What is the Fair Wear Foundation?
The FWF does not control material suppliers. Currently 80 companies and 120 labels are member of the Fair Wear Foundation. The organization is active in 15 production countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Structure
The Fair Wear Foundation was founded in 1999 and has its headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its main decision making body is the Board, consisting of an independent chairperson in addition to a number of stakeholder groups. The Board is advised by a committee of experts, again consisting of various stakeholder groups. These include experts form fields such as labour law, social development, production and distribution of textiles.

Guidelines
The requirements of the Fair Wear Foundation follow the „Code of Labour Practices“, which is based on an agreement of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to these two fundamental bases, the foundation set up 8 points all companies must agree to follow.

The 8 Points of the Code of Labour Practices:

• Free choice of one´s workplace
• No discrimination in employment
• No exploitation of child labour
• Freedom of assembly and the right to bargain collectively
• Payment of a living wage
• Limits on working hours
• Safe and healthy work conditions
• Legally binding employment contracts

Membership
The FWF does not set any social standards for the membership. This allows textile companies, whose suppliers are still at the very beginning, to join the FWF. With the accession the new member commit themselves to follow the guidelines and to set up a management plan, which will describe very detailed the measures and targets to optimize the work conditions within the sewing factories step-by-step. The management must include a list of all involved suppliers and a report of the current work conditions. A control system for all suppliers must be set up to monitor the compliance with the guidelines.

Monitoring and Transparency
FWF carries out controls of his members once a year with so called Brand Performance Checks to monitor the progress of its members regarding the implementation of the Code of Labour Practices in the production units. With the help of various indicators and a point system the individual performance is being assessed. The controls (audits) of the Fair Wear Foundation are carried out on various levels:
Visit of the factory to inspect work safety and health protection
Review of documents
Interviews with management, trade union and worker´s representatives
Interviews with the factory employees

The anonymous survey of factory employees is carried out at the work place as well as outside of the factory. Additionally an anonymous complaint system will offer more safety for the factory employees and at the same time guarantee that attention will be drawn to potential abuse.

Dependant on the length of time the company has been a member, a defined percentage of suppliers must be monitored as well, which means that the member company will efficiently support the improvement of work conditions and carry out internal controls. For this a concrete management plan must be at hand and followed through. From the third year following at least 90% of all producers must be monitored in accordance with the FWF requirements.

According to the results of the Brand Performance Checks the respective company will be put in one of three category: „Leader“, „Good“ or „Needs improvement“. This stocktaking allows the company and its producers to understand which part of the process needs improvement. Following every audit the FWF-Audit-Team and the management will set up a binding corrective measure plan. Based on this the textile company will together with its producers work on solutions and a timetable for implementation.

Because transparency is so important for the Fair Wear Foundation, Brand Performance Checks are regularly published online.

Important Notice
The Fair Wear Foundation Label is a social standard only. Ecological aspects are of no importance for the certification process.

Conclusion
The Fair Wear Foundation Label is a social standard, which can be regarded as very credible due to the cooperative work between independent non-governmental organizations and the obligation to implement the above mentioned 8 points.