hessnatur is the leading German mail order company specialised in selling ecological products with a focus on garments. hessnatur has been a member of FWF since 2005. 

A management system audit was carried out at hessnatur in September 2009. The resulting report can be downloaded here.

hessnatur has been affiliated to FWF for four years. During the last year, the company has taken several important steps to improve their work with securing good working conditions in the supply chain. hessnatur has further developed their format for their own internal factory audits as well as a database to keep track of corrective actions at production site level.

hessnatur has a sourcing system by which the suppliers’ performance on social standards carries as much weight as the performance on technical and environmental areas when suppliers are graded. This grading influences how orders are placed and shows that hessnatur has commitment to source from suppliers with a good performance on social standards. hessnatur also has an ambitious program to inform and educate staff and customers regarding social issues in the supply chain.

hessnatur now needs to step up the monitoring activities to cover a larger part of their supply chain with audits of working conditions. hessnatur should also look at how the internal auditing system of factories can be developed to include more sources of information, especially from workers and local stakeholders. To improve dialogue with production sites, hessnatur needs to make sure that information and dialogue regarding improvements reach production site (factory) level at all their suppliers. Important information and feedback can be lost when going through intermediaries.

One important challenge for hessnatur for 2010 is to find a way to estimate the value of production at production site level and how much of their turnover in garments have been covered by audit activities. Structural issues in the ordering system of hessnatur makes this difficult, but FWF is open for assisting in the development of this.