Target's social responsibility factory inspection has new requirements

I believe that everyone in the industry has recently heard about Target's new social responsibility policy. Like Walmart in 2017, Target decided to cancel its long-standing model of social responsibility audits by Target auditors starting May 1, 2020, and instead adopt an external existing social responsibility standard instead. Let's sort out the exact content of Target's new policy and more detailed implementation details.

Beginning May 1, 2020, Target will accept the following external standards (in alphabetical order):

1. Better Work

2. BSCI

3. Fair Trade USA

4. IETP (formerly ICTI)

5. RBA

6. SLCP

7. SMETA 4 Pillars

But this does not mean that Target suppliers can choose the above items at will, because there are additional requirements as follows:

1. Toy suppliers can only choose IETP.

2. Shoe and clothing suppliers can only choose SLCP. SLCP does not currently cover all countries in the world. In countries that SLCP does not cover, I believe Target will have other arrangements. SLCP has covered China and has become increasingly popular in the past two years. People in the industry are basically familiar with it.

3. SMETA can only choose 4 Pillars, and the number of auditing agencies accepted is limited to 5 (BV/Elevate/Intertek/SGS/UL). The logic of Target limiting the auditing agencies in the SMETA project is actually the same as that of other buyers - because SEDEX has not yet started formal auditing agency accreditation like other social responsibility auditing projects, so when buyers accept the SMETA project, they will more or less limit the auditing agencies they accept according to their own standards.

4. Except for the SMETA project, Target does not limit the auditing agencies in the other projects it accepts. In other words, Target suppliers can choose any auditing/verification agency for the above projects except SEMTA, as long as the auditing agency is an approved auditing/verification agency for these projects.

5. As for Higg FEM, Target has indeed begun to require some of its suppliers to conduct self-assessment/verification of Higg FEM, but the Higg FEM project is an environmental project rather than a socially responsible labor project, so it cannot be used to prove Target's socially responsible labor requirements. This means that a Target supplier cannot simply submit a Higg FEM verification report to be exempted from the above Target social responsibility requirements.

The above are the main requirements of Target so far, and there may be subsequent updates.

Target's new policy is consistent with the overall trend of social responsibility auditing in recent years, which is to allow suppliers to independently choose audit projects and audit agencies. At the same time, suppliers can also share the same report with other buyers, reducing the number of audits and saving costs. Against the backdrop of the global economic downturn caused by the epidemic, this is particularly valuable for foreign trade companies.