Heute wurden wir von einem Unternehmen gefragt, für wen das Lieferkettengesetz gelten wird. Vorab kann man natürlich erstmal nur mutmaßen. Erste Gesetzesentwürfe sind Stand heute noch in Arbeit. Man darf wohl annehmen, dass sich das Gesetz vor allem auf dieselben Grundlagen, wie der Nationale Aktionsplan für Menschenrechte stützen wird. Zudem scheint es auch wahrscheinlich, dass sich die Grüne-Knopf-Zertifizierung als Absicherung gegen rechtliche Risken erweisen wird. Somit kann man davon ausgehen, dass der Gesetzestext sich auf die Unternehmen mit mehr als 500 Mitarbeiter beziehen wird. Eine Umsatzgrößenordnung wird sicherlich ebenfalls festgesetzt werden mit dem Versuch, kleine Unternehmen auszunehmen. Man darf allerdings daran zweifeln, dass kleinere Unternehmen damit "aus dem Schneider" sind. Unsere Märkte werden nicht von milliardenschweren Konzernen mit tausenden von Mitarbeitern versorgt. Vielmehr wird der Einzelhandel, aber auch jedes Markenunternehmen von einer Vielzahl von mittelständischen Spezialisten, die in Europa sitzen, versorgt. Der Fertigwaren-Importeur, die Handelsagentur und sogar das in Deutschland konfektionierende Unternehmen, das unter Made-in-Germany labelt, das sind die Unternehmen, die den Großteil der Waren im europäischen Wirtschaftsraum an den Kunden bringen, B2B, B2C, online und offline. Das Großunternehmen, das vergisst diese wichtigen Partner in sein Nachhaltigkeitskonzept einzubeziehen, handelt nicht nur in Fernost oder Südamerika fahrlässig, sondern schon vor der eigenen Haustüre. Deshalb werden die Zulieferer in Deutschland, egal welcher Größe, der Erfüllung der rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen zuarbeiten müssen. Und das ist auch gut so. Die Lieferkette ist kein asiatisches Problem. Vielmehr wird seit Jahren unterschätzt, dass die vermeintlich kleinen Händler, die die Mehrheit der Unternehmen stellen, sich um die Wette und um Kopf und Kragen unterbieten müssen, um Aufträge von potenten Kunden zu bekommen. Das ist ein globales Problem, von der Milch bis zum T-Shirt, von Berlin bis Jakarta. Derjenige, der am besten mit Risiko und Preis jongliert, gewinnt. Wettbewerb ist gut. Wettbewerb ist wichtig. Umso wichtiger ist, dass dieser zu fairen Bedingungen erfolgt und soziale Gerechtigkeit geschützt wird, sowie die Umwelt. Das gilt nicht allein in der ach so fernen Lieferkette, sondern beginnt bei uns, bei allen Unternehmen, unabhängig von der Größe. Deshalb muss das Lieferkettengesetz für alle geschaffen werden. Es wird alle betreffen. Nicht nur die Großen.

