058. Manufactured x GIZ FABRIC: Gladys Tang on How Brands Can Support Supply Chain Dialogue

Gladys Tang is a Senior Sustainability Manager for Tchibo Merchandising Hong Kong. Tchibo is a German brand selling a wide variety of products across Europe.

In this episode, part two, we get into the meaning of dialogue for Tchibo. What kind of dialogue does Gladys think supply chain actors should engage in? How does Tchibo strive to leverage its WE program to support dialogue? How did they overcome supplier reluctance to participate in the program? We also put some hard questions to Gladys, like how does Tchibo ensure alignment between purchasing and sustainability departments, and how do they address supplier concerns around price?

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Our episodes this week are thanks to our collaboration with the GIZ FABRIC. The FABRIC project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and supports the Asian textile industry in its transformation towards fair production for people and the environment.

Gladys was a speaker on the eighth edition of GIZ FABRIC’s online seminar series called “Getting Through the Crisis Together: Asian Dialogues on Sustainability in the Textile and Garment Industry.”

Read Kim’s article: Women Sewing for Fabletics Face Gender-Based Violence: Social Compliance Audits Still Aren’t Working

We’ve also been loving the collaboration between Sourcing Journal and the New Conversations Project. Back in December 2020 they put forward a compelling piece arguing that social compliance audits have failed to deliver for workers. The piece relied on research that looked at over 40,000 factory labor audits over 12 countries and 12 industries. The number of violations found in labor audits “was almost unchanged between 2011 and 2018 across all countries and industries.”

Then, in early 2021, they put forward several theories as to why social compliance audits have failed to deliver for workers. This was followed up by a piece in April 2021 by a piece that goes into more details on the opacity theory.

Photo by Giorgio Grani