, proposing that 'one essential step to create sustainable, cost-effective monitoring systems from workplaces around the world is a shared 'Fair Factories Database'.' The proposal for funding was accepted in 2004.

A Non-Profit is Formed from the Early Partners
Reebok International Ltd., the National Retail Federation, Retail Council of Canada and World Monitors joined forces and created the Fair Factories Clearinghouse in late 2004.

The FFC was established to use technology to:

• Lower the cost of entry for those seeking to manage compliance programs
• Improve the availability, comprehensiveness, and standardization of compliance standards and audits through the use of a global management system to track workplace conditions
• Facilitate the exchange of non-competitive information concerning factory compliance, and enable collaboration in global efforts to assess and improve workplace conditions
• Reduce audit fatigue through the sharing of compliance data, without mandating any specific standard or rating factories
• Advance and promote education & knowledge about global workplace conditions

Membership Grows
Membership grows to include, in addition to industry associations and companies, non-profits and universities.

And the Story Continues...