Canadian groups release Transparency Report Card

December 1th, 2005

The Ethical Trading Action Group (ETAG) released an 95-page study, "Coming Clean on the Clothes We Wear: Transparency Report Card." The Transparency Report Card assesses and compares 25 major retailers and brands selling apparel products in the Canadian market in terms of their efforts to address worker rights issues in their global supply chains and on how and what they report on those efforts.

The full report, plus an Executive Summary, a composite, one-page report card for all companies surveyed, and individual company report cards is available on the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) website at: http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/campaigns/reportcard/index.htm. The report includes include recommendations to retailers and brands, the Canadian government, investors and financial institutions, and consumers.

Key Findings

• None of the companies surveyed are providing sufficient information to consumers and investors to allow them to make ethical choices;

• A number of brand-name companies that have been the target of anti-sweatshop campaigns over the past decade are now disclosing more information to the public on their labour standards policies and programs than are companies that have slipped under the radar screen; and

• Canadian companies are generally disclosing less information than major US brands on their labour standards policies and programs.

How to Take Action
ETAG has created three virtual Holiday Greeting Cards to be sent to retailers and brands, based on their ratings in the Report Card. We urge you to send greeting cards to your "favourite" retailers during the holiday shopping season.

What the Report Card is and isn't
The Transparency Report Card is based on research carried out over the past year by MSN, on behalf of ETAG. The rating system utilized in our research is based on the Gradient Index developed by AccountAbility in the UK. We have relied exclusively on publicly available information from the companies assessed.

The Report Card assesses companies on the basis of:

• Their programs to achieve and maintain compliance with recognized international labour standards in the factories where their products are made; and

• The steps they are taking to communicate thoroughly, effectively and transparently these efforts to the public.

The Report Card does not attempt to evaluate actual labour practices at the factory level. Nor does it assess how companies' labour standards policies and compliance programs apply to their retail employees. The focus of this report is exclusively on supply chains.

What we do hope is that the Report Card will encourage companies to disclose sufficient information to allow consumers and investors to evaluate and compare companies' supply chain labour practices and make ethical choices.

As always, we welcome your comments and questions.