the sustainable garment and textile agreement in the
TRANSCRIPT
The Sustainable Garment and Textile Agreement in The Netherlands
A Multi-stakeholder initiative in the Garment and Textile sector and its Corporate Social Responsibility
18-06-2018
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Author: Esmé de Bruijn Student number: 11055790 Address: Mezquitalaan 74 Amsterdam E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +31634359775 Course: Bachelor thesis SGPL - 734301380Y Mentor: dr. Jeroen Merk Bachelor: Future Planet Studies Major: Human Geography University of Amsterdam
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Index Preface 2
Abstract 2
Introduction 3
1. Theoretical framework 5
1.1 Background 5
1.2 Corporate Social Responsibility 6
1.3 (Sector chain) Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) 8
1.4 Role of governments in promoting corporate social responsibility 9
2. Methodology 10
2.1.1 Methods for sub-question 1 10
2.1.2 Methods for sub-question 2 11
2.1.3 Methods for sub-question 3 11
2.2 Conceptual framework 13
3. Results 14
3.1 The distinguishment between the SGT Agreement and the FWF & BSCI 14
3.2 New CSR behavior put into practice since the enrollment in SGT Agreement 19
3.3 Stakeholder assessment on the CSR promoting role of public- and civil society 24
3.3.1 Assessing the role of the government in promoting CSR 26
3.3.2 Assessing the role of the civil society in promoting CSR 27
Discussion and Conclusions 30
References 34
Appendix A. 37
Appendix B. 38
Appendix C. 39
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Preface
This bachelor thesis was a real experience in knowledge searching, empirical research and learning to
analyse. I like to thank all the enterprises that filled in a questionnaire and the stakeholders that gave
their time for in-depth interviews, because without their information I couldn’t have completed my
thesis. It was also an interesting journey to visit the workplaces of some of the interviewed stakeholders.
I like to thank my supervisor Jeroen Merk for his helpful remarks during the different steps in the
research and writing process. And last but not least, I would like to thank my friends and fellow students
for all kinds of support during the writing process.
Abstract
This thesis addresses the new multi-stakeholder agreement in the garment and textile sector (2016).
There are high expectations for this Sustainable Garment and Textile (SGT) agreement, because of the
alarming news on abuses that have been present in the sector for many years. Literature on corporate
social responsibility (CSR) and on multi-stakeholder initiatives provide tools for evaluating the SGT
agreement and the role of stakeholders in improvement or not of corporate social behavior in the
garment sector. Three questions were central in the research: ‘What is so remarkably different about
this agreement in comparison to previous CSR initiatives?’, ‘What new policies and projects did the
garment industries put into practice?’ and last ‘What was the role of the relevant stakeholders in the
realization of the SGT agreement?’ Three methods for data collection were used: desk research, a
questionnaire and interviews with key persons. Together they provide interesting results to evaluate the
innovative character of corporate social behavior due to the SGT agreement.
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Introduction
This thesis will dive into the Dutch garment and textile sector addressing a new multi-stakeholder
initiative in corporate social responsibility (CSR). In our globalising world most of the clothes we wear
are not produced in the Netherlands, but in countries geographically spread out in countries like Turkey,
China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and India, but also in other parts of the world. The huge
competition between the enterprises in upcoming countries leads to a race to the bottom in terms of
lowering wages and working conditions, to produce clothes as cheap as possible. The garment and
textile industry has been scrutinized as an important contributor to global and environmental issues at
all points in its supply chain (Zeller, 2012). Garment production generates pollution and global
transportation of fashion goods negatively impacts the environment. In terms of social cost, the fashion
industry helps create a culture of consumerism and waste. Garment manufacturing is negatively
associated with human rights, low wages, and labor standards, particularly in developing countries (Ma,
Lee, & Goerlitz., 2016). The apparel industry was one of the first industries to be targeted by public
shaming campaigns, and had to respond to growing public pressure to adopt CSR practices. In 2013 a
poorly built garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed and 1134 workers passed away (The Guardian,
2015). This so called Rana Plaza disaster became a symbol of what is wrong in the global garment and
textile industry. It was a wake-up call for stakeholders in this sector that there should be stronger
regulations in the production and supply side. For many critics the Rana Plaza disaster represented the
complete failure of CSR. As scholar Vogel states “Regulatory failures at the global and national level (on
CSR EdB) are pervasive, in large measure because both global firms and national governments have not
developed adequate mechanisms to effectively govern many of the negative social and environmental
impacts” (Vogel, 2011, p.73). Therefore, to study an upcoming new CSR initiative in the global garment
sector is challenging. The question arises ‘what would be a good initiative, taken together by relevant
stakeholders from the private and public sector and from civil society organizations, to improve CSR in
this sector?’
Recently in the Netherlands such a new CSR agreement has been established: The Sustainable Garment
and Textile Agreement (from now on SGT Agreement). The SGT Agreement gives the impression of an
innovative example of multi-stakeholder cooperation between Dutch garment enterprises, trade unions,
industry organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the Dutch government. It is
established and coordinated by the Social Economic Council (SER in Dutch) in July 2016:
“55 parties have agreed to work together when producing garments and textiles in
countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Turkey to prevent
discrimination, child labour and forced labour, to promote the right to collective
bargaining by independent trade unions, living wages, healthy and safe working
conditions, to reduce the negative environmental impact of raw materials
production, to prevent animal suffering, to use less water, energy and chemicals,
and to produce less chemical waste and waste water. Dutch consumers will
gradually have access to fairer, more sustainable garments and textiles. A growing
number of shops will be able to meet consumer demands for fair and sustainable
garments and textiles” (SER, 2016).
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The Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation launched in 2014 a policy to strive
for a series of international sectoral multi-stakeholder agreements (2014), called Agreements on
International Responsible Business Conduct, based on the SER advies (SER, 2014).
This thesis aims to investigate whether and why the SGT Agreement is an innovative agreement on CSR.
The CSR concept is used in the broad sense of societal responsible entrepreneurship (Maatschappelijk
Verantwoord Ondernemen). This thesis will investigate what is new in the SGT Agreement compared to
previous CSR initiatives comparing main features of the agreements like the mission, the used
international standards (UN, OECD and ILO), the fields of focus, and monitoring mechanism.
Furthermore, the steps that were taken by the participating stakeholders are studied - especially of the
global acting garment enterprises in the Netherlands.
To study this SGT Agreement and the influence it has on Dutch garment enterprises can contribute to
the body of knowledge on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Studying the role of relevant
stakeholders could also contribute to the knowledge about societal responsible entrepreneurship. The
social relevance of this research topic is to contribute to a better global garment sector in the end, by
studying what Dutch garment enterprises in the field of corporate social entrepreneurship do since
participating in the SGT agreement. Moreover, to investigate the roles of the relevant stakeholders is
socially relevant. Since the SGT agreement has not been in practise for that long and has been little
studied so far, it is an interesting subject for this bachelor thesis. The central question of this thesis is:
How does the new Sustainable Garment and Textile Sector (SGT) agreement in the Netherlands,
distinguishable from previous initiatives in the sector, improve (or not) the corporate social responsibility
(CSR) of Dutch garment enterprises?
The policies and actions of some Dutch enterprises since their enrollment in the SGT Agreement are
examined. What did they change or not in their corporate responsible behavior or where are they
enforced to, according to the SGT agreement. The agreement is a multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI). The
roles of relevant stakeholders are investigated, like the role of the branches in the sector, the role of the
trade unions, the NGOs and the government. It is might be hard to find already clear evidence of
corporate social behavioral changes because the agreement is quite new. Nevertheless, there is an
arousing curiosity to assess what makes the SGT Agreement different from previous initiatives, why did
the different stakeholders choose to start this type of agreement, what expectations do they have, and
how did the agreement work so far.
Outline
The first chapter contains the theoretical framework, the main concepts in the field of CSR and the role
of different stakeholders in corporate social responsibility regulation. The literature study leads to the
the main questions that are addressed in this thesis. The second chapter contains the methodology used
in this thesis. Three methods of data gathering are addressed: desk research, the use of a questionnaire
and the conduct of interviews. The third chapter describes the results of the data gathering and gives an
analysis of the data. The final chapter provides answers to the research questions, compares the main
results with the literature form chapter 2 and draws conclusions. The chapter notes also some
limitations of the study and indicates further research suggestions.
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1. Theoretical framework
The first paragraph of this chapter gives a (historical) background of the development of corporate social
responsibility (CSR). The second paragraph presents two theories on CSR that set the stage for the
research and debate on CSR. In the third paragraph presents literature and debate in the body of
knowledge on stakeholders and multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI). The theoretical framework leads to
the questions to be answered by empirical research.
1.1 Background
CSR in the broad meaning of societal responsible entrepreneurship has a long history. It starts in fact at
the time of the industrial revolution when enterprises heavily exploited workers and children. After
1850 trade unions and political labor parties started to address these social issues and influenced
governments to draw up labor laws. In the Netherlands the Child Labour Act of Van Houten in 1874 was
the first step. Rare philanthropic employers took care of their workers by providing education, health
care and housing (Nijhof et al., 2005). In the 20th century, societal pressure slowly led to more laws and
regulations and discussions about who is responsible for corporate behavior. When in the sixties
western economies started booming, labor shortages were soaring. Wages increased so rapidly that
labor intensive industries (e.g. clothing, shoes, shipbuilding) could not keep up (Plantenga, Schippers, &
Siegers, 1990). The ‘solution’ was to move these industries to “low wage countries” in Asia and other
parts of the world. The garment producing industries in Europe and the US gradually closed their doors
and the garment and textile sector transformed into a global value chain (Reich, Gordon, & Edwards,
1973). According to Gereffi & Memedovic (2003) a global value chain encompasses all of the people and
activities involved in the production of a good or service and its global level supply, distribution and
sales activities. These scholars distinguish two global value chains: buyer-driven and producer-driven. In
buyer-driven value chains, large retailers, marketers and branded manufacturers play leading roles in
decentralizing the production networks in different exporting countries, especially in low-income
developing countries. The industries that have buyer-driven value chains are usually the labor-intensive,
consumer-goods industries such as apparel, toys, footwear, handicrafts and consumer electronics. In
these buyer-driven value chains the enterprises do not make the branded clothes they order and, thus,
are so-called “manufacturers without factories”. Whereas in producer-driven value chains, large
manufacturers play the leading roles with the coordination of the production network (i.e capital- and
technology-intensive industries such as automobiles, aircraft, computers and heavy machinery) (Gereffi
& Memedovic, 2003, p.3).
National governments, who normally drew up laws and regulations on labour rights, on health and
safety and on environment issues inside national borders, lost their grip on these global chain industries.
At the same time the garment production factories arose in countries with little compliance on labor
rights or workers health and safety. Moreover, neoliberal economic policies in the eighties made room
for fast growing transnational enterprises (TNCs) and a huge international financial sector with no
ethical CSR whatsoever (Ruggie, 2017; Luyendijk, 2016). In response to, on the one hand, a weakening of
national regulatory systems, also due to retiring governments under neoliberal politics, and on the other
hand the strengthening power of TNCs and increasing importance of brands, there came a growing
demand from civil society actors for new mechanisms of corporate accountability (Braithwaite & Drahos,
2000). Especially NGOs worldwide have to get the credits for their continuous awareness raising and
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activities to increase pressure on the apparel businesses to take at least some social responsibility and
to interact with other stakeholders about CSR. It is interesting to see that these civil society actions
came partly from bottom up, local initiatives of citizens, workers, unions, environmentalist, etc. and
partly from international non-governmental organizations like the United Nations (UN), the
International Labor Organization (ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO) or Amnesty International
(Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997).
