Why should consumers feel confident in CARE Certification?
What is the scope of the CARE Process?
The CARE Process is the name given to the International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI) ethical manufacturing program aimed at ensuring fair labour treatment in the industry supply chain, worldwide. The participants in prelims identified this as a comprehensive, reliable and maturing program, and hence adopted it for use in the publishing sector.
The purpose of the CARE Process is to enable the worldwide toy (and now publishing) industries to assure the consumer that their products are manufactured in safe and humane environments. To achieve this, its intent is to provide single, fair, thorough and consistent monitoring program for factories.
This fully transparent process begins with a Code of Business Practices, Monitoring Protocol and Guidance Document and runs straight through to the periodic certification / recertification of factories that comply.
The name CARE was selected to symbolise the industries' pledge to act in a Caring, Aware, Responsible and Ethical manner in manufacturing its products.
This is an independent organisation, whose purpose is to ensure that the CARE Process is conducted in an open and correct manner. It sets its own rules and standