Transformers takes chemical certification to task
A new report from industry innovation platform Transformers Foundation seeks to pull back the curtain on pressures faced by denim’s supply chain when it comes to shouldering the financial burden of ticking disparate, yet not dissimilar, private-sector chemical certification and testing boxes in the place of “penny-pinching” brands.
The document, titled Fashion’s chemical certification complex: Needlessly complicated, woefully ineffective, features input from chemical manufacturers including Officina39, Rudolf Group, Garmon Chemicals and Nearchimica, in addition to representative bodies TEGEWA and EUCTL (European Chemistry for Textile and Leather). It ultimately finds that, in the absence of any top-down, universalising standards for chemicals, supply chain partners may struggle to continue to fulfil the requirements imposed by brands and auditing labels.
To mitigate this risk, a series of recommendations to solving what report author Alden Wicker calls a “toxic crisis” are outlined, with advice variously tailored to chemical companies, brands and retailers, and legislators.
Forward-looking brands and retailers must next look to align on certification equivalence, for example, plus fall in step with both the ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) manufacturing restricted substances list and the AFIRM (Apparel and Footwear International RSL Management) restricted substances lists. Governments should also be lobbied to write either list into law, effectively making their guidelines a “ticket to play”.
As head of marketing and fashion at Rudolf Group, Alberto De Conti, puts it to Ms Wicker: “[Our company has] more than 450 different dossier files open for an equal number of brands, retailers and customers and it is becoming impossible to follow up on every single file.
"What’s ironic is that it’s basically the same requirements that are asked for, but it’s still something different [for us] to check on. There might be one or two differences out of hundreds of enquiries.”
Download the full report here.
Image credit: Trail via Unsplash.