According to Vogel (2010) a whole interesting area of so-called civil regulations, as soft law
initiatives, on an international scale, are being developed to address the CSR of these increasingly
complex global supply chains and TNCs. Since governments and national laws have little to no control
and therefore fall short. One of the first global CSR initiatives was the Global Compact. It was the first
agreement of the UN and the private sector formalized in the UN Guidelines for Business (UNGB) in
2000 (Ruggie, 2017). John Ruggie was one of the principal architects. He states that there have been
previous waves of globalization, but today’s globalization is of a complete different kind: “We have
moved from national economies, engaged in external transactions that governments could mediate at
the border by tariffs and exchange rates, to global markets leaving behind national social bargains.”
(Ruggie, 2017, p.17). He is a big proponent of global civil regulation. More than a decade ago he stated
that civil regulation will “not replace states, but . . . (rather) embed(s) systems of governance in broader
global frameworks of social capacity and agency that did not previously exist” (Ruggie, 2004, p.519)
1.2 Corporate Social Responsibility
Two theories on CSR will be presented. The first one is the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) theory from
Elkington (1998), in which he addresses the three dimensions of Profit, People and Planet.1 This theory
poses that enterprises should not only go for profit, but for people (labor rights) and the planet
(environmental impact) as well. The second theory is the
Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility of Carroll (1991).
According to this theory CSR should exist of four
responsibilities; economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic
responsibilities. Enterprises start with profit and see this
economic responsibility as their only ‘raison d’être’. Friedman
(1970), the promoter of neo-liberal economics, even stated that
if enterprises keep themselves busy with other responsibilities
than maximizing returns for their shareholders, they act against
the law.
During the 20th century complying to the law, starting
with labor laws enforced by the state, became a responsibility
of the enterprises. In the seventies a more comprehensive
definition of CSR was set forth. A four-part conceptualization of
CSR included the idea that the corporation has not only
economic and legal obligations, but ethical and discretionary
(philanthropic) responsibilities as well (Carroll, 1991). Ethical
1 These terms became famous because Shell used them in another sequence for the title of their first sustainability report in
1997: People, Planet, Profit
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responsibilities concern human, environmental and consumer rights. Philanthropic responsibilities freely
aim at good corporate citizenship, contribute to resources and the community and improve the quality
of life. Both theories, the TBL theory and the Pyramid of CSR formed the basis for many studies in the
body of knowledge of CSR. Like Dahlsrud (2008), who analysed many definitions on CSR, came to five
more or less similar dimensions as Carroll, the social, environment, economic, multistakeholder
dimension and an ethical “going beyond the law” dimension.
The already mentioned UN Global Compact is currently the largest global CSR initiative and
developed the five dimensions of Carroll into ten principles in the areas of human rights, labor rights,
environment impact, and anti-corruption (Baumann-Pauly, Nolan, Van Heerden, & Samway., 2017). The
UN Global Compact agreement defined CSR as “the commitment of businesses to contribute to
sustainable economic development—working with employees, their families, the local community and
society at large to improve the quality of life, in ways that are both good for business and good for
development” (Ward, 2004).
The concept of CSR refers originally to a form of corporate self-regulations (e.g. on safety
standards), but that it has shifted over the last decades to a concept that recognizes that enterprises are
part of society, and that they have the responsibility to make a positive contribution to societal goals
and aspirations (Ward, 2004). Enterprises could do this for strategic reasons like a positive impact on
consumers, workers, environmentalist and investors, for legal reasons, compliance to the law, but also
for ethical and philanthropic reasons. Scholars Darnall, Potoski, & Prakash (2009) critically remark that
because governments failed to deal adequately with environmental degradation and human rights
abuses in global production processes, it became a strategy to make regulatory programmes on these
issues with voluntary engagement of multinational enterprises, under the banner of Corporate Social
Responsibility. On the contrary scholar Steurer (2010, p.49) stated that “CSR started out as a neo-liberal
concept that helped to downscale government regulations, but that it has in turn matured into a more
progressive approach of societal co-regulation in recent years.” Enterprises were asked and expected to
voluntarily contribute, as corporate citizens, to sustainable development, for today's and future
generations, by maximising synergies and minimising trade‐offs between economic, social, and
environmental stakeholder interests (Steurer, Martinuzzi, & Margula., 2012). The number and scope of
global civil regulations began to expand significantly during the 1990s (Vogel, 2010). Since then a
remarkable body of knowledge on CSR developed and gradually included more and more issues of
responsibility (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012).
One of the academic issues became that researchers felt an increasing the need for clear
uniform criteria to assess the quality of (new) non-governmental initiatives in CSR. One of them,
O’Rourke (2006) aimed to develop an assessment model for evaluating such initiatives. Therefore
O'Rourke evaluated a number of leading non-governmental initiatives in the United States and Europe.
He compared the codes of conduct of the enterprises and also the monitoring systems within these
initiatives. Moreover, regulation models are discussed and criteria are set for evaluating their
effectiveness. O’Rourke came up with four criteria for effective non-governmental regulation:
substantive participation of local stakeholders; public transparency of methods and findings;
mechanisms that bring market pressures to TNCs, but also multi-stakeholder support for problem
solving within factories and global supply chains. These evaluation criteria will be addressed in this
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thesis for assessing the SGT agreement and for evaluating the policies and practices made by Dutch
garment enterprises acting upon the SGT agreement.
1.3 (Sector chain) Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs)
As shown in the previous section business oriented CSR initiatives were gradually more criticized by
society as well as by scholars. Vogel (2010) criticizes that CSR initiatives only induced by enterprises are
too narrow to develop a broad sustainability agenda. The author starts with critically assessing the
achievements and limitations of the private regulation of global corporate conduct. The author argues
that such private regulations have some substantive improvements in corporate behavior. Nevertheless,
there is clearly a need to integrate such private regulations and reinforce them by effective state-based
and enforced regulatory policies, at both national and international levels. Vogel (2010, p.70) states:
“civil regulation does not privatize business regulation in the sense of removing it from public scrutiny.
Rather it represents an effort to develop new non-state, political mechanisms for governing global
enterprises and markets.”
His theoretical framework offers assessing tools to evaluate multi-stakeholder initiatives particular on
the lacking governmental affiliation. On the role of NGOs Vogel states that “At the same time, many
NGOs have been repeatedly frustrated by their inability to promote stronger and more effective
international treaties and domestic regulatory policies” as they become one of the stakeholders in a
multi-stakeholder CSR initiative (Vogel, 2010, p.74). Some NGOs like to stay independent to continue
with emphasizing the “naming and shaming” of global enterprises. Other NGOs “have chosen to
cooperate with enterprises and industry associations to develop voluntary standards and participate in
their enforcement. Their willingness to enter into alliances with global enterprises has been critical to the
emergence, legitimacy, and relative effectiveness of many civil regulations” (Vogel, 2010, p.74).
O’Rourke indicates the already described development “from factory-centered, state regulation
focusing on individual sites of production, towards supply-chain and ‘brand’ regulation” (O’Rourke, 2006,
p. 900). He relates this to the multiple actors in a production chain and states that “the aim of the new
non-governmental governance is to create a network of regulators, involving multiple stakeholders along
global supply chains using NGOs, enterprises, and sometimes government agencies in setting standards
and monitoring protocols.” In his view “Enforcement relies largely on market sanctions—either through
inter-firm purchasing decisions or NGO consumer campaigns that seek to influence consumer
purchasing. A diverse family of regulatory strategies are involved” (O’Rourke, 2006, p. 900). He sees
strategic alliances of NGOs and trade unions in CSR initiatives as essential to exert pressure and demand
accountability over the factories. Braithwaite and Drahos (2000) show that the absence of state
regulation presents major business challenges for enterprises. Therefore, CSR has become increasingly
an issue on government agendas, like in the EU (Steurer, 2010). According to Steurer if each of the
involved stakeholders has an equal voice in decision-making processes, his theory states that this will
improve CSR behavior.
Reineke and Donaghey (2015) empirically investigated complementary capacities of different
stakeholders. They combine two bodies of knowledge: one on the role of organized labor (trade unions)
and the other is by social movement scholars focusing on the role of social movement organizations in
mobilising consumption power (like fair trade NGOs). They examined the coalitional power for labour
rights between unions and (consumption-based) social movement organizations after the Rana Plaza
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disaster and showed how the complementary capacities of actors based on production and
consumption have contributed to the establishment of the 'Fire Safety and Building Safety Agreement in
Bangladesh'. Scholar Fransen (2011) investigates in his article if there is evidence that the MSIs with
government and civil society involvement do better than the MSIs that exclude public- and societal
stakeholder groups. He compared a variety of multi-stakeholder programs primarily in the retail
industry. He assessed the legitimacy and limitations of the different initiatives.
1.4 Role of governments in promoting corporate social responsibility
Public policies to endorse CSR are increasing in European countries over the last two decades. The
literature identifies a variety of aspects as key drivers for governments to take action regarding CSR:
social and environmental consequences of the transnationalization of business activities, transformation
of welfare states and societal governance challenges (Albareda, Lozano, & Ysa., 2007). For governments,
CSR implies the need to manage a complex set of relationships in order to develop a win–win situation
between business and social organizations. Governmental initiatives converged with the actions of
different international organizations such as the UN Global Compact, the ILO and the OECD.
Governments increasingly realize, or are forced by political parties and NGOs to do, that they have a role
to play in encouraging the corporate social responsibility of enterprises in the interest of the public and
the society. According to Ward (2004) there are potentially five public sector roles in strengthening CSR:
mandating, facilitating, partnering, endorsing and demonstrating. which could be used for assessing the
role of the government in a MSI. Based on the possible roles of governments in promoting CSR Steurer
(2010) indicates four fields of action: awareness for CSR, transparency, socially responsible investment,
and leading by example. The role of the government in the case of the SGT Agreement will be assessed
by the interviews with stakeholders (paragraph 3.3.1).
Research questions and relevance
The main thesis statement presented below is deduced from the bodies of knowledge in the previous
paragraph. In this paragraph the sub-questions are presented. They will be operationalized in chapter 2.
Thesis statement: The Dutch Sustainable Garment and Textile (SGT) agreement, with private, public and
civil society stakeholders, is supposed to improve sustainable Corporate Social Responsible behavior
(CSR) in a different manner than previous CSR initiatives.
The SGT Agreement is a multi-stakeholder initiative, a new initiative with voluntary participation of the
Dutch garment enterprises and with a remarkable number of stakeholders (11 in total). To evaluate
whether this SGT Agreement is innovative or not the agreement will be compared to previous CSR
initiatives in the same sector. This leads to the first sub question: How does the SGT Agreement
distinguish itself from previous CSR initiatives? The work of O’Rourke (2006) will be used for the
evaluation.
The second part of the research for this thesis is focussed on potential new corporate social behavior by
the enterprises affiliated with the SGT Agreement. How do they actually act upon after the enrollment
of the agreement? This leads to second sub-question: What new corporate social behavior did the
garment enterprises put into practice since their enrollment in the SGT Agreement (how do their policies
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and practices differ from what they previously did?) As a theoretical context the work of Vogel (2010)
and Fransen (2011) will be used.
The third part of this thesis research addresses the role of the government and the role of civil
organizations as stakeholders participating in the SGT steering committee. How do they contribute or
not to corporate social behavior of garment enterprises. There are 11 stakeholder parties in partnership.
This leads to sub-question 3: How do the different types of the stakeholders (private, public and civil
society) assess the role of the government and civil society organisations in enhancing corporate social
responsibility? As a theoretical context the work of Steurer (2010) and of Ward (2004) will be used.
Steurer distinguishes four fields of action for governments and other stakeholders: awareness for CSR,
transparency, socially responsible investment, and leading by example. Ward (2004) uses five public
sector roles for assessing strengthening of CSR:, mandating, facilitating, partnering, endorsing and
demonstrating, will be applied to assess this role of the state.
2. Methodology
In the previous chapter the theoretical framework of the thesis was presented. This chapter describes the
different methods that are used to answer the three sub-questions. Paragraph 2.1 describes the methods
per sub-question. In paragraph 2.2 the conceptual framework is displayed to give an overview of the
operationalization of the research.
