A grading system that rates supplier factories on their social and environmental performance is being developed by Nike.
The sports clothing firm hopes the system will enable it to identify suppliers that need to improve and encourage them to raise their performance.
‘We’re hoping we’ll be able to grade factories on an A to E level,’ said Nike director of sustainable development Sarah Severn. ‘The objective is to work with the factories as much as possible and to incentivize them to improve.’
Progress on developing the system is likely to be outlined in Nike’s next corporate social responsibility report in October.
Nike, which has been looking at various ways to oversee its supply chain over the past few years, has said that its decision last year to stop using PricewaterhouseCoopers to monitor supplier factories was due to concerns about the extent of its checking of workplace conditions (EP3, issue 3).
Severn said the partnership with PwC had been ‘successful to a degree’ but that ‘they weren’t uncovering some of the wider issues that others like Global Alliance were uncovering’.
Global Alliance, an NGO, found poor working conditions at Nike suppliers in Indonesia.