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Solutions

Beginning at the procurement level, we support multinational companies and their suppliers to integrate social aspects into their businesses. Our solutions and tools are highly innovative with a lean intervention level but high impact. We are not scared to go where it is really painful (actually most of the time we and our partners are already there).

Procurement

The procurement function - the central unit between the brand and the manufacturer - plays an essential role; it has a great impact on the image of the organisation as a socially responsible company. We do not believe in cost- or time-intensive parallel structures or dramatic changes. We are confident that buyers who have the ability to source products and services globally also have the competence to deal with changing requirements. However some input is needed, especially where bad practice and best practice is concerned. This is where we come in. We assist in-house teams to jointly develop and implement processes adjusted to the given sourcing structure.

Suppliers and Manufacturers

Commitment to the improvement of social standards is essential at the suppliers and manufacturers level if real and sustainable change is to be achieved. Sustainability Agents has a vast amount of project experience at this level. Whenever a project in the supply chain begins, the first step taken is to gain commitment. Following this, the second step is to start an interactive process of establishling simple but effective social management systems, including the development of policies and the training of staff. The goal is to enable individuals and their organisations to manage social compliance jointly with their supplying factories and to avoid or eliminate conflict-orientation.

Production

Running the activities outlined above is a waste of time and resources if no improvement is made at the production level. We know how to reduce excessive overtime hours, how to introduce a fair and performance-related payment system, how to eliminate and prevent child labour, forced labour and discriminatory practice, and how to enable factories to provide a healthy and safe working environment. We are the vanguards when it comes to worker-management relations, which in anycase is the basis for effective and efficent implementation of social standards. For this we developed the SUSA-Dialogue-Programme which enables workers and managers to engage in dialogue about the continuous improvement of the social and economic performance of factory.

>>> The SUSA-Dialogue-Programme