2.1 Data collection methods per sub-question
This section explains how the data for each sub-question are collected and gives the operationalization
of the key concepts in the questions. The type of research in this thesis is mixed methods research, as
described by Bryman (2012, chapter 27). This includes qualitative as well as quantitative research. In this
thesis three methods for data collection were used: desk research, a questionnaire and interviews with
key persons. For the desk research documents and website materials were studied. The questionnaire
was sent to the garment enterprises that reacted on a request to participate in this research. The
interviews were conducted with key persons of the relevant stakeholder parties participating in the SGT
Agreement.
2.1.1 Methods for sub-question 1
Sub-question 1: How does the SGT Agreement distinguish itself from previous CSR initiatives?
For sub-question 1 desk research on the SGT Agreement was done. Relevant materials, like the
agreement itself, background information and the list of enterprises that signed the agreement were all
available on the SER website. Then a choice had to be made out of previous CSR initiatives in the
garment sector. Due to time constraints I had to choose two previous CSR initiatives which were suitable
to compare them with the new SGT agreement. I have chosen for the Business Social Compliance
Initiative (BSCI) and the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF). I chose these two CSR initiatives, because they
originate from Belgium (BSCI) and the Netherlands (FWF). Therefore many Dutch enterprises have
signed one or both of these initiatives. The BSCI is an agreement, the FWF is an organisation with
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membership. Both are CSR initiatives with monitoring mechanisms on firm level, with codes of conduct
and other policies and practices concerning CSR. The enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement are also
enterprises located in the Netherlands. Therefore the choice for BSCI and FWF seemed to be a good
choice. The same enterprises could be affiliated with all three initiative. To find out which enterprises of
BSCI and FWF signed also the SGT agreement, firstly, all the names of the Dutch enterprises that signed
the SGT Agreement were collected. Secondly, the names of these enterprises were filled in one by one
on the Amfori BSCI website to see which enterprises are also member of the BSCI. Thirdly, the list of
members of the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) was consulted, to find out which brands corresponded
with the list of the SGT Agreement. An overview of these lists was made (see appendix A). The three
initiatives were compared on topics used by O’Rourke in his studied of CSR initiatives in the EU and the
US. The chosen topics were: governance of the initiative, the mission, the used (international) standards,
the monitoring processes and the substantive focus points.
2.1.2 Methods for sub-question 2
Sub-question 2: What new corporate social behavior did the garment enterprises put into practice
since their enrollment in the SGT Agreement (how do their policies and practices differ from what
they previously did?)
This part of the research is aimed at what new policies and practices garment enterprises actually put in
practice under the SGT Agreement. For this sub-question a quantitative research method was used. A
request for participation in the research was sent to the 65 Dutch garment enterprises that signed the
SGT Agreement. The enterprises normally have a website and by the request I could find out who could
fill in the questionnaire. Only ten enterprises react on the request for participating and they all filled in
the questionnaire. The questionnaire is enclosed in this thesis. The reason I chose for this research
method is because I intend to reach a lot of the 65 enterprises to get representative data for the whole
population of enterprises. It could have provides quantitative data for statistical analysis (Bryman, 2012,
p. 237). Although repeated email requests have been sent (2 time) and also many telephone calls have
been made with information services of the enterprises, the result became not higher than ten
questionnaires. Looking back one can imagine that the enterprises in their busy schedules do not
prioritize a questionnaire of a student. However the monitoring process by the SER secretariat could
also have played a role. The enterprises had to answer already more or less the same question in the
context of the SGT agreement. Nevertheless the ten enterprises that react gave interesting results to
answer sub-question two.
2.1.3 Methods for sub-question 3
Sub-question 3: How do the different types of the stakeholders (private, public and civil society)
assess the role of the government and civil society organizations in enhancing corporate social
responsibility?
According to the literature (Vogel, 2010; Fransen, 2011; Steurer, 2010; Ward 2004) the role of relevant
stakeholders is of decisive importance for the improvement of corporate social behavior or of CSR
initiatives. In this case there are 11 stakeholder parties participating in the SGT steering committee. Two
trade unions participate, five NGOs, three industry organizations, the Dutch government and the SER
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secretariat form the steering committee. Requests for an interview were send to all the stakeholder
parties and the SER secretariat. Except for the NGOs all parties were available for an interview. The
NGOs stakeholders were too busy. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted either at the
workplace of the stakeholder or at another place of the interview were conducted via skype.
The choice for these face-to-face interviews were multifold. First such an interview is more in-depth, it
gives the possibility to elaborate on questions. The use of this method creates more completeness of
research data and potentially a more comprehensive study (Bryman, 2012, p. 633). A second reason for
the use of this method is the notion of Silva and Wright (2008, p. 3) that “the qualitative interviews were
conducted to ‘check and correct the quantitative data’ and make the survey data more robust” (Bryman,
2012, p. 635). Table 1 shows an overview of the four different stakeholders parties, the SER secretariat
and the interviewed key persons. All the interviewed stakeholders were asked if they want to stay
anonymous. None of them had objections to be mentioned with full names in the thesis. Mixed
methods data can be used for illustration, for completeness and for triangulation. In this thesis the data
gathered with the interviews were used party to illustrate the results from the questionnaire. The
results of the questionnaire could be reinforced or not by the outcomes of the semi-structured
interviews (Bryman, 2012, p. 638).
No. of resp. Type of organization Key person
NGOs 0 - UNICEF Netherlands - FOUR PAWS - Solidaridad - Stop Child Labour - The India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN)
trade unions 1 - CNV - FNV
Jacob Plat (FNV)
Industry organisations 1 - VGT - Modint - INretail
Jeroen van Dijken (VGT and Steering Committee)
The Dutch Government 1 Ministry of Trade Jos Huber
SER 1 Secretariat Jef Wintermans
Dutch Enterprises 1 Schijvens Corporate Fashion Shirley Schijvens (Steering Committee)
Table 1. Overview of the stakeholders and key persons for semi-structured interviews.
13
2.2 Conceptual framework
Summarizing the questions and the relationships between the main concepts lead to the following
conceptual framework. In the figure below the conceptual framework is displayed and gives clear view of
how the research will be executed.
Figure 1. Conceptual framework SGT Agreement.
14
3. Results
In this chapter the research results will be presented per sub-question. However the first section 3.1
starts with a short overview of the developments in the Dutch garment and textile industry and with the
raise of problems. Then the results of sub-question one are given, addressing the differences between the
SGT Agreement and the two other CSR initiatives BSCI and FWF. Section 3.2 shows the results of the
questionnaire to the garment enterprises. The focus is on what new CSR behavior did garment
enterprises display hitherto under the SGT Agreement, and what projects did they actually put into
practice. Section 3.3 presents the CSR promoting role by the government and civil society organizations
including trade union, assessed by the interviewees of the stakeholders parties in the SGT steering
committee.
3.1 The distinguishment between the SGT Agreement and the FWF & BSCI
Background in the garment and textile industry
Till the 70’s the Netherlands and most countries in Europe had their own garment and textile industries.
In the Netherlands it was located in Groningen, in Twente, around Tilburg, and Amsterdam. The
booming economy in the 60’s led to higher wages for laborers. A lot of labour intensive industries like
the garment and textile and the shoe industries closed in the Netherlands and other EU countries and
moved to “lower wage” countries (Huisman, Leeuwen, & Plantenga, 1984). Between 1980 and 1995 the
textile production in Asia increased with 98 %, while in Europe the production decreased with 32 %.
Within the garment and textile sector the movement of production locations has always been present.
Prominent factors to this movement are: 1. low labor costs and flexible workers, 2. incentive schemes
for foreign enterprises by other production countries, 3. rapid laborers and low costs of new
communication technology and 4. lower transport costs (Clean Clothes Campaign, 2016).
The global garment and textile industry has between 60 to 75 million people working in the
sector (Clean Clothes Campaign, 2018). The industry has grown enormously. The top countries of
production are China, Bangladesh and India. In these countries there are many abuses within the
garment and textile sector and the local governments almost never comply with the international labor
standards. One of the main issues is the poor working conditions of laborers. They have long working
days, up to more than 10 hours a day, freedom of association is prohibited, health insurance is poorly to
non-existent, women are paid less than men and people are exposed to toxic chemicals (Awareness
Fashion, 2016).
In order to address the issues concerning the garment and textile industry, several CSR
initiatives were implemented. The latest initiative is the Dutch SGT Agreement. Previous CSR initiatives
that were implemented are the FWF that was established in 1999 and the BSCI of 2002. In the BSCI the
trade unions and NGOs are part of the Advisory Council, which comes together twice a year to advise
BSCI members on the implementation of their CSR. However, the council does not have direct influence
on BSCI decision-making and is therefore not a MSI (Egels-Zandén & Wahlqvist, 2007). The SGT
Agreement and FWF are so-called MSIs. They include different parties - NGOs, trade unions, industry
organizations and enterprises - which have a role in the improvement of the circumstances in the
garment and textile industry. They are all working together to achieve this goal. MSIs were established
because some issues are too complex to tackle by an enterprise on its own. This is the reason why
15
enterprises work together with the government, trade unions and NGOs within the SGT agreement. This
creates more opportunities to address these problems in a structured and solution-oriented way (SER,
2018).
How does the SGT Agreement distinguish itself from previous CSR initiatives?
In this section the Dutch SGT Agreement is compared to two previous CSR initiatives - the Fair Wear
Foundation (FWF) and the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), to show where the SGT
agreement can be distinguished from the previous ones. And does the differences mean improvement
in corporate social behavior? The differences are described by the five topic deduced from the work of
O’Rourke (2006), namely differences in governance and participating stakeholders, in used standards
used, in monitoring processes, in focus points and in mission statement. For the comparison the
overview of Merk (2017) is used as well as website material, especially for the SGT agreement. Table 2
gives an overview of the three agreements BCSI, FWF and SGT, categorized by the topics of O’Rourke
(2006) in his research on CSR initiatives. A list is made of the Dutch garment enterprises that signed the
SGT Agreement and are also member of the FWF or the BSCI. Due to the length, this list is presented in
Appendix A.
Governance format and stakeholder membership
The SGT Agreement is the latest initiative in Corporate Social Responsibility in the garment and textile
sector. In terms of governance format it is the same as the FWF as they are both MSIs. The SGT
Agreement differs substantially from the BSCI because BSCI is only a business-driven initiative. SGT is a
multi-stakeholder initiative with 11 parties, including garment enterprises organized in three industry
organizations, five NGOs, two Dutch trade unions and the Dutch government. After signing the
agreement the parties set up a Steering Committee to lead the implementation process. Whereas the
BSCI only includes businesses and not the other parties stakeholders. The difference between the SGT
Agreement and the FWF is that the SGT Agreement includes the Dutch government for regulation and
financing. The Dutch government is committed to 1. put the subject Multi-stakeholder collaboration on
the agenda in the European Union, 2. to contribute maximally that it is clear for enterprises which
possibilities there are to make policies upon human rights, environment, biodiversity and animal
welfare, 3. support the signatories of the agreement, 4. promote the agreement and ensure that foreign
governments make the execution, monitoring and verification of the agreement possible (SGT
Agreement, 2016).
Standards used; Due diligence
Table 2 gives under names of standard what kind of standards the three CSR initiatives use as a basic for
their codes of conduct for social responsibility. The agreement BSCI (2002) based their BSCI Code of
Conduct on the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), on the ILO’s
fundamental labour standards and on the OECD Guidelines. The FWF Code of Good Labor Practices
(1999) is also based on the UNGP and ILO guidelines but nót on the OECD’s Guidelines. The SGT
Agreement comprised their standards under the term Due diligence, which is also based on the UNGPs,
the ILO’s fundamental labour standards and on the OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
16
(SER, 2018). But the SGT agreement gives with the choice for Due diligence a whole new base and
innovative incentive to corporate social responsibility as will be shown later in the interviews as well.
UNGPs describes the Due diligence principle as the ultimate business responsibility to protect human
rights. Due diligence relies on corporate practices in defining, implementing, monitoring and
communicating strategies limiting their negative impact on society, on the people and the planet.