The “Germany Quality” is a well-known “slang” by many in the production countries, not only because of the good quality of German products, but also the high quality-level that German enterprises expect from their suppliers. Since the case of Rana Plaza in 2013, many Germany enterprises have, again, token the lead, in all kinds of ranking, to improve the social conditions in many production sites in Asian. We almost think, this could become a great tradition of German, for the next coming challenges. As Greenpeace had especially set a DETOX ranking for the German supermarket giants in 2014, followed by preparation to challenge selected German Brands, big steps ahead compared to the global level, to improve the environmental condition in textile wet processing factories till 2020. But till now, no feedback shows that the German would become the global leader for environmental compliance. Not to mention the next new-coming goals for the next decade, such as circular economy, for textile business. Not only the Nordic countries, even UK, Holland and France are known for having put great effort to achieve this goal. But where is the Germany consensus on circular economy? Different to CSR (cooperate social responsibility) work, which has a very strong focus on tier 1 producers, CER (cooperate environmental responsibility) and circular economy require a much deeper work along the supply chain (Tier 2 even 3 factories) and this work is totally knowledge-based. The German businesspeople have been very straightforward with quality issues, which is not a bad thing, but analog relying on lab reports. And that is exactly the problem. A DETOX report show a clean result, but the dyeing mill is in bad conditions like those a hundred years ago, barely lighted, machines and ground are covered by dick film of different color and dirt, strong unpleasant smell, people handling chemicals without using glove. “But It does have a good report, so DETOX is fine.”, said a buying director. And he is not a single case. Most of them struggle a lot to come out of the old mindset, that tests are not all the ingredients in the CER work, but also, internal & external audits, capacity building work, the multi-stakeholder-projects aligned with science-based targets!! GIZ has been doing great work in market research in different topics, environmental friendly dyeing technologies, circular economy etc., but implementation is the job of “partnership for Sustainable Textiles (also called Textilebündnis)”, who has finally brought out a yearly project in 2017 in several Asian countries, a training section called “Advanced Chemical Management Training”, which covers probably 1% of the wet processing factories in production countries, while I organized for my company similar program covering more than 10% of our factories, every year. Without going into details, but it is way too little to meet the necessary effect for a solid change! It seems clearly, that we need a correct mainstream consensus and some efficient tools to reach a consensus to facilitate good and feasible solutions. Without that, we are still not far away from that starting point. It was great to have some German consultation firms on the market, who also provide services in CER in production countries, Systain, GoBlu, etc. But we might need more options, options that we develop together for us, powerful but cost-efficient. So, please leave some comment and tell me what you think. See ya around!

Finally, the transitional period of forbidding PFOAs was over on last Saturday, July 4th 2020, now it is effective for both European level and Germany national law! I can imagine it, you might be busy for the next few months to discuss with the labs about the definition of "homogeneous material", to ensure that your rain jacket in the coming season does not get on the "RAPEX" list. Many from German fashion brands would ask me, why do we still have problems with this? We have achieved well in DETOX since so many years, didn´t we? Well...that´s just what DETOX Reports and the sustainability reports of different brands here in Europe are saying. A small test before we get into the real status about DETOX or Chemical Compliance. Who of you knows that chemical producer giants like Huntsman produces more non-compliant chemicals like Teflon than compliant ones for the textile industry every year. And the ratio of the low-quality products are even rising. On the other side, they are very active in green washing themselves, publishing "positive lists" and cooperating with ZDHC, etc... what a successful marketing! Here is the thing matters to you and your products, if you know your factory good enough, then you will find out that dyeing master for coating your rain jacket has got at least 3 types of water repellenting preparations from Huntsman and some more from other brands. And he claims that he will use the compliant one for your products, but in fact, always a little bit from those others, because he knows, otherwise, the fabric won´t pass the water repellency test, which will cost him trouble later. And these coating factories are not just "some" factories, but very nameable one, coating for half of famous international brands, sitting in Zhejiang Province in China. But this is just small peak of an iceberg. Let´s switch to Bangladesh. Does anyone of you believe that the ETPs there work normally? Dr. H.Schönberger of University Stuttgart shared the same opinion of me. He said in a conference that he had never seen so many "shows" of ETP in his life together compared to those within one trip in Bangladesh. Believe it or not, the DETOX reports of 100+ wet-processing factories from Bangladesh on my table resulted all far better than those from Turkey, Italy or China in the last few years. ... To conclude the status quo, we unfortunately haven´t come so far as it is reported. What we need here, seriously, is to review our tools, the partner institutes and the test methods/procedures, etc. The very positive things are, many useful new standards and programs for textile industry are/were being developed in some Asian countries like Japan, Korea and most important, China. One of most active institutes is CNTAC and I am very proud to be a part of these programs, as program leader, to develop "Chemical Management Education" online course, covering all relevant chemical compliance issues. Beside this, CNTAC also takes very active steps in cooperation in circular economy, micro plastics, climate change, where some famous European sustainability drivers also take part in, such as Lenzing and Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The next fast-growing countries for fashion products in the coming decade, like Myanmar, Pakistan and Ethiopia have one thing in common obviously...enormously high influence by Chinese investors. And they will definitely adapt Chinese standards in many ways. If you would like to know more about my expertise, my projects or textile standard development in China, just speak out in your inquiry. See you around!