ICS - Initiative Clause Sociale

The Social Clause Initiative springs from and gathers 15 brands or retailers, mainly based in France. It aims to encourage their suppliers to comply with universal human rights principles as well as the ILO and local labour regulations in their production units.

A desire to improve control of the process undertaken led a company working group to step up their social and economic support to their suppliers by carrying out on-site inspections of working conditions, by outside independent auditing firms.

ICS is based on a pragmatic and progressive approach, including:

1. A code of ethics, which each company committing to the Social Clause Initiative must sign and adhere to
2. Meetings and training sessions for sharing feedback and exchanging expertise
3. Shared tools: Audit manual – Factory profile – Questionnaire – Execution guideline - Corrective action plan – Alert notification ICS Code of conduct and each company’s code of conduct
4. An operational database and an annual review of results hosted online. The database can be used to extract a certain number of indicators.

The audit questionnaire, used as a shared standard for conducting labour audits, incorporates the main conventions and recommendations of the ILO and the local regulations of each country. The ICS has commissioned four outside independent and specialised firms, which have been trained to use the ICS tools and they regularly update a list of local auditors who are trained in the ICS strategy.

The standard is broken down into 8 sections (child labour; forced labour; discrimination; disciplinary practices; harassment or mistreatment; freedom of association; working hours; wages and benefits; health and safety).

Information

Source

http://www.ics-asso.org/

Remarks

Specificity

High presence in the French and European market.

Nature of the instrument - standard

Purpose - declaration and implementation