ETI Impact Assessment

ETI Research Projects

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Introduction to project

Corporate codes of labour practice came about as a means of getting companies to take responsibility for labour conditions in their supply chains and as a way of reassuring consumers. Yet a code may do both these things while making little difference to the lives of workers and their families. Making real improvements to workers’ lives will only come about if good policies and intentions are followed through with well-informed and appropriate actions.

When companies decide to join ETI, they make a commitment to implementing the ETI Base Code in their supply chains and to investing necessary resources to do so effectively. Our trade union and NGO members support this process by providing guidance and support in identifying how best to implement the code. Five years on, we felt it was time to take stock and find out whether and how member companies’ efforts in implementing the code are making a difference to workers, and identify ways of improving impact. This two-year project was set up to address these issues in a systematic way.

Project purpose and objectives

This project has two related purposes:

Primary purpose: to find out what impact implementation of the ETI Base Code is having on the lives of workers in the supply chains of member companies, and to identify how the impact on these workers can be improved.
Secondary purpose: to find out whether implementation of the Base Code is having positive or negative impacts on other individuals or groups, eg, workers’ families, local communities, and wider society, and to identify how any negative impacts can be minimised and positive impacts improved.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

1. Establish the impact of implementing the ETI Base Code on the lives of workers, and the indirect impacts on workers’ families, communities and wider society
2. Identify how the impact of implementing the Base Code can be improved
3. Develop a strategy and tools for on-going monitoring and assessment of impact
4. Share learning gained from the study with those involved in implementing ethical sourcing.

Who is conducting the research?

We have contracted the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, an independent research organisation, to conduct the study. The five-strong team at IDS has extensive experience of carrying out research and advisory work on labour issues and codes of practice in both the garment and food sectors in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Project plan

The project is divided into three phases:

• Phase 1, completed in January 2004, synthesised members’ perspectives on where codes have had an impact and where difficulties remain, and produced a working model characterising the different types of management approaches used by companies for code implementation.
• Phase 2,to be completed in February 2005, has looked in detail at the impact of code implementation at a cross-section of supplier sites in the food, garment and footwear sectors. This has involved case studies in five countries: India (garments), Vietnam (garments and footwear), South Africa (fruit) and Costa Rica (bananas), with the location of the fifth case study still to be confirmed. Each case study has included intensive field research with workers, suppliers and other local stakeholders.
• Phase 3, to be completed in September 2005, will bring together findings from Phases 1 and 2, and produce some conclusions on the nature and level of impact of code implementation, and guidance on how to monitor and improve impact in the future.

Progress and preliminary findings have been shared and discussed within the ETI membership throughout the project. The preliminary findings from the South Africa, India and Vietnam case studies have been presented to local stakeholders at in-country workshops. Final project findings will be shared with key external audiences on completion of Phase 3 .

Key achievements:

We have:

• Raised awareness, understanding and interest in the project within the membership. We believe this is critical to ensuring that findings from the impact assessment will be taken up by members;
• Developed a clearer picture of the scale and scope of companies’ ethical trade activities, in particular which products have been targeted and how far down their supply chains they have reached;
• Developed a draft framework that helps us compare and contrast the different ways in which companies are implementing codes;
• Completed the case studies in India (garments), Vietnam (garments and footwear), South Africa (fruit) and Costa Rica (bananas).

Key challenges:

There is no doubt that this is an ambitious and challenging project. The challenges are both technical and political. Politically, the project faces the challenge of balancing and managing quite different expectations from both within and beyond the membership. Technically, we are tasked with generating good quality, reliable findings in the face of:

• The sheer size of members’ supply chains: IDS estimates that corporate members’ ethical trade programmes have targeted at least 20,000 suppliers in over 100 countries. With limited resources available, the challenge has been to get a reasonable cross-section of members’ supply base, whilst not losing sight of the detail in each location. The complex structure of members’ supply chains has also presented logistical challenges for carrying out the fieldwork.
   
• The difficulty in teasing out whether changes in labour practices and impacts can be attributed to our Code. For example, in Vietnam many of the factories producing for ETI members also produce for US buyers who have their own code requirements. There are also a number of independent initiatives that aim to improve labour standards in the garment industry. On top of this, labour laws have changed dramatically in the last ten years. In this situation, which is fairly typical, to what extent can changes be attributed to member companies’ efforts to implement the ETI Base Code?

Which ETI members are involved?

The following organisations sit on the Impact Assessment Steering Group:

Companies: Chiquita International Brands, Debenhams Retail Ltd, Levi Strauss & Co, Madison Hosiery, Next plc, Premier Foods, The Body Shop International.

Trade union organisations: Trades Union Congress (TUC).

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs): Africa Now, Central America Women’s Network (CAWN), Traidcraft Exchange.
 

For further information contact:

Man-Kwun Chan, Head of Communications and Research, mankwun@eti.org.uk.

 

 

Project documents:

• The ETI code of labour practice: Do workers really benefit?
  Findings and recommendations from the most comprehensive impact assessment of labour codes to date. A series of reports which, together, give the complete findings, case studies and methodology of this research project, commissioned from IDS in 2003. also...
  • ETI/IDS Press release - Ten years of ethical trade brings benefits to workers – but more needed
  • Info sheet - ETI and our members in action – good practice examples [PDF, 168kb]
  • A preliminary response by the Ethical Trading Initiative to IDS’ study
  • ETI Press Release - Global brands not solely responsible for workers’ rights
• ETI Impact Assessment Terms of Reference
• Labour impact assessment: challenges and opportunities of a learning approach [PDF, 359kb]
  Paper prepared for the EDIAIS conference, University of Manchester, November 2003.
  Note: this is not a project output, but is a publicly available document which describes the impact assessment methodology that will be used (with some possible modifications) for this project.
  [hard copy available from IDS - contact via www.ids.ac.uk/ids/]

Relevant links:

Report on the ETI Biennial Conference 2003:
Chapter 12 - Are codes making a difference to workers?