ethicaltradesolutions.dk

No chain is stronger than its weakest link, nor is the supply chain of the companies. Many import businesses has quite few employees at home, but many more abroad - in their own production facilities or by their suppliers. And mostly the problems with environment or social responsibility are rooted at the suppliers or sub-suppliers.

Some of the environmental problems are due to missing knowledge of adequate technology - and here you may possible help your suppliers abroad to avoid some of the environmental problems, that we caused in our own country in the sixties and seventies!

If your want your goods to be produced in an environmental and social responsible way you need to be specific about this in your demands to the suppliers. And you will have to build up some systems and procedures to secure current fulfilment of your demands.

Key words are traceability, knowledge of raw materials, mapping of production aspects, control visits and compliance commitment letters, documentation and second part audits or even a certification of the suppliers. And you should set up criteria for screening and selection of new suppliers.

Supply chain management can be conducted by different methods, depending on what level of control and security you need. As an absolute minimum your company should create a Code of Conduct and request the suppliers to sign it. But this does not secure that your demands are met by the suppliers. To reach a higher level of security frequent internal audits must be conducted to control that your suppliers complies with your demands on environment and social responsibility.

When you reach - or decide to reach - a level where you think your suppliers are on compliance, you might go for a SA8000- and/or ISO 14001 -certification. A certification will document that you comply with the standard through and external and independent control.