Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The New Wave Group has a responsibility to ensure that its own operations and those of its suppliers respect the legal requirements in various countries as well as international organisations’ views of basic rights. The Group’s Code of Conduct is applied to all factories that are involved in the production of the New Wave Group’s products. While the Group is aware of the different legal and cultural conditions under which factories operate all around the world, this Code of Conduct defines basic requirements that all factories must comply with in order to do business with the New Wave Group.

The Code of Conduct is an agreement that the Group’s suppliers commit to observing, and that prescribes, among other things, that the supplier must comply with legal requirements and provide the Group with full access to factories and data for checks on the supplier’s compliance with the rules. The Code of Conduct also contains items relating to non-discrimination, a ban on child labour, wages and hours of work, working conditions and the freedom to organise a trade union. Since 2008 the New Wave Group has been a member of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which is an international organisation that works to improve the social situation and working conditions in the production countries. The FLA’s code of conduct provides all suppliers that the same specification of requirements from the customer, which makes it easier to implement requirements and for the producer to comply with them. The New Wave Group views the FLA as the model for the future and an opportunity for New Wave to benchmark and to improve its own Code of Conduct organisation.

Direct trade
The New Wave Group’s purchasing strategy is based on purchasing directly from manufacturers via the Group’s own purchasing offices. Quality controllers and Code of Conduct staff from the Group are on site at the factory, which is a prerequisite for the creation of an effective management system for environmental work and the Code of Conduct. A local presence gives the Group good control over production. Although the base requirement of a supplier is total access and transparency, it is extremely difficult to achieve 100% access because there are so many different stages in the production chain. However, this is checked via strict supplier rules and so-called subcontractor contracts.

Code of Conduct organisation
The Group’s Code of Conduct organisation is led from our head purchasing office in Shanghai, and currently employs a total of eight people working full time. Our inspectors are qualified in accordance with the SA8000 and ISO 14001 standards. The Group has also trained around 30 quality controllers all over Asia to conduct “visual inspections” at the factories. In total the New Wave Group can conduct around 500 full inspections and around 1,500 visual inspections each year. Combining training with requirements and controls is necessary to bring about a change in the long term.

Continuous improvements
The Group’s supplier strategy is to create long-term relations and to keep the number of suppliers at a low level, which enables the Group to be a large, important customer. Work with our Code of Conduct means that the Group will not usually terminate a business connection if faults are identified, but will instead attempt to work with an improvement plan so that a supplier is accepted. This plan, which includes strict minimum requirements, is a part of the overall supplier evaluation system and is followed up in each market on a quarterly basis. The target is that all suppliers shall be inspected at least four times a year. Many of these inspections take place unannounced, and there are also regular visual checks by quality controllers. As from 2008 the Group will also be using the FLA’s independent inspectors to inspect the New Wave Group’s suppliers. The results from the FLA’s inspections are saved in a database and are available to all members and to the general public.

The environment
The Group’s Code of Conduct defines environmental requirements in respect of issues such as water treatment, waste management and handling chemicals. Products are tested regularly in the Group’s own laboratories in Asia or at independent test institutes in order to guarantee that suppliers are complying with the company’s restrictions. All companies in the New Wave Group strive to reduce their consumption of water, electricity and paper, and to ensure that environmentally hazardous waste is disposed of in the best possible way. The Group also strives to achieve close collaboration with suppliers on environmental awareness. The New Wave Group requires that its suppliers comply with the chemicals restrictions defined in the chemicals guide issued by the Textile Importers Association in Sweden, as well as the prevailing rules in the EU and the USA in respect of such matters as the use of virgin raw materials, emissions of “unnatural” material, waste, emissions to air, energy consumption and consumption of fresh water.

Transport and logistics
As far as transport operations are concerned, the Group works with the biggest players in the market, all of which have environmental programmes in place for their operations. An evaluation of these programmes is an important element of the procurement process for freight services. In order to reduce the impact on the environment, the Group consolidates as much as possible of its Asian transport operations between the various companies. The Group’s use of air transport is marginal and only employed if absolutely essential. However, air freight still accounts for the New Wave Group’s biggest impact on the environment, and work to further reduce the use of this option continues. The Group renews and replaces existing logistical units with new, more resource-efficient units, in which modern technology is used to reduce the environmental impact of the operation.

www.fairlabor.org

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