Schöffel, a major German outdoor company, joined FWF in February 2011.
Brand Performance Check 2019
Schöffel has shown advanced results on FWF performance indicators. With a monitoring percentage of 98% and a benchmarking score of 82, it remains in the Leader category for the fifth year in a row.
In 2018, Schöffel’s purchasing department structure changed in order to improve purchasing practices, with the intention of further consolidating its product supply chain as well as to making the transition from CMT business to buying full price products. Due to consolidation and the shift into full price products, 18 suppliers were exited in 2018. All CMT suppliers were informed about the shift to full price products two years in advance. All factory exits were discussed with the suppliers in advance and mutual agreements were reached in order to avoid potential negative consequences for the workers. Some factories (Turkey) were exited due to a lack of cooperation on improvements around the CoLP.
In 2018, 90% of Schöffel’s production volume came from factories where the company buys at least 10% of production capacity, and 53% of its total FOB came from the suppliers where the business relationship has existed for at least five years. Due to the fact that 97% of the total production comes from high-risk countries – of which 69% is sourced from Vietnam – a strong supplier monitoring process is required. The company’s due diligence and monitoring processes are strongly embedded in the company with the Head of Purchasing and senior management supporting the implementation of the Code of Labour Practices. In the past year, Schöffel has been continuously working on reducing the excessive overtime and has shown improvements in following up on corrective actions. The company’s local office in Vietnam has been expanded. The local staff enables Schöffel to effectively support factories with social and safety compliance as well as capacity building.
FWF encourages Schöffel to continue its efforts towards mitigating the root causes of overtime and try to demonstrate that the Schöffel’s measures have led to a reduction in overtime. FWF furthermore recommends that Schöffel continues its work on living wages and scale up raising the wage levels outside the pilot project.
Benchmarking score: 82
% under monitoring: 98
Category: Leader
