ACT cooperates with the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles

ACT COOPERATES WITH THE GERMAN PARTNERSHIP FOR SUSTAINABLE TEXTILES

The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles is a multi-stakeholder initiative in Germany with members from the fields of business, politics and the civil society. The member companies of the partnership cover around half of the German textile market. The Texiles Partnership was initiated by the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development and aims at improving the social and environmental conditions in the global textile production.

ACT and the textiles partnership will cooperate in particular in terms of sharing the experience and joint approach of ACT members in undertaking a self-assessment of their purchasing practices with members of the Textiles partnership as well as country level implementation work of ACT in textile producing countries.

The strategic cooperation will be guided by the joint understanding that while there is no agreed benchmark to determine a living wage, remuneration of many worker in the garment and textile industry is considerably below any meaningful living wage criteria. ACT and the Textiles Partnership recognize that addressing this problem requires a systematic approach that facilitates progress towards a living wage through continuous and substantial real wage growth exceeding the level of inflation plus productivity growth.

“Until now, living wages have generally been the exception rather than the rule, especially in the textile industry. A large number of players must come together and facilitate systemic change for being successfully implemented everywhere. For this reason, our cooperation with the ACT initiative is such an important lever” says Jürgen Janssen, Head of the Secretariat of the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles.