Explanation of certifications & programs
The landscape of the fashion industry is full of tools that show whether products are produced sustainably. As the industry continues to improve and more and more initiatives are created, this can lead to a bit of chaos and might make it difficult to understand what can really be trusted. The certification providers and auditors we work with are all well-established and have been working to create transparency for years already.
To give you a bit of an overview, here is a (not so) short rundown. Please note that the certifications we hold are not exhaustive and there are other ways for a brand or factory to produce and sell sustainable and fairly produced clothes. Especially as a small brand there are certain memberships that are simply not available to us, but we feel proud of where we are already.
ZDHC
Reach Regulation
Higg FEM
SLCP
BSCI
Textile Exchange certifications
Textile Exchange is a global non-profit certifying sustainable raw materials in the fashion industry. Their certifications are widely used & trusted and we work with their certifications for our organic & recycled cotton as well as, on occassion, for the recycled polyester we use.
To be able to verify if raw material in a clothing item lives up to a certain sustainable standard, a brand needs to provide the certificate that states this. There are two types of certificates: transaction certificates and scope certificates. Scope certificates are given out for each facility in a supply chain that works with the material and they state that this facility has been checked to uphold the certification's standards.
A transaction certificate specifically applies to the articles in shipments between point A and point B. It verifies the transaction between a scope certified facility to another facility in the supply chain or to a brand.
For our materials, we work with two certifications: the Organic Content Standard (OCS) and the Global Recycled Standard (GRS). The OCS verifies the percentage of organically grown material and tracks it from source to final product. There are the “OCS blended” and the OCS100 certifications. We source materials that hold either certification for different products in our collection. Products certified to the OCS 100 contain at least 95% certified organically grown content and products certified to the OCS Blended contain between 5-94% certified organically grown content.
In our case, when products are certified according to the OCS Blended, the products will often contain some percentage of recycled cotton or polyester in them, leading us to the second certification that we work with: the Global Recycled Standard. Products certified to the GRS contain a minimum of 50% recycled material that has been verified at each stage of the supply chain, from the recycler to the final product.
ZDHC
ZDHC is a large industry-for-industry initiative focussed on sustainable chemical management. The purpose of ZDHC is to eliminate the use of harmful chemicals in supply chains, as well as to support factories in making more sustainable choices. They have created a ‘Manufacturing Restricted Substances List’ (ZDHC MSRL), which is used to advise production facilities on which substances are the most harmful and should be banned from production. The ZDHC also provides guidelines on wastewater management, for example how to reduce the amount of wastewater you have and how wastewater should be disposed of.
Facilities that use chemicals in their production can also be checked on their conformance levels with the ZDHC MSRL. In our case, this only applies to the dye and chemical production factories in our supply chain. The conformance is determined with three levels. Levels 1-3 indicate how confident the ZDHC organisation is in a facility following the MSRL guidelines.
Please note that ZDHC does not provide certifications, however membership to their program does indicate that a facility is (in the process of) managing chemical use sustainably.
REACH Regulation
The REACH regulation was formulated by the European Union and covers all products containing chemicals that are bought and sold, as well as imported into the EU. The regulation was created to protect the European market from harmful chemicals coming in from other markets and to make sure that even when products where produced outside of the EU, they still have to follow the EU regulations when sold in this market. It includes regulation on the registration & use of chemicals, the hazard assessment of chemicals, and the production of chemicals, the last specifically with a focus on reducing animal testing.
The scope of REACH is wide and even though our production facilities are located far outside of the European Union, under this regulation Honest Basics is considered an importer of finished products that were produced with some chemicals. The main thing that is important here is that our production facilities have a SVHC list, which is a list of Substances of Very High Concern, and that this is confirmed to be in line with REACH regulation (which it is!).
Higg FEM
Higg FEM is a measurement tool to assess the impact manufacturing facilities have on the environment. It looks into energy use, water use, waste management, chemical management and overall environmental management systems to find out what the overall impact of a facility is, as well as to provide stepping stones towards improvement.
The tool works according to a self-assessment which facilities fill out yearly, after which an independent verifier will come and check the report and the facility is scored. Through close contact with our production facilities we have found that this tool is very useful as it requires a continuous monitoring and evaluation cycle which means we are constantly working on environmental impact improvement.
SLCP
The Social & Labor Convergence Program has an assessment tool, the Converged Assessment Framework, which is used to measure the working conditions in factories and provide guidance on how to improve them. We use the assessment tool within the Higg module, where it is called FSLM. Like the Higg FEM, our factories fill out a self-assessment, looking into recruitment processes, working hours, wages, worker treatment & involvement, health & safety, and management systems.
These subjects are scored to give an assessment which the facility can then use to provide a guideline for improvement. Some issues are considered zero-tolerance: such as child labour, forced labour, and certain kinds of discrimination. After this self-assessment, an independent verifier will come and check the report and score the facility on how good the working conditions are.
BSCI
Another verification method focussed on working conditions is the Amfori BSCI system. This is an audit methodology measuring factories on 13 social performance areas. An auditor from the organisation visits the facility and will score the facility across a range of questions: social management systems, workers protection & involvement, the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining, discrimination, fair remuneration, working hours, health & safety, and protection of the environment. There are also some zero-tolerance areas here, specifically concerning child labour and young workers, precarious employment, bonded labour, and human trafficking. Amfori BSCI also provides guidance based on the scoring for how a facility can improve its conditions in the future.