Committing to self-reflection about the impact of every step in doing business, is seen a soft regulation
approach but could be seen at the same time as the strongest commitment. It encourages enterprises
who signed the SGT agreement to institutionalize internal processes of investigation and stimulates the
OECD to elaborate sector specific guidelines to allow enterprises to act in line with human rights due
diligence responsibilities (SGT agreement 2016).
Monitoring
One of the core issues of agreements always is how to monitor what is agreed and how to act upon. In
the SGT agreement, the monitoring of the enterprises concerns the due diligence on all the agreed focus
points (table 3) and is executed by an assessment form of the AGT Secretariat2. This form recently
published in April 2018 and is be put in practice since then. The participants of the agreement have to
report their results annually to the AGT Secretariat, which then will be aggregated and published online
on the website of the SER, without the possibility of tracing the results back to the specific garment
businesses. Thus, it is only partly public disclosure. This form of self-assessment by criteria has been
established by the AGT Secretariat and the SGT Agreement. The BSCI Code of Conduct is monitored
through self-assessment and external Auditors3.
Both the BSCI and the FWF use factory audits (e.g self-assessment). However, in addition to self-
assessment, the FWF makes also use of verification audits not only in the factories of their members,
but also in their headquarters. This is comparatively of added value.
The big difference between the SGT agreement and the both previous one is that the SGT agreement
monitoring is a permanent process. New policies and practices are directly registered, as well as new
information on production enterprises in the garment value chain. Therefore there is a permanent
building of a database, to be used by all enterprises and all stakeholders, without the possibility of
tracing back to the enterprises. The BSCI and FWF use audits, which are only assessment at that
moment, while the SGT agreement is a permanent process.
2 The secretariat of the Agreement on Sustainable Garment and Textile
3 An audit is an official inspection of an individual's or organization's accounts, typically by an independent body
17
Name
Start
date
HQ
Country
Scope
Governance
format
Membership
Business Trade NGOs
Unions
Name of standard
Focus
Monitoring
Sustainable
Garment and
Textile
Agreement
(SGT)
2016 Nether-
lands
Garment and
Textile
Multi-stakeholder:
including the
government,
enterprises, unions
and NGOs and a
steering committee
under guidance of
the Social Economic
Council
✓ ✓ ✓ Due diligence based on:
• The UN Guiding
Principles on Business
and Human Rights
• The fundamental labor
standards of the ILO (the
starting point for
international CSR)
• The OECD-guidelines
for multinational
enterprises
Human rights,
environmental &
animal welfare
violations
Assessment
framework
of the AGT
Secretariat -
members report
results annually
Business
Social
Compliance
Initiative
(BSCI)
2002 Belgium Sector: Multi-
sector,
including
garments
1877
members, and
26,583
producers
(suppliers),
21000 audits
(2016)
Industry-led
(steering
committee
under guidance
FTA)
✓ ✗ ✗ BSCI Code of Conduct
based on:
• The UN Guiding
Principles on Business
and Human Rights
• International Labour
Organization (ILO)
conventions and
declarations
• The OECD-guidelines
for multinational
enterprises
Labor, community
& environment
Self-
assessment &
External auditors
(accredited by
SAAS4)
Fair Wear
Foundation
(FWF)
1999 Nether-
lands
Garments,
including
work-wear
Multi-stakeholder:
including unions
and NGOs
✓ ✓ ✓ FWF Code of Good Labor
Practices based on:
• The UN Guiding
Principles on Business
and Human Rights
• International Labour
Organization (ILO)
conventions and
declarations
Labor Multi-
stakeholder
verification by the
use of audits
internal and
external.
Table 2. Overview. Note: Merk (2017), SER (2018), Amfori (2018), & FWF (2018).
Focus points
The focus points of the three initiatives are elaborated on in table 3 below. The first five points are the
same in all three initiatives. The BSCI differs from FWF and the SGT Agreement on payment of a living
wage. Payment of a living wage covers an adequate income for workers and their families which meet
legal or industry minimum standards in order to meet the basic needs, such as meals, rent, health care,
education, clothes and transport (SGT Agreement; SER, 2016). Whereas the BSCI speaks of a ‘fair
remuneration’ and does not elaborate on what this actually means. A critical distinction between the
two can be made, because fair remuneration does not cover all the standards that a living wage does.
Next, the reasonable hours of work and employment contracts are included in FWF and BSCI, but are not 4 Social Accountability Accreditation Services (i.e SA8000 Accredited Certification Bodies)
18
specifically taken up in the SGT Agreement as separate focus points. Moreover, environmental violation
or protection are included in the BSCI and SGT, but is not included in the FWF. The FWF is specifically
focused on labor rights and not as such on the environmental impacts. This is also mentioned in the
interviews with the stakeholders. The BSCI addresses two additional labor focus points (nr. 10 and 11).
The nine focus points that are covered by the SGT Agreement cover what Dutch garment
enterprises need to achieve in order to comply with their due diligence. The SGT Agreement is a bit
more extensive than the other two CSR initiatives, as it takes into account raw materials and animal
welfare as focus points. Dutch enterprises have to provide information on which materials they used for
their garment production and identify the risks that come along. As for animal welfare, animal suffering
has to be prevented and exterminated in the production and supply chain of enterprises (SER, 2016).
The Four Paws Foundation was the main NGO to establish this focus point in the SGT Agreement (pers.
comm., 2018).
FWF BSCI SGT
1. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining 2. There is no discrimination in employment 3. No exploitation of child labor 4. Employment is freely chosen 5. Safe and Healthy working conditions 6. Payment of a living wage 7. Reasonable hours of work 8. Legally binding employment relationships
1. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining 2. No Discrimination 3. No Child Labour 4. No Bonded Labour 5. Occupational Health and Safety 6. Fair Remuneration 7. Decent Working Hours 8. No Precarious Employment 9. Protection of the Environment 10. Ethical Business behavior 11. Special Protection for Young Workers
1. Freedom of association 2. Discrimination and gender 3. Child labour 4. Forced labour 5. Safety and health in the workplace 6. Living wage 7. Water pollution and use of chemicals, water and energy 8. Raw materials 9. Animal welfare
Table 3. Focus points of the CSR initiatives. Note: SER (2018), Amfori (2018), & FWF (2018).
Mission
In table 4 the missions of the three CSR initiatives is shown. They do not differ that much in their core
message. The distinguishment of the SGT with the other two is that there are more parties involved,
including the government in order to fulfill the mission to improve the circumstances of the garment
and textile industry. However, what is interesting to see is that the mission of the SGT Agreement is
more to the point on what they actually want to achieve. The BSCI’s mission is to support the garment
enterprises. This formulation of the mission can be linked to the fact that the BSCI does not include a
binding factor for its members. The mission of the FWF only includes improvement of the working
conditions of laborers and not the other abuses in the sector, which are addressed in the SGT
Agreement’s mission.
Mission
19
SGT Agreement BSCI FWF
‘The mission of the SGT Agreement is to improve - together with enterprises, NGOs, trade unions, industry organizations and the Dutch government - the due diligence on human rights (working conditions), environmental or animal welfare violations in the global garment and textile industry.’
‘The Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) is a leading supply chain management system that supports enterprises to drive social compliance and improvements within the factories and farms in their global supply chains.’
‘FWFs mission is to improve – together with enterprises, factories and stakeholders - working conditions in the global clothing and textile industry.’
Table 4. Mission of the CSR initiatives. Note: SER (2018), Amfori (2018), & FWF (2018).
Summarizing, the differences between the SGT agreement and the two older CSR initiatives BCSI and
FWT, based on O’Rourke’s assessment topics for CSR initiatives, it can be concluded that on the topic
governance of the initiatives, the three initiatives differ clearly because the BSCI is drawn up by
enterprise initiatives only, without the government and NGOs. The SGT initiative is in this respect the
broadest in stakeholders (enterprises, industry organizations, NGOs, trade unions and the government)
and is also the most elaborated in the monitoring process. The most notable difference lays in the basic
standards that are used. All three base their standards on the UN Guidelines for Business (UNGP) and
the OECD guidelines. The SGT and BSCI are also based on the ILO guidelines. The SGT agreement clearly
distinguishes itself from the other two by taking the Due Diligence principle as a red line through the
whole agreement. It is a complete different standard than in the previous initiatives. Moreover, the
monitoring shows worth knowing different elements, particular the continuous monitoring and
knowledge building in a database in the SGT agreement. On main focus points the three initiatives cover
more or less the main ethic topics according to the Triple Bottom Line theory of Elkington (1998),
around planet and people. Furthermore, the ethic stage of the Model of Carroll (1991) is visible in the
main focus points of all three initiatives. The SGT agreement has included one new special focus point
namely animal welfare. Unique is the SGT agreement in the due diligence principle. This principle is the
core of the agreement mission statement. Also the stakeholder interviews will elaborate (section 3.3) on
the special attractiveness of this principle. It offers a vision for the future, for enterprises and for all
other stakeholders.
3.2 New CSR behavior put into practice since the enrollment in SGT Agreement
This section presents the results of the questionnaire that was sent to the Dutch garment enterprises
affiliated with the SGT Agreement on what new corporate social behavior they put into practice since
their enrollment in the SGT Agreement. Moreover, the section starts with general background
information of the Dutch enterprises.
20
General background information of the Dutch enterprises
The first annual report (2016/2017) of the SGT agreement, published by the SER (2017), shows where
the production locations of Dutch enterprises are. Figure 2 shows that most of the production takes
place in China (74 %) and in Turkey and India (61 %). The compilation of such a production location list is
an important first goal that the SGT agreement had to be achieved, which is emphasized in one of the
interviews: “Well, I think that's a great achievement, because they were a whole bunch of enterprises,
who had never done that before and they had to dive completely in their supply chain.” (J. Huber,
personal communication., April 16, 2018).
Figure 2. Production locations of the Dutch enterprises participating in the SGT Agreement.
To investigate whether the new SGT agreement had influence on the policies and practices of the
enterprises, a request to participate in this research was sent to the 65 garment enterprises that signed
the SGT Agreement. The response was ten enterprises. Nevertheless this response is entirely usable as
results in a continuous process of new steps of improvement of corporate social behavior of the
enterprises.
All ten enterprises are independent enterprises. By size one enterprise is small, with less than
ten employees, four enterprises are middle sized, with 10-100 employees and five enterprises large,
with more than 100 employees.
The main reasons for the enterprises to participate in the SGT Agreement were a) jointly purchase of
sustainable clothing; b) strive for human rights such as the right to earning a living wage and to have no
child labour, and c) purchase of clothing from enterprises with less negative environmental impact. Two
of the enterprises mentioned cooperation with trade unions as an advantage. The participating
enterprises saw other advantages as well, like ‘the whole chain of production- and supply enterprises
becomes more transparent’ (9 out of 10 enterprises), and ‘we get more information about sustainability
of production- and supply enterprises (social aspects and environmental impact)’ (7 out of 10
enterprises) and ‘our enterprise is therefore well known to the public’ (6 out of 10 enterprises).
21
Figure 3. New Corporate Social Behavior.
Before the enterprises decided to participate in the SGT Agreement five of them were already engaged
with CSR, the other five little to very little. Figure 3 shows the results on the new CSR behavior the
enterprises put into practice since participating in the SGT Agreement. Eight of the ten enterprises made
an Annual Report for the AGT secretariat at the end of the first year. All of them made either a Project
Plan or a whole new CSR policy. Other policy practices the enterprises answered were ‘introduction of a
Code of Conduct’ (2 out of 10), ‘introduction of a monitor for the new activities’ (3 out of 10) and ‘to
enroll an audit’ (2 out of 10). The most proud are some enterprises on the mapping of the production
chain. Only seven of the ten enterprises answered this question, where one enterprise critically
suggested that “CSR policies are not set up as something to be proud of, but as a matter of civilization.” I
have to state that the question was not intended in such a way. It was meant as a platform for the
enterprises to give insight on how far they have come on CSR behavior. Nevertheless, for the enterprise
which was already engaged with all the matters concerning CSR, it is a logical statement to make.
