Social Report 2011
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www.acnestudios.com Social Report 2011 Member of FWF: 2008 Social report – Acne Studios AB – April 2012 1/ 8 Organizational chart Acne Studios Acne’s head office is located in Stockholm, Sweden and is the workplace for approximately 100 people. The following departments are operated from the head office: Design and Production, Distribution (Wholesale and Retail), Logistics, Finance, IT and PR & Marketing. In addition to the headquarters in Stockholm we have country offices in France, Germany, Denmark, Norway and USA, as well as concept stores in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bergen, Berlin, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Hamburg, London, Melbourne, New York, Oslo, Paris, Stavanger, Stockholm and Sydney. The Design and Production Department is organized in one Men’s and one Woman’s team respectively and include functions for business controlling, CSR and quality and are working under the CEO and the Creative Director. Design and Production Department Production Manager Business Controlling CSR and Quality Women’s Team Men’s Team Design Design Product Development & Product Development & Production Production Pattern Making Pattern Making Social report – Acne Studios AB – April 2012 2/ 8 Contents Organizational chart Acne Studios ................................................................................................................................ 2 1. Summary ............................................................................................................................................................................. 4 2. Sourcing strategy ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 2.1. Sourcing strategy and pricing ........................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. Organisation of the sourcing department ................................................................................................... 5 2.3. Production cycle ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 2.4. Selection of new factories................................................................................................................................... 6 2.5. Integrating monitoring activities and sourcing decisions .................................................................... 6 3. Coherent system for monitoring and remediation ............................................................................................ 7 3.1. China ........................................................................................................................................................................... 7 3.2. Turkey ........................................................................................................................................................................ 7 4. Transparency and communication .......................................................................................................................... 8 Social report – Acne Studios AB – April 2012 3/ 8 1. Summary In 2011, we have strengthened our internal routines and communication regarding CSR. When it comes to social compliance, focus has been on China and Turkey, which are our main production countries from a risk perspective. A new CSR and Quality Manager was hired in April, and has been setting up new routines for our different CSR activities. During 2011 CSR has, as outlined in the work plan for 2011, been given increased importance in our on-going sourcing and supplier evaluations and CSR is continuously discussed at management meetings within the design & production department. In these meetings, it is decided on which suppliers to audit as well as on what actions that should be taken based on current audit findings. Audit results are normally communicated to everyone at the department at weekly meetings and a copy of every audit report is sent to the concerned buyer. Before a manager or buyer is going to visit a supplier, the CSR Manager is always consulted to give an update on the current CSR status and to inform of topics that need to be discussed during the visit. Our quality auditor is also kept updated on the social compliance situation at the factories and is helping the CSR Manager to follow up minor findings during his quality audits. The fact that we are such a small organization with around 25 people working with buying and product development gives us a great opportunity to work together like this. We have followed up on our goal for 2011 to communicate our CSR commitments to the rest of our organization. One example of this is a presentation that was held at an internal Retail Conference, where all regional and store managers participated. All managers were requested to pass this information on to their staff. This presentation was highly appreciated and many of our employees, throughout all different departments, show a big interest and concern in these issues. Information on our social compliance commitments and FWF membership is also described in our Retail Manual, which is distributed to all our stores. When it comes to social audits, we have started to make more audits together with FWF as opposed to before where we made most of our audits ourselves. During 2011, we made two full FWF audits at two new suppliers in China and made several shorter monitoring audits at new and existing suppliers in both Turkey and China together with a FWF audit supervisor. We see these different types of audits (full FWF audits and shorter monitoring audits with a FWF audit supervisor) as an efficient solution for monitoring the development and we will continue with this way of working during 2012. Unfortunately, we were not able to complete as many audits as planned in Turkey due to lack of FWF auditors there since September 2011. We are really hoping that FWF going forward will assure a reliable availability of auditors for their members so that we can fulfil our goals. Social report – Acne Studios AB – April 2012 4/ 8 2. Sourcing strategy 2.1. Sourcing strategy and pricing Acne Studios designs, markets and distributes high-end fashion and denim. Our product range includes men’s and women’s clothing, shoes and accessories. Below you can see the distribution of our production per country for 2011. Production countries 2011 30,00% 20,00% 10,00% 0,00% The above graph shows the percentage of production per country based on purchase costs. Our production is made on CMT, CM or full price terms. Price negotiations are undertaken both at an early development stage but also with the order figures in hand. We are always looking for good value for money; that said, we are never willing to compromise on our designs or product quality and we always see that prices should be reasonable in both parties’ perspective. In general, we have direct business relationships with our suppliers but in case of working through agents, we always strive to have direct contact with the factories. The reasoning behind this is to keep control of everything from development and production to CSR conditions. Our goal is to have a supplier base that can meet all our different requirements. We are always open to find new suppliers to work with, but we never do so before we feel secure that it is a supplier we can trust and strive for long-term relationship with. We continuously evaluate our suppliers based on different parameters such as communication, prices, deliveries, CSR etc. 2.2. Organisation of the sourcing department The Design and Production department is headed by a production manager and consist of around 30 employees. The department is divided into a men’s and a women’s team which both have a team leader and consist of around 30 peoples including designers, product developers/buyers and pattern designers. In addition, the department include two production controllers and the CSR and quality manager. One responsibility of the team leaders is to coordinate the sourcing of fabric and garment suppliers together with the concerned buyer. We also have fabric sourcing manager who are responsible for coordination of our fabric suppliers. Social report – Acne Studios AB – April 2012 5/ 8 2.3. Production cycle Each year we produce two Main collections for men’s and women’s wear respectively, as well as two Pre- collections for women’s wear. In addition to these collections, we also make two smaller Capsule collections per year. The production orders are placed based on external and internal (our own stores) orders of the collections and only include a small element of stock ordering for in-season orders. In addition to the large seasonal orders that are placed at the end of each selling period, we are also working with reorders within the store seasons. The production lead-times vary between just a few weeks up to half a year and are highly dependent on internal planning, the capacity of our suppliers and fabric lead times. 2.4. Selection of new factories Every season usually brings about some new supplier. This process starts with a meeting where our product idea is presented to the supplier. Following this meeting, the supplier is usually asked to produce prototype samples that are sent to us. If we approve these samples, the next step is the production of sales samples. Parallel to this product sampling, the supplier is informed about our FWF membership and given a questionnaire,