Do Code of Conduct Audits Improve Chemical Safety in Garment Factories: Lessons on Corporate Social Responsability in the Supply Chain from Fair Wear Foundation

Key Insights for Managers

Whereas most studies of garment factories’ working conditions examine a broad array of issues, this study focuses on compliance with chemical health and safety standards among among garment factories subject to the Fair Wear Foundation’s code of conduct. In particular, authors Henrik Lindholm, Niklas Egels-Zandén, and Christina Rudén investigate which factors predict zero violations of chemical health and safety standards, and find only that being audited at least 10 times is significant predictor.

No other attributes investigated yielded similarly promising results: they found no evidence that full compliance with chemical health and safety standards was affected by the number of previous audits within their initial nine, by country characteristics (rule of law, GDP per capita), factory characteristics (years of operation, number of employees, ISO 9001 certified), and or buyer-supplier relationship aspects (whether the factory was a first-tier supplier or had direct contact with the buyer).

Data for this research came from the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) who conducted 288 audits at 229 garment factories between 2004 and 2012.