The SGT Agreement has formulated ten focus points on all three levels of the TBL theory
(Elkington, 1998): people, planet, profit. When the enterprises were asked in the questionnaire to
prioritize, they indicate that their purchasers are still guided by the price of the garment products in the
first place (= profit), in the second place by the social conditions under which the garment is produced
like living wages and no child labour (= people) and in the third place by environmental impact (=
planet). enterprises could rank the answers from 1 to 3, with the highest ranking going to price and the
lowest ranking to environmental aspects. Thus, the respondents prioritize in their firm purchase policy in
the following order: profit, people, and planet. This is somehow in contrast with the outcome of the
interview with the representative of the garment enterprises in the SER steering committee. He
indicated that, listening to the consumers as an important stakeholder group, most ‘questions’ raised by
consumers are about animal welfare and child labor. On the other hand the consumers concern about a
living wage is low. He attributes this to the fact that animal welfare and child labor are more
recognizable for the consumer (J. Van Dijken, personal communication, May 31, 2018).
One of the new practices under the SGT Agreement is the implementation of special policies in
the garment and textile supply contracts on the issues of living wage, child labour, environmental impact
or other sustainable issues. Eight out of ten enterprises made policies on environmental impact. Seven
22
out of ten enterprises also made policies on child labor and living wage. Two enterprises mention they
take up all 9 focus points up in their subcontracting contracts. Since all the issues cannot all be
addressed at once, all enterprises have to perform a risk assessment and prioritize on what they are
going to address first (J. Van Dijken, personal communication, May 31, 2018). It needs to be taken into
account that two of the enterprises already had policies on most of the focus points and thus it cannot
be stated that they were made because of signing the SGT Agreement.
The enterprises were also asked which specific new projects they have developed in the context
of the SGT Agreement towards or in cooperation with production- and supply enterprises in production
countries or with local authorities and with local NGOs in those countries. One enterprise addressed a
project focused on less environmental damage by less use of water, energy and chemicals. A second
enterprise mentions a project directed to less use of chemicals in process of coloring textiles. Another
enterprise addressed contacts with local production managers in the countries of production on
improvement directly on the work floor and one enterprise is busy with a project that specifically tackles
child labor. Two enterprises are busy with a project searching for sustainable vibers. One enterprise
mentioned that they have projects running prior to the SGT Agreement. Two enterprises mentioned
they have more than one project running5.
All ten enterprises (strongly) agreed on the statement “When purchasing clothing, an
entrepreneur must also take into account the violation of human rights in the factories where the
clothing is made”. Reflecting back on this question it is a quite obvious statement to agree with. It would
have been more interesting to state if all entrepreneurs are actually taking into account the violation of
human rights in production factories and to see how many enterprises agree or disagree with this
statement.
The organization for societal responsible entrepreneurship, MVO Nederland (2015), states that
corporate social behavior leads to higher profits and absence due to illness. Rather on the questionnaire
statement “enterprises that are very active in CSR have lower illness absenteeism” most enterprises (7 of
10) have no opinion on that (yet), two enterprises agree with the statement and one disagrees.
In the SGT Agreement the Dutch government is one of the important stakeholders that have to
play a role in enhancement of the CSR in the garment and textile chain. Since 2010 the Dutch
government has a sustainability purchasing policy and is since 2016 affiliated with the SGT Agreement
and is the prominent financer (J. Huber, personal communication, April 16, 2018). The enterprises in the
questionnaire were asked if they agree with the statement “The governments should only buy
sustainable clothing and textile (e.g. army uniforms)”. Seven enterprises (strongly) agree, two have no
opinion and one enterprise strongly disagrees with the statement. Mr. Plat (FNV) also agrees with this
statement: “I was someone who brought this under attention in the past when we had to come up with
new uniforms for the army. We have a very good uniform producer in the Netherlands, but nevertheless
China was chosen. And China is not well known for its recognition of trade union rights, or its working
conditions, or its human rights. We have seen that if you are going to support things like that in those
countries, abuses occur more and more and I think that the Dutch government, also with its procurement
policy, must start looking at if it does indeed meet the IMVO requirements that we find so important.
5 Unfortunately the option to select more than one answer was not available, thus with this question it is possible that enterprises have more than one specific project running.
23
That is something that we have contributed to the covenant and has been included.” (J. Plat, personal
communication, May 9, 2018).
In line with this, enterprises were asked if they think that the Dutch government in her
international trade (business) missions should bring to the fore the SGT Agreement conditions (e.g. on
social issues and environmental impact). Most enterprises (9 out of 10) agree or strongly agree with this
idea; one enterprise has no opinion about this.
The NGO Clean Clothes Campaign is strongly oriented to increase the public consciousness on
sustainability improvements in the garment and textile industry (social and environmental impact). The
enterprises are asked if they think this NGO will bring in the long run an important contribution to the
garment and textile sector. Eight of the ten enterprises agree or strongly agree. Two have no opinion on
the role of this NGO. Six of the ten enterprises commented on this question. One states that it will take a
long time before the consumer will put sustainability before fashion. Another enterprise states that the
public awareness is mostly one-sided on the supply chain and that the consumer behavior is
underexposed. This is in line with one of the other enterprises stating “put your money where your
mouth is” meaning that the consumer can be aware, but has to pay a higher price for the products in
order to create a more sustainable fashion industry. Another enterprise states that consumer awareness
is crucial when it comes to taking steps towards a sustainable garment and textile industry. The
consumer has to comprehend what CSR is and which dilemmas are concerned with it. In addition, it
could help if enterprises were positively mentioned in the context of CSR. This question of the survey did
not intent to answer the sub-question. Nevertheless, it does contribute to the knowledge that CSR could
be improved by consumer awareness.
Since the SGT Agreement is a MSI, the enterprises were asked what they consider as the main
advantages on the fact that all these stakeholders are on board. Eight of the ten enterprises find it an
advantage that a great variety of knowledge is shared by the different stakeholders. The second
advantage seven out of ten enterprises indicate is the huge shared network on different levels of the
sector, of the government, of the society and in production countries. The third advantage that seven
enterprises state on this MSI is the joint strength small enterprises can develop towards the bigger
enterprises inside and outside the sector. Another two enterprises find the joint access to the mass
media an advantage of this MSI. On the question if too much transparency between enterprises (due to
the SGT Agreement) could also be a disadvantage, only one enterprise indicates this, the other nine do
not regard this as a disadvantage.
The enterprises were asked which stakeholders, in their opinion, are the most important for the
implementation of the SGT Agreement. They were asked to rank the stakeholders from one to five. In
the first place the purchasing enterprises are the most important according to the results. Second, the
government (SER Secretariat). Third, the sales enterprises and NGOs and last, the trade unions. Three
enterprises count the government with the SER secretariat and the sales organizations as the main
stakeholders in this case. Two enterprises rather indicate that the buyer’s enterprises, the retailers, are
the main stakeholders as it comes to implementing the SGT agreement. Moreover, one enterprise gives
the NGOs the most prominent role of whole SGT agreement implementation process. Most enterprises
don’t deem a central role for the trade unions in this process, although the interviews with the
stakeholders will give a quite different view on this (section 3.3). On the question which NGOs
24
contribute to a considerable degree to improvements in the Garment and Textile sector, enterprises
mentioned the FWF, the Clean Clothes Campaign and the NGO Stop Child Labour.
Given the very short period the SGT Agreement is in place (nearly 2 years) and enterprises had
not yet much opportunity to show far reaching sustainability improvements, it is interesting to see that
the ten enterprises show a variety of activities: new project activities, new CSR policies, action plans and
codes of conduct were launched. Moreover, enterprises address CSR monitoring and audit activities,
annual reporting, and also the appointment of a CSR official in the organization. These are the concrete
policies and activities addressed by the ten enterprises as participants of the SGT Agreement. Some
enterprises indicate that they already did CSR policies and that it is difficult to distinguish what was
really new since the signed the SGT agreement, because it is an ongoing process in their enterprise.
Other results can be summarized on the level of enterprise attitude change regarding focus
point issues in the SGT Agreement. The enterprises will focus on the improvement of living wages and
child labour and on due diligence towards environmental damage in the production (by less use of
water, chemicals and energy). Some enterprises will address these issues in there new purchasing
contracts, others in their contracts with locals in the production enterprises in the production countries.
The enterprises mention a variety of advantages of the new SGT Agreement: a) transparency in
information about production- and supply enterprises, b) increase in sustainability knowledge, c)
developing joint strength, d) new networks in the sector, e) new networks with the government and
with society via the NGOs. The enterprises see a special contributive role for the NGOs a) as specialized
knowledge providers and b) as attitude changers via the media to the general public. The Government
as a stakeholder should - according to the ten enterprises - foremost play the role of the great example
in particular as a big purchaser of sustainable textile and clothing (e.g. army, police, border control,
security uniforms) and as a figurehead in e.g. international trade mission by addressing the focus point
issues of the SGT Agreement.
3.3 Stakeholder assessment on the CSR promoting role of public- and civil society
In this section the results of the interviews with five key persons of the different the stakeholder parties
are presented. The results will provide information on how the different stakeholders involved in the SGT
Agreement assess the role of the government and the civil society in promoting CSR, including the NGOs
and the trade unions. What do the stakeholders see as added value, as positive developments concerning
the SGT agreement and what are the problems or challenges of the SGT agreement?
The interviews were held with one person from the government, one from the SER-secretariat (former
from a garment industry organization), one person from the Dutch trade union FNV, one from a garment
enterprise and one from a garment industry organization. The first interview was conducted with Jos
Huber from The Ministry of Trade. She has been involved with the garment and textile sector since the
Tazreen disaster in 2012 and also when the Rana Plaza disaster happened in 2013. She was then
situated in Bangladesh for six months in order to regulate the financing of a project of the ILO after the
disaster. She was also part of the first Action Plan in the garment and textile sector, which was
presented in 2014. The various parties involved had already the feeling that this action plan was in fact
not good enough, since the NGOs were not involved. Therefore the concept of a CSR agreement was
suggested, where all relevant stakeholders parties should be on board. Huber’s role in the establishment
25
of the agreement was to convene; to listen to all the stakeholder parties and listen to what they thought
what was important and at the same time to represent the minister’s will to present to the parliament.
The second interview was with Jef Wintermans of the SER secretariat. In 2002 he became
director of Modint, one of the branches organizations participating in the agreement. He also became
active within the FWF. In 2005-2006 there was an increased interest in sustainability, environment and
social aspects by the members of FWF. The enterprises, producers and suppliers started asking more
and more critical questions about issues in the global garment chain. Therefore, Wintermans wanted to
do something and start discussions about difficult issues with different stakeholders and with the board
of industry organizations and with member enterprises. The FWF is the front runner in the field of
corporate social responsibility in the garment sector, but even this organization can only covers part of
the palette of problems in the industry. After a couple of years it became clear that the FWF could not
offer solutions for all the different problems in every garment enterprise. Either the garment enterprises
found their problems too complicated to handle or they were too small as an enterprise or their
purchase model would not allow it. Therefore as an industry organization (Modint) we felt the necessity
to search for a broader solution. This discussion started already in 2007 and the new vision was
approved by the members and in our board. In 2011 this new vision was shared with the other
branches, INretail and VGT, and resulted in a vision for the whole garment and textile sector. In 2012 the
three industry organizations announced a National Plan of Approach which attracted various new
stakeholders. Six months later minister Ploumen developed the policy to establish such type of
covenants like the National Plan within various sectors and with a positive advice from the SER. This
policy had been put in practice with the SGT agreement as the first covenant established. At the
moment Wintermans is the chairman of the Steering Committee of the SGT agreement, who is
independent of the parties involved in the agreement (J. Wintermans, personal communication, May 3,
2018).
