Chapter 7

Responsible Purchasing Practices

2021 Annual Topic

An effective and collaborative cooperation between purchasing companies and suppliers is crucial to protect the rights of workers in the supply chain. The COVID-19 crisis has once again shown this particularly clearly. With the 2021 annual topic, we wanted to contribute to the industry-wide improvement of purchasing practices and to create space for progress towards good working conditions and living wages.

Purchasing practices describe all the principles and processes that brands and retailers use to interact and do business with the manufacturers who deliver their products. Responsible purchasing practices enable suppliers to effectively plan their production and working hours and pay workers fairly. At the same time, they allow suppliers to invest in the overall improvement of working conditions. In this way, they strengthen resilience in the supply chain.

Diverse activites

In order to support its members on the subject of purchasing practices, the Textiles Partnership has created various offers in 2021. Here are a few examples:

Since January 2021, basic training in video format in German and English has been available, in which companies will learn, among other things, how their actions can affect workers in the supply chain, what impact price pressure has on the wages of workers in the supply chain and how they can contribute to better working conditions in the supply chain through responsible purchasing practices.

Furthermore, with the Living Wage Lab, the Partnership Initiative Living Wages has entered a new phase. The aim of the Living Wage Lab is to support Partnership members in the development and implementation of individual strategies for living wages and to develop scalable solutions together with suppliers. 17 Partnership members participate in the Living Wage Lab. They also commit to analysing and working on their purchasing practices.

As in 2020, companies were able to use the Purchasing Practices Self-Assessment (PPSA). New in 2021 was the questionnaire for feedback from partners in the supply chain such as importers, agents, suppliers and producers. Based on this Purchasing Practices Assessment (PPA), they were able to critically evaluate the purchasing behavior of their business partners. 48 members of the Textiles Partnership and signatories of the Dutch Agreement on Sustainable Garments and Textile analysed their own purchasing practices and obtained feedback from their suppliers.

In addition, the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles, together with other multi-stakeholder initiatives, is involved in the development of a Common Framework for Responsible Purchasing Practices (CFRPP). The framework is intended to address businesses and multi-stakeholder initiatives alike and serve as a guide to improve purchasing practices.

Further information on these activities can be found in the news articles linked below. More activities and details on our annual topics can be found here, including the “Advanced Training” together with Thrive and the side session at the OECD Forum, which provided information on the CFRPP.