US AAFA president calls for bidding farewell to audit

“Audit fatigue is clearly out of fashion. It puts our partners and their workers at risk,” he wrote.

American Apparel & Footwear Association CEO Stephen E Lamar has called for bidding farewell to audit fatigue—the burden that supply chain partners feel when their operations undergo multiple social responsibility audits.
Firms contributing to the audit fatigue by demanding duplicative inspections are showing ‘decidedly irresponsible behaviour’, he noted.

The fatigue sets in deeply when factories are forced to pay for audits that check for the same (or slightly different) factors, often times using the same auditors, within quick succession of each other for different brand or retail customers, he wrote.

It’s not uncommon for some factories to report being audited 10 or 20 times a year—for largely the same factors, Lamar noted.

“These repeated, duplicative inspections create multiple problems. Chief among them are the expenditures in time and resources, born disproportionately by the factories that are the supply chain partners who are least able to afford these extra costs. Resources that could be deployed for training, skills development, wages, and other worker enhancements are instead spent to inspect the same thing over and over again,” he wrote.

“What’s worse is that duplicative, conflicting audits are usually based on duplicative, conflicting requirements and codes of conduct. Factory managers have a difficult time navigating this confusing landscape and it’s even tougher for workers, for whom clarity is critical to ensure they have a safe, ethical, and healthy workplace,” he said.

A problem is companies that contribute to the audit fatigue problem by demanding duplicative inspections are exhibiting ‘decidedly irresponsible behaviour’, he noted. 

Smart accountability now demands more collaboration, particularly as the needs and requirements for ethical production grow, he said.

A wide range of multi-stakeholder initiatives exist now that professionally manage corporate social responsibility at the factory level for stakeholders, including brands and retailers.

Some of these programmes permit brands and retailers to partner with each other to share resources and align approaches to eliminate duplication and make smarter investments in compliance, he added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)