The third interview was conducted with Jacob Plat of the trade union FNV. He was part of the process of
the establishment of the SGT Agreement. He has been active in the MITT (Mode Interieur Textile and
Carpet Industry), which is part of the manufacturing sector. Ever since, he has been concerned with and
involved in the abuses in the garment and textile sector. First he was active within the FWF and
gradually, via the Action Plan, he passed on to the SGT Agreement process. On the agreement he
comments: “with the agreement we are trying to put more pressure on the due diligence of enterprises”.
The negotiation process of the agreement went under a pleasant ambience according to Plat. Everyone
on board wanted to make progress to create a more sustainable garment and textile sector (J. Plat,
personal communication, May 9, 2018).
The fourth interview was held with Shirley Schijvens from Schijvens Corporate Fashion, one of
the Dutch enterprises that signed the SGT Agreement. She is the representative of the Dutch garment
enterprises in the Steering Committee of the SER. Within her enterprise she has been proactive on
sustainability for years, thus it was not a surprise that her enterprise would immediately sign the SGT
Agreement. Her enterprise is one of the so-called front runners in the field of recycling. The firm is also
part of various working groups that deal intensively with sustainability and environmental issues.
Schijvens Corporate Fashion was the first enterprise to sign the SGT Agreement. She didn’t take part in
the process towards the establishment of the agreement (S. Schijvens, personal communication, May
23, 2018).
26
The last interview was held with Jeroen van Dijken of the industry organization VGT. The past six
years he has been working at the VGT. When he started working at the VGT there were already plans for
an “Action Plan” on the table, due to a Covenant Proposal voted on in the House of representatives
(Tweede Kamer). This whole process accelerated when Van Dijken joined the VGT. In the following six
months they started drawing up a plan on behalf of the garment and textile sector, which was presented
in the summer of 2013. With the help of minister Ploumen this resulted in a covenant, which Van Dijken
called “The Action Plan 2.0”. He was also involved in the KPMG6 research, commissioned by the
Minister, to investigate abuses in the garment and textile sector. Van Dijken was involved in the advice
of the SER and finally during the process of negotiations on the SGT Agreement. He states that the
process went smoothly, because everyone knew each other from previous negotiations and meetings
between stakeholders. Currently, Van Dijken is part of the Steering Committee of the SGT Agreement on
behalf of the industry organizations, Modint, VGT and INretail (J. Van Dijken, personal communication,
May 31, 2018).
3.3.1 Assessing the role of the government in promoting CSR
It is innovative that the Dutch government is part of the SGT Agreement. This was not the case in
previous CSR initiatives. Mrs. Huber would not necessary state that the role of the state is crucial in this
agreement. However, it is necessary to have a good project manager for the execution and enforcement
of the agreement. Very important according to Huber is that the government finances the project
manager for this CSR initiative. Another role of the government is that it took responsibility for the
implementation of the AGT secretariat at the SER. For the enrollment all the stakeholders played an
important role according to Huber. It is indicated what exactly the enterprises have to get realized in the
first and second year of the agreement and also if they have actually complied with this. It is mostly the
SER secretariat who has the monitoring role in this agreement and they report the results to the
Steering Committee. In the Steering Committee all the parties that signed the agreement are
represented by two members of each party. In addition, the SGT Agreement has a complaints and
disputes commission, which is an independent body where the parties can also turn to when an issue
occurs (J. Huber, personal communication, April 16, 2018). In theory this commission can go to court
when one of the enterprises failed to do its due diligence, but this has not happened yet.
In contrast to the statement above, Mr. Plat (personal communication, May 9, 2018) argues that
the government is crucial for the binding factor for legislation. This is something that has to be
implemented by the government, but is not present at the moment, because this is very difficult to
accomplish. There is also dissension inside the governments about whether or not legislation should be
introduced on this type of multi-stakeholder initiatives in industrial sectors. However, even if there
would be a perfect legislation, if the monitoring is poorly or non-existent, it has no decisive role. “If the
monitoring is insufficient it is unnecessary to introduce legislation, because none of the enterprises will
feel the need to comply” Plat states. For the future it is important that EU legislation will be established,
making it easier for countries to work together on the enhancement of CSR, so that not every country
has to start from scratch (J. Plat, personal communication, May 9, 2018).
6 KPMG operates as a global network of independent member firms offering audit, tax and advisory services; by working closely
with clients and helping them to reduce risks and seize opportunities (KPMG, 2018).
27
In line with the statement above, Mrs. Schijvens (personal communication, May 23, 2018)
argues that the government is essential for promoting CSR. In her opinion they may be concerned with it
even more. First of all they finance the agreement and second of all, they have the role of
communicating with the consumer (e.g the Dutch population). The communication with the consumer is
still up for improvement, because consumers are barely included on this subject. She states: “the
government should make the consumer understand why and how the garment and textile industry is so
polluting”. Moreover, “clothes should be labeled on the basis of how harmful they are to the
environment. There is still not enough transparency about this”. The government has the leverage on
enterprises that they could go for name shaming in the media, in order to achieve the promotion of CSR
within the enterprise in question (S. Schijvens, personal communication, May 23, 2018).
In the interview with Mr. Wintermans (personal communication, May 3, 2018) he stated: “all
pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others”. Meaning that depending on the situation and
context of the issue it is possible that the government indeed is the most important stakeholder, but it
could also be one of the trade unions, industry organization or NGO which has the decisive role. For
example, if the government in Kippur, India decides to lower the minimum wage, while enterprises that
signed the SGT Agreement are just trying to work together to increase the minimum wage for laborers
in the region, this results in a conflict. When the purchasing enterprises go to the local government, they
would probably be ignored. However, if the Dutch government comes knocking on the door of the
Indian government, it creates a whole different dialogue. In this particular case the Dutch government
does have the crucial role. In another context it could be a trade union that succeeds to accomplish a
Global Framework Agreement via the connection with the international trade union Industrial Europe or
Industrial Global Union. In this case the government is not involved in the case, thus Wintermans argues
that it is incorrect to state that the government is always crucial in every situation (J. Wintermans,
personal communication, May 3, 2018).
In line with what Mr. Plat (FNV) said, Mr. Van Dijken states: “I don’t think the government wants
to mold this agreement into a concrete law and to sufficiently monitor the law, because it is very difficult
to do so and it’s difficult for the government to take responsibility for this. The SGT Agreement is most
certainly compelling and not without obligation. If for some reason the covenant isn’t going to fulfill its
goals, the question “what now?” arises and I don’t think anybody has an answer to this. It is easier said
than done to create legislation on this subject, but it might be in the back of their [government] heads.”
The government would rather not have to introduce legislation and at the moment the covenants are
the most compelling method there is in order to promote CSR according to Van Dijken (personal
communication, May 31, 2018).
3.3.2 Assessing the role of the civil society in promoting CSR
According to Mrs. Huber (personal communication, April 16, 2018) the NGOs state that they are part of
the agreement to help with fulfillment of due diligence. They usually are not exactly sure how to position
themselves. On the one hand, NGOs would like help the Dutch enterprises. On the other hand, they can
also state “that due diligence of yours [the enterprise] could be done way better!” The pressure of the
NGOs is felt by the enterprises. The NGOs played an important role earlier in 2012 in tightening up the
Action Plan. For example the NGO the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), played a prominent role in the
28
establishment of the agreement in order to put pressure on enterprises in making their production
locations transparent. Unfortunately in the end the Clean Clothes Campaign did not sign the SGT
Agreement because CCC thought the agreement did not go far enough (J. Huber, personal
communication, April 16, 2018) and because CCC took the interesting position that it could be more
powerful staying outside of the agreement (J. Plat, personal communication, May 9, 2018). The CCC
works still closely together with the SER secretariat as Wintermans explains. From his perspective CCC
could do better work and put more pressure in their external role than it could have done as
stakeholder of the SGT agreement. The NGOs together with the government are wondering “we have a
couple of these CSR agreements in various sectors, but does it achieve what we expected beforehand?”
The expectations of the politics are not a representation of reality, because you cannot achieve
everything in one day. But step by step, day by day progress in the garment and textile sector is made
according to the FNV represented (J. Plat, personal communication, May 9, 2018).
Just like the government, NGOs and trade unions can go to the complaints and disputes
committee to mention their complaints about certain garment enterprises that do not fulfill their due
diligence. This committee could in practice go to court (S. Schijvens, personal communication, May 23,
2018) but this has not happened so far. According to Schijvens all the stakeholders have an equal role in
promoting CSR. For example, NGOs have the obligation to participate in projects when they are asked to
do so. The relationship between all the stakeholders is positive. Schijvens (personal communication,
May 23, 2018) quotes: “There is a lot of respect between the participating parties. The communication is
good. NGOs want to see progress in one day, but understand that this isn’t possible. Everything happens
in good consultation, which is the basis of progressive collaboration.”
According to Mr. Wintermans (personal communication, May 3, 2018) the civil society is
important for promoting CSR because they can deploy their networks and international connections.
The NGOs and industry organizations can inform these international connections on what the
participating enterprises are doing and can support them when they cannot address the right level. For
example, in India with human rights organizations or trade unions. Because enterprises “do want to do
something about freedom of association in their factory, but they don’t know anyone from the local
trade unions. Well, the Dutch NGOs and trade unions do know.” This way the stakeholders can be linked
to one another (J. Wintermans, personal communication, May 3, 2018).
In line with the previous stakeholders, Mr. Van Dijken considers the role of the industry
organizations important for promoting CSR. The enterprises that are member of the industry
organizations are not automatically bound to the SGT Agreement and are not obligated to sign. Of
course, the industry organizations try their best to pass it on. “By signing the agreement we, as industry
organizations, take the duty upon us to carry out the obligations of the agreement in affiliating our
members. Thus, trying to let them sign as well”. Moreover, the industry organizations facilitate
masterclasses about living wages and projects on knowledge sharing. Van Dijken is busy with lobbying
and advocating the SGT Agreement and maintaining sufficient support. At INretail they are busy with
more concrete projects on Child Labour and at Modint they have the expertise in chemicals and raw
materials, thus they give masterclasses and trainings on those topics (J. Van Dijken, personal
communication, May 31, 2018).
29
The success of soft regulation
The SGT agreement is based on voluntary participation. It has a kind of soft law character. It refers to
guidelines, policy declarations and codes of conduct which set standards of conduct. The interviewed
stakeholders are all hitherto satisfied with the voluntary character and the ‘soft’ regulations approach.
They indicate that the sector is too complex and too diverse to make enhancement by mandatory
regulations on this moment. On the other hand, the interviewees state that the agreement is a creative
attempt to commit enterprises to the soft regulations in a mutual learning process. It makes the
agreement more of their own and not something from outside that is imposed on them. According to
the interviewed stakeholders, this is an attractive learning process in which enterprises are sustainable
reminded by their own responsibility and accountability, to due diligence in all steps of their business.
Evaluation
The results from the stakeholder interviews are used for evaluating the SGT agreement. The four criteria
of O’Rourke (2006) are applied. He used these for the evaluation of the US and EU non-governmental
regulations. We can state that the first criterion of O’Rourke, ‘substantive participation of local
stakeholders’ matches very well with the findings of our interviews. The interviewees all mention that
one of the most important reasons why the SGT agreement came into being is that the stakeholders
worked together already for longer times on different occasions. They knew each other already. The
criterion public transparency of methods and findings only partly matches with the findings of the
stakeholder interviews. The SGT agreement has chosen for transparency of the production location list,
but for secrecy about the related buyers enterprises, retailers and branches. The choice for secrecy is for
clearly good reasons according to one of the interviews: otherwise CRS improvement would be very
difficult. On this point Duval & Partiti (2018) conclude critical that the SGT agreement bears the risk of
falling short on the UNGPs strive for transparency and public disclosure.
