Certificates covering sustainable production are part of the picture and they are not the whole of it. A factory can hold the certificates and still operate at a standard a buyer would be uncomfortable defending. The certificates are necessary, and they are not sufficient, which is why the better buyers ask for the working evidence behind them.
That evidence falls into three areas. The first is water, meaning how much is used for each garment or each metre, where the wastewater goes and what is recovered. A factory that can produce metered figures and show how its treatment works is making a real claim. A factory that points at the certificate is making a paper one.
The second is energy, meaning what powers the site, how consumption is measured and where it is heading. A factory running on a grid dominated by coal has different characteristics from one with its own solar generation or a documented arrangement for cleaner supply. A buyer being asked about emissions by its own customers needs those figures regularly rather than once a year in a summary.
The third is labour, meaning how long supervisors have been in place, what the turnover looks like and how pay compares with the legal minimum and the local norm. A factory whose practices are genuinely good will share those numbers. A factory that becomes defensive about labour data has told you something more useful than the certificate did.
There is a fourth signal, which is the willingness to accept audits beyond the certification scheme, whether commissioned by a buyer or by an independent body. A factory that welcomes them is comfortable being measured. A factory that resists is one where the certificate may matter more than the practice behind it.
It is worth being honest about the limits of a buyer's influence. A business placing modest orders cannot dictate how a factory is run. What it can do is ask precise questions, check the answers against what it sees on the floor, place its orders where the answers are good, and be willing to walk away, which is the only pressure that has ever reliably worked.
There is also a question worth asking of yourself before asking anything of a supplier, which is whether your own buying behaviour makes the standard possible. Orders placed late, changed twice and demanded early are what push a factory into overtime and subcontracting, and a buyer who does that every season is part of the problem it is auditing.
We buy cloth from independent mills in four countries and own no production, so this is the buyer's version of the discipline rather than the owner's. What we ask for, and what we do with the answers, is described on our ESG and sustainability page. The aim is to be able to show evidence rather than to make a claim.
