Sandblasting Ban Anniversary
Levi Strauss & Co. Chief Supply Chain Officer David Love, marks the first year of the company’s sandblasting ban.
Transcript
it’s been a year since levi strauss &
company and H&M announced a global bond
and sandblasting now a lot has happened
since so we thought an update was in
order if our practices were safe why the
ban we’ve put in place some of the
strictest standards and monitoring
programs in the industry to help protect
the health and safety of the people that
make our products but there are
factories often linked to counterfeit
operations that don’t apply these same
safeguards and this puts workers at risk
we decided that the best we we can help
ensure no worker and any garment factory
faces the threat associated with
exposure to crystalline silica is to
move the and sandblasting industry-wide
since we announced our global ban we’ve
been part of an industry movement to
encourage other apparel brands to join
us we’ve worked with NGOs and advocacy
groups to help spread the word so far a
number of other companies have signed on
to the bond now this isn’t the first
time we’ve led the way in our industry
to ensure the people that make our
products work in a safe environment and
are treated with dignity and respect in
fact we wear the first to establish a
global code of conduct factories
worldwide must meet our standards if
they are to do business with us how can
we be sure our bond is being followed we
are confident that all of our authorized
suppliers have implemented our
sandblasting ban we have a team of
Assessors located around the world who
conduct regular inspections of our
factories to ensure compliance with our
terms of engagement we also have quality
experts located inside a number of our
supplier factories to ensure compliance
if we where to find that one of our
suppliers is sandblasting our garments
notwithstanding a ban we would address
it immediately and cease operations with
that supplier so what’s next well our
goal is to end the practice of
sandblasting industry-wide and will
continue to encourage other brands and
suppliers to join us it’s the only way
to rid of this practice industry wide
but what can you to first ask whether
the brand you’re choosing has banned
sandblasting and if not tell them that
you want them to make sure what you buy
is made in a way you can feel good about
and secondly don’t buy counterfeit we
know in a lot of cases factories making
counterfeit goods do not use the same
rigorous health and safety procedures as
we do and as a result they put people’s
health at risk thanks for your interest
in this important topic and thanks for
your time