On the third criterion of O’Rourke, whether there are mechanisms to bring market pressures to
TNCs, the interviewed stakeholders agree. They see these mechanisms basically indirectly by the due
diligence concept. The NGOs and trade union have their own market pressure roles, according the
stakeholders. This was exactly the reason why the NGO Clear Clothing Campagne didn’t sign the
agreement. CCC wanted to continue with naming and shaming, as the stakeholder stated. The fourth
criterion of O’Rourke, multi-stakeholder support for problem solving within factories and the global
value chain, is clearly found in the interview results, for example by the use of the unique and extensive
networks of all stakeholder parties together. In some abuse cases action can only be taken if all
networks (in the producing country) are utilized and information from all stakeholders (in the SER
database) is available. The SGT secretariat is mentioned several times for their direct or indirect support
of enterprises in trouble or enterprises looking for a solution. Reflecting from the perspective of Vogel
(2010), he would probably evaluate the SGT agreement as too weak in enforcement regulatory policies.
Vogel (2010) studied many non-governmental sector social responsibility initiatives, and concluded that
effective state-based and enforced regulatory policies, both at national and international levels.
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Discussion and Conclusions
In this chapter the main results on the three sub-questions are summarized and conclusions are drawn to
provide an answer to the main research question. The results will be related to the theoretical
framework. Moreover, limitations are addressed as well as possible future research.
Main differences
The first question, how the SGT Agreement distinguishes itself from previous CSR initiatives is answered
by a comparative analysis with the earlier garment business sector initiative the BSCI and the multi-
stakeholder initiative of the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF). The most eye catching innovative feature of
the SGT agreement is the choice for the integral use of the standard of Due Diligence. This guiding
principle steers to the commitment of enterprises on self-reflection and self-assessment to the ethical
standards of the UNGPs in every step in their production and supply chain. Knowledge about the
principle and the application of the principle of due diligence acquires of enterprises to follow training
programs (Annual Report SGT 2016/2017, p.31). The importance and the scope of due diligence was
mentioned in all the interviews with the stakeholders, sometimes with fostering enthusiasm, because it
gives enterprises a mission and vision, even a narrative to convince their people, sales business or
productions enterprises to commit to improvements of CSR.
Another remarkable difference between the SGT agreement and the two previous initiatives is
that the SGT agreement uses monitoring as a permanent process. New policies and practices are directly
registered in the SER database, as well as is new information on production enterprises in the garment
value chain. All enterprises and all stakeholders contribute to this permanent database building, and
they may use it freely, without the possibility of tracing the data back to the enterprises. The BSCI on the
contrary uses self-assessment audits, which are snapshots, assessments in one specific moment, and
without public disclosure. FWF does self-assessment audits as well as verification audits and with public
disclosure. Concerning the focus points in the three initiatives the SGT Agreement distinguishes itself by
two new focus points: raw materials and animal welfare. It was due to the hard work of some NGOs to
get these focus points in the agreement, according to one of the interviewees. For the rest all three
initiatives cover more or less the same focus points, addressing human rights and social and
environmental impact. BSCI has two extra focus points on ethical business behavior and on special
protection for young workers.
New policies and Practices
The second question addressed the new CSR policies and practices of enterprises that signed the SGT
agreement. The results on improving CSR since the enterprises enrollment in the SGT Agreement are
modest. Nonetheless even in this very short period progress has been made in different respects. The
ten enterprises that answered the questionnaire show CSR improvements by new project activities, new
CSR policies and action plans, and by formulating Codes of Conduct. Moreover, enterprises mention
they do CSR regular monitoring and audit activities as well as annual reporting. Also the appointment of
a CSR official in the organization is mentioned. These are the concrete policies and activities addressed
by the ten enterprises participating in the SGT Agreement, whereas the annual reporting for the SER
secretariat was the most successful one, which is also confirmed by stakeholders.
31
Other results from the questionnaire that show improvement in CSR can be summarized at the
level of value changes towards CSR. Enterprises made steps addressing the values in the ethical level of
Carroll's pyramid: be ethical, obligation to do what is right, just, and fair and avoid harm (Carroll, 1997,
p.42) enterprises show improvement on the focus point of the SGT Agreement: living wages, child
labour and environmental damage (less use of water, chemicals and energy). Some enterprises address
these in their new purchasing contracts, others in their contracts with locals in the production
enterprises in the production countries. Reflecting from the Triple Bottom Line theory of Elkington
(1998) it can be concluded that besides the profit orientation, the enterprises in this thesis associate the
SGT agreement primarily with corporate responsibility for ‘planet’ issues (environmental impact) and
less with ‘people’ issues (living wage, child labor).
The enterprises mention advantages of being affiliated with the SGT Agreement like
transparency in information about production- and supply enterprises. Other advantages are the
increase in sustainable knowledge and entering new networks in the sector, with government officials
and with NGOs. The due diligence concept brings more ownership for the agreement. The enterprises
consider a contributive role for the NGOs as specific knowledge providers and as attitude changers of
the general public via the media. The government as a stakeholder should - according to the enterprises
- foremost play the pivotal role of the great example in particular as a purchaser of sustainable textile
and clothing (e.g. army, police, border control, security uniforms) and as a figurehead in e.g.
international trade mission by addressing the core issues of the SGT Agreement on social issues and
environmental impact. Similar views are expressed by the interviewed stakeholders.
Role of stakeholders
The third question in this thesis addressed the importance of the different stakeholder parties in this
multi-stakeholder garment sector agreement. According to the four indicators of Steurer (2010) to
assess the role of governments in enhancing CSR (awareness for CSR, transparency, socially responsible
investment and leading by example) the results of the interviews show that the stakeholders are critical
on the leadership role of the Dutch government (e.g. as a purchaser of uniforms and textiles). Some
would also like to see that the Dutch government runs faster to upscale the SGT agreement to the
European level and that the government brings the agreement into relevant negotiation tables during
Dutch Trade missions (awareness raising and social responsible investment). The indicator, the
transparency role of the government, is critically addressed by two stakeholders. They wonder why the
government does not inform the public more clearly about the abuses in the garment sector (like child
labor, wages, pollution) and does not advice how to contribute to improvements. Applying the five roles
of government in CSR of Ward (2004), mandating, facilitating, partnering, endorsing and demonstrating,
the interview results display clearly the facilitating role of the government by paying the AGT secretariat
at the SER, a program manager and the belonging activities. The government was the initiator and
facilitator of SER services. Also the important endorsing role of Minister Ploumen of the Ministry of
Trade and Development by implementing policies on this type of covenants was of indispensable value
according to the interviewees. The mandating role is not mentioned and on the demonstrating role
most interviewed stakeholders are more critical and mention ways for improvement.
Applying O’Rourke’s criteria for effective non-governmental regulation, the interview results
show similar importance for the criteria substantive participation of local stakeholders and multi-
32
stakeholder support for problem solving within factories and global supply chains. Only partly or no
support was shown for the criteria public transparency findings and the market pressures were
evaluated as a case for independent NGOs. In conclusion the reflection of theoretical frameworks show
that the SGT agreement can be evaluated positively on most of the criteria, but it has also some clear
restrictions like the partial public disclosure of monitored information from the enterprises, like the very
limited role of the government so far as a forehead in purchasing of clean clothes uniforms and textiles
and as a forehead in information dissemination to the public on abuses in the garment sector, and in
advising the public in improvements.
Summarizing the stakeholder interviews, the role of the NGOs is seen as crucial in the process
prior to the agreement, in particular their contribution to the focus points (e.g. animal awareness), their
knowledge, their appeals to enterprises on abuses, and in their role in advancing the general public
awareness. The research work of the NGOs behind the scenes gives them an important alert role.
Remarkable is that the stakeholders regard much more importance for the role of trade unions than the
results of the questionnaire present. The stakeholder interviews show several important roles for the
trade union, like pushing living wage in the global garment chain as a focus point. Also their global
strong network role is of crucial interest. Trade unions have an organizational network everywhere. This
network can be small sometimes, but their role is somehow formalized in most countries. It makes
operating on abuses in this complex sector possible, with mostly small and middle size enterprises.
In conclusion, based on the interviews, questionnaires and desk research in this thesis, the
results show substantially that the SGT Agreement contributes to improvements of CSR. Thus, the thesis
statement that the SGT agreement is supposed to improve CSR is largely confirmed. This research has
shown that the agreement has an unique approach, because of the permanent monitoring process, the
involvement of 11 stakeholder parties and because of the due diligence concept. The developments
towards the SGT agreement and the new policies and practices since then show that the enrollment the
functioning of the SGT agreement hitherto is mostly a learning process. Important seem to acquire as
many as possible enterprises which are and will be actively involved in providing information, action
plans and projects. The due diligence is a strong driver in this process. According to the interviewed
stakeholders this mutual learning process is a creative process for enterprises and all other stakeholders
The interviewees see this learning process in fact as much more important than enforcing instruments
(like the complaints and disputes committee). Such instruments are reserved for extreme abuse cases.
33
Limitations and future research
One of the limitations of this thesis is the response of the enterprises to the request to participate in this
research. Besides that, enterprises have full agendas and don’t prioritize a bachelor student’s
questionnaire. In the context of the permanent monitoring by the AGT secretariat, it is probably asking
too much of the same enterprises to answer questions they already answered in the SGT self-
assessment. For future research the database of the AGT secretariat becomes a rich resource.
One of the limitations in this thesis is that the consumers were not studied. They are also not a
stakeholder in the SGT Steering Committee, which was also criticized by one of the interviewed
enterprise stakeholders. When I realized this, I launched a questionnaire for consumers about their
values on ‘clean clothes’ and their awareness on issues in the garment sector. Due to time constraints I
could not expand my conceptual framework and not provide an adequate analysis of the data of the 92
consumer questionnaires. Nevertheless, it could be a good topic for another paper in the future, which
addresses the awareness and potential power of the public in enhancing corporate social responsibility.
In conclusion, the SGT Agreement is, based on the results of this thesis research, an innovative
and promising multi-stakeholder initiative. The monitoring by the SER will deliver a rich database. With
my own modest gathering of data and with the analysis for this thesis I hope to have contributed
modestly to the growing body of knowledge on improving CSR initiative and therewith indirectly to a
better world in the end.
34
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Appendix A.
The garment enterprises that are participants of the SGT Agreement and member of the FWF or BSCI.
FWF BSCI SGT
Claudia Sträter (FNG Group)
Expresso (FNG Group)
Fristads Kansas Benelux B.V.
HAVEP
Heigo
Kings of Indigo
La Dress
Schijvens Corporate Fashion
StarSock
Tricorp Workwear
missing 2 (12 in total)7
Alsico
Company Fits BV
Costes (Sting House of Brands)
Coolcat (Coolinvestments)
de Bijenkorf
EURETCO LABEL COMPANY
Yongo Europe BV (3x)
HEMA BV
Jolo Fashion
Just Brands
Varova Fashion BV (7x)
Marc O’Polo
Miss Etam Services B.V.
Netraco Garments BV
Noppies Task International BV
Prénatal Moeder en Kind BV
Ten Cate
The Sting House of Brands
B.V.
