But our mission to care goes much further than that. We also do our best to care for the people and the environment around us. Therefore, it is also natural that we get involved in how those who work to produce our garments have it at work.
In 2015, we increased our responsibility for both sustainability and social issues. Our new way of working means that we can now offer workwear with an even cleaner production. Our new way of contributing to a fairer and more sustainable world means that we commit ourselves to comply with international labor law, human rights and environmental regulations. At Hejco, we are deeply committed to these issues and our desire is to be a company that respects our values, our vision and our responsible sustainability work. We want to be an example for the entire clothing industry.
The Global Compact
We have joined the UN Global Compact Initiative and are following their 10 principles in terms of corporate responsibility for human rights, labor law, the environment and anti-corruption. We respect human rights and are careful to comply with international and national labor law.
To ensure that we maintain a high standard in our Code of Conduct, our labor standards are based on ILO (International Labor Organization) guidelines and the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights regarding forced labor, child labor, freedom of association, compensation, working hours, health and safety in the work as well as legally binding employment relationships.
We also recognize that all activities related to the production, consumption and final handling of our products affect our environment. We are convinced that it is our responsibility to work actively and systematically to contribute to a process of continuous environmental improvements in the areas we can influence.
Full transparency of the factories and trackability of the products
We encourage everyone to help reduce the environmental impact. Our supply chain is in seventeen countries and the Group owns three factories in Northern Europe. Our suppliers are important to our business and we expect them to live up to our specific standards regarding human rights as well as environmental and ethical business practices. All supplier purchases are reviewed, approved and handled by our supplier teams.
As a mandatory requirement before our suppliers can receive orders from us they have signed our code of conduct. They have undertaken to publish all factories that manufacture products for Fristads Kansas Group undergo our review of social and environmental compliance.
As a member of Amfori, revisions are made to the BSCI system which enables us to support and train them to implement sustainable measures.
Next steps towards chemical liability
As part of our program for social and environmental compliance, all our suppliers and all factories that manufacture our products must write on our list of substances that can only be used to a limited extent (RSL, Restricted Substance List).
Our suppliers and factories receive a new RSL twice a year, which has been updated according to the advice we get from our partner Swerea. Our RSL reflects the latest EU-adapted legislation that includes REACH, the POPs Regulation, the Biocidal Products Regulation and the Product Safety Regulation. It also ensures that we comply with the list of candidates for SVHC subjects (subjects that raise very high concerns). In addition, most of our products are OEKO TEX® certified.