With their sights set on creating more ethical, responsible and sustainable supply chains, international development organization Solidaridad and QuizRR, an educational tool and platform for suppliers and global buyers, have announced a new partnership. The collaboration will provide business opportunities for the European textile industry to meet their sustainability commitments while offering solutions based on measurable and scalable training for decent working conditions, safe workplaces and fair wages in developing markets.
Through the partnership, the organizations seek to provide companies with ties with and operations in developing markets with the tools they so often lack to develop and secure functioning systems for workers’ rights, safety and health, as well as dialogue opportunities and attention for living wages. The partnership will also address the growing difficulties companies face in meeting the increasing demands for compliance.
But the problem is two-sided — many employees in factories producing commodities for global companies are not aware of their rights and responsibilities. This presents a risk not only for the people working in the factories, but also for factory owners, sourcing companies and for the countries involved in global trade.
“The only way forward is through collaboration and global partnerships between organizations and businesses that realize the benefits of dialogue and fair working conditions. It’s about stepping up from compliance and developing leadership in social sustainability to become role models and drivers of change. The collaboration between Solidaridad and QuizRR will take businesses beyond audit to integrated sustainable practices,” said Sofie Nordström, Founder and Deputy CEO at QuizRR.
The joint effort between Solidaridad and QuizRR allows for the training of greater numbers of workers, middle managers and managers on their rights and responsibilities, improving working conditions in global supply chains and changing lives. QuizRR and Solidaridad are now inviting global brands with headquarters in the Netherlands to join the initiative. The goal is to expand the collaboration across Europe to provide accessibility to tangible, measurable and scalable training solutions on workers’ rights and responsibilities, worker engagement and wages management. Initially, the focus will be on the Chinese and Bangladesh markets.
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Published Aug 10, 2017 11am EDT / 8am PDT / 4pm BST / 5pm CEST