Van der Erve
Wehkamp
missing 6 (34 in total)8
Alchemist | 4-7-2016
Alsico | 2-3-2018
Amantes Textiles BV | 22-8-2017
America Today (Coolinvestments)| 11-7-2016
Blue Ridge (WE Europe BV) | 4-7-2016
ByKay | 25-10-17
C.A.G. BV Gerlon | 20-7-2016
C&A | 4-7-2016
Claudia Sträter (FNG Group) | 4-7-2016
Coffers&Co (Van Es Home BV) | 4-7-2016
Company Fits BV | 4-7-2016
Coolcat (Coolinvestments) | 11-7-2016
Costes (Sting House of Brands) | 4-7-2016
Culture (ECC Couture BV) | 4-7-2016
de Bijenkorf | 7-7-2016
BIZNIZ Confectie BV | 8-7-2016
EE LABELS (Van Engelen & Evers BV) | 26-7-2016
Esprit Europe Services GmbH* | 24-4-2018
ESSENZA HOME (Van Es Home BV) | 4-7-2016
ETP | 14-11-2016
EURETCO LABEL COMPANY | 4-7-2016
Expresso (FNG Group) | 4-7-2016
FF (VOF Rademakers Fur & Fashion) | 18-7-2016
Fristads Kansas Benelux B.V. | 01-02-2018
Footbrands | 14-8-2017
Fully Fashion | 13-7-2016
G-Star Raw | 4-7-2016
GCM Henderson (Yongo Europe BV) | 4-7-2016
GCM Originals (Yongo Europe BV) | 4-7-2016
Goosecraft | 12-10-2017
Giovanni Capraro (ECC Couture BV) | 4-7-2016
Groenendijk | 4-7-2016
HAVEP | 4-7-2016
Heigo | 20-2-2017
HEMA | 4-7-2016
Hunkemöller | 26-7-2016
Jolo Fashion | 4-7-2016
Just Brands | 4-7-2016
Kings of Indigo (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
Knits Only | 16-1-2017
L.O.E.S. (Studio Anneloes BV) | 4-7-2016
La Dress | 4-7-2016
LC Kidswear | 4-7-2016
Manderley | 4-7-2016
Marc O’Polo (Van Es Home BV) | 4-7-2016
Mauritz & Zn | 30-11-2017
MC Collignon (M&M International Fashion B.V.) | 4-4-
2017
Nieuwenhuis Fashion | 8-3-2017
Noppies (GM BV) | 17-10-2017
O'Neill | 4-7-2016
Okimono | 11-7-2016
ONTOUR (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
Open32 (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
PIP Studio (Van Es Home BV) | 4-7-2016
Prénatal | 4-7-2016
ProGarments | 4-7-2016
PWG | 4-7-2016
Schijvens Corporate Fashion | 4-7-2016
Silver Creek (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
Sissy-Boy (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
StarSock | 13-11-2017
Summum | 4-7-2016
STEPS | 4-7-2016
Studio Anneloes | 4-7-2016
Ten Cate | 29-8-2016
The Sting | 4-7-2016
Tricorp Workwear | 4-7-2016
Tumble 'N Dry (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
Van der Erve | 25-8-2017
Vandyck | 20-4-2017
Vanilia | 4-7-2016
WE | 4-7-2016
Wehkamp | 9-8-2016
Wibra | 8-7-2016
Zeeman | 12-7-2016
7 Maybe these two have withdrawn from the agreement
8 Idem
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Meantime (Yongo Europe BV) | 4-7-2016
Men at Work (Varova Fashion BV) | 4-7-2016
Miss Etam | 4-7-2016
Netraco (Goosecraft) | 12-10-2017
Appendix B.
Itemlist interview
1. Hoe bent u betrokken geraakt bij dit convenant van de SGT?
2. Wat is het bijzondere aan dit contract vergeleken met eerdere contracten (andere corporate
social responsibility contracts)? Wat is nieuw?
3. Kunt aangeven wat die due diligence nu voor speciale betekenis heeft in dit contract?
4. Waarom kwam dat nog niet eerder voor in Nederlandse ketencontracten?
5. Als u zelf aan de tafel zat hoe is het proces verlopen?
6. Wat waren de belangrijkste hobbels/problemen om tot het convenant te komen
7. Kunt u daarvan voorbeelden geven ?
8. Wat was uw rol in de totstandkoming van het convenant?
9. Waren er grote tegenstellingen tussen de vakbonden en bedrijven en waar gingen die over?
10. Waren de bedrijven onderling sterk verdeeld of waren er groepen binnen de werkgevers?
11. Wie kwam het meest op voor de environmental impacts? Vakbonden, of de overheid.
12. Wat was de speciale inbreng van de ngo’s aan tafel? Voorbeelden
13. Wie heeft van alle stakeholders de meeste invloed op het tot stand komen van het convenant
gehad: was dat de overheid, waren dat de vakbonden, de bedrijven, ngo’s
14. In de literatuur heb ik gelezen dat de rol van de overheid altijd cruciaal is omdat die toch een
afspraken dwingender kan maken. Vindt u de rol van de overheid in dit convenant ook cruciaal
en waarom?
15. Kunt u voorbeelden geven? Bij handelsmissies? (Rutte in China) Speelt dit convenant dan al een
rol? Zijn ze er van bewust?
16. Welke middelen kan de overheid inzetten als bedrijven achterblijven bij hun afspraken?
17. De overheid als inkoper: bv. nieuwe legerpakken? Mag dit dan alleen als bedrijven voldoen aan
het convenant?
18. Vormt de overheid samen met ngo’s ook een extra kracht. Dat komt ook uit de literatuur, dat
juist samenwerking van Civil society en overheid, extra commitment geven aan bedrijven om
hun due diligence ten uitvoer te brengen.
19. Hoe hebben de bedrijven het tot nu toe gedaan volgens u? naar verwachting of tegenvallend?
Waarom?
20. Hoe verwacht u dat dit convenant zich zal ontwikkelen? Gaan meer bedrijven zich aansluiten.
21. Hebben al bedrijven opgezegd en waarom?
22. Is dit convenant een voorbeeld voor andere sectoren? En waarom?
23. Is er nog iets relevants dat u nog graag zou willen meegeven?
39
Appendix C.
1. Is uw bedrijf onderdeel van w
een brancheorganisatie
een zelfstandig bedrijf
een franchise bedrijf 2. Hoeveel werknemers heeft uw bedrijf? w
Minder dan 10 werknemers
10 tot 100 werknemers
Meer dan 100 werknemers 3. Wat is de jaarlijkse omzet van uw bedrijf ? w
4. Uw bedrijf is aangesloten bij het Convenant Duurzame Kleding en Textiel. Wat is/zijn daarvoor de belangrijkste redenen? (meerdere antwoorden mogelijk) w 1
ons bedrijf wil meer gezamenlijk als sector duurzame kleding inkopen
ons bedrijf wil gezamenlijk als sector streven naar geen kinderarbeid en wel een leefbaar loon in de productieketen
ons bedrijf wil gezamenlijk als sector streven naar kleding inkoop bij productie- en toeleveringsbedrijven met minder milieuschade
het voordeel is de samenwerking met vakbonden
Anders. nl...
5. Welke voordelen ziet u verder voor uw bedrijf in dit Convenant? (meerdere antwoorden mogelijk) w 3
de hele keten van productie- en toeleveringsbedrijven wordt veel transparanter
we krijgen meer informatie over de duurzaamheid (sociale aspecten en milieu impact) van productie en toeleveringsbedrijven
ons bedrijf staat daardoor beter bekend bij de consument
door aan maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen (MVO) te doen, behaalt ons bedrijf hogere winstmarges
daardoor kunnen we meer subsidies kunnen krijgen van de overheid (bv. voor participatie van gehandicapten)
Anders, nl.. (geef nadere toelichting)
6. Deed uw bedrijf, vóór dat het aangesloten werd bij het Convenant Kleding en Textiel al aan Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen (MVO)? w
Niets Weinig Enigzins Redelijk veel Heel veel
Niets Weinig Enigzins Redelijk veel Heel veel
Kunt u daarvan twee voorbeelden geven:
7. Welke nieuwe beleidspunten heeft uw bedrijf sinds de ondertekening van het Convenant in 2016 of 2017 aangepakt? w 2
40
Een heel nieuw MVO beleidsplan opgesteld
Projectplan gemaakt
Een MVO verantwoordelijke aangesteld
Gedragscode ingevoerd
Monitor voor de voorgenomen activiteiten ingevoerd
Audit gehouden in 2017/2018
Jaarverslag voor de SER secretariaat gemaakt over de resultaten van het eerste jaar
Anders, nl…….
8. Op welke van bovenstaande projecten bent u voor uw bedrijf het meest trots? w
9. Waardoor laten de inkopers van uw bedrijf zich bij aankoop van kleding het meeste leiden: w
de laagste prijs
de sociale aspecten (leefbaar loon, kinderarbeid)
het milieu impact 10. Waarover maakt uw bedrijf nu afspraken in toeleveringscontracten: w
Milieu impact
Leefbaar loon
Kinderarbeid
Anders, nl. ……
11. Een ondernemer moet bij inkoop van kleding ook rekening houden met de schending van mensenrechten in de fabrieken waar de kleding wordt gemaakt. w
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
12. Bedrijven die veel aan MVO doen hebben een lager ziekteverzuim. w
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
13. Sinds 2010 hanteert de Nederlandse overheid een duurzaam inkoopbeleid en doet nu mee aan het Convenant Kleding en Textiel. Stelling: "De overheid moet bij de inkoop van kleding en textiel uitsluitend duurzame kleding inkopen (bv. legertenues)". w
41
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
14. De overheid moet bij haar handelsmissies in het buitenland de inhoud van het Convenant Kleding en Textiel (bv. sociale en milieu aspecten) ter tafel brengen. w 1
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
15. De NGO Schone Kleren Campagne doet veel aan publieksbewustzijn over gewenste verbeteringen in de kledingindustrie (sociale aspecten en milieu-impact). Dit publieksbewustzijn levert op lange termijn een belangrijke bijdrage aan de kledingsector. w
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
Helemaal mee oneens Oneens Neutraal Eens Helemaal mee eens
Indien eens, wat is deze bijdrage specifiek?
16. Het Convenant Kleding en Textiel is een Multi Stakeholder initiatief (MSI) van bedrijven uit die sector, de overheid, de vakbonden en diverse ngo’s. Wat zijn voor uw bedrijf de voordelen dat alle betrokken stakeholders aan tafel zitten? w 2
er wordt veel verschillende kennis ter tafel gebracht
een groot netwerk op alle niveaus (sector, samenleving, overheid, productielanden)
de gezamenlijke kracht van kleine bedrijven tegenover grotere bedrijven binnen en buiten de sector
gezamenlijke toegang tot de media
Anders, nl. ……
17. Wat is voor uw bedrijf het belangrijkste nadeel van het Convenant? w 1
(mis)gebruik maken van de kennis van andere stakeholders
teveel transparantie kan leiden tot oneerlijke concurrentie
Anders, nl. ……
18. Welke NGO's leveren volgens u een belangrijke bijdrage aan verbetering in de Kleding- en Textielsector? w
Fair Wear Foundation (FWF)
Solidaridad
Schone Kleren Campagne
Stop Kinderarbeid
Anders. nl. ....
19. Als u lid van een inkooporganisatie, van welke? w
INretail
Modint
42
Geen
Anders, nl. ……
20. Wie speelt de belangrijkste rol bij de uitvoering van het convenant? Geef cijfers 1 (belangrijkste) tot 5 minst belangrijke. w 1
Overheid (SER secretariaat)
Verkoop Bedrijven
Inkooporganisaties
Vakbonden
NGO’s (bv Fare Wear Foundation) 21. Wilt u mijn scriptie ontvangen? w
Nee
Ja, mijn e-mailadres is:
22. Graag zou ik een aantal van u uitgebreider willen interviewen (telefonisch). Bent u daartoe bereid? w
Nee
Ja, mijn e-mailadres is:
23. Welke specifieke nieuwe projecten heeft uw bedrijf in het kader van het Convenant Kleding en Textiel aangepakt richting van of in samenwerking met productie- en toeleveringsbedrijven of lokale overheden en NGO’s: w
Minder schadelijke milieu impact door minder gebruik van water, energie en chemicaliën
Beperking verbruik van chemicaliën bij kleuren van textiel
Zoeken naar kleding van duurzame vezels (lyocell, hennep, maïs, soja, brandnetels, bamboe)
43
Contact met productiemanagers over verbeteringen op de werkvoer in de productielanden
Contact met lokale vakbonden en/of NGO’s over verbeteringen op de werkvloer
Scholing over het Convenant
Leefbaar loon
Kinderarbeid
Veiliger arbeidsomstandigheden
Gezondheid werknemers
Dierenwelzijn
Anders, nl. ……
24. Heeft u nog overige opmerkingen? Zo ja, dan kunt u deze hieronder kwijt w
25. Op welke van bovenstaande beleidspunten bent u het meest trots ? w 1
*_*_*_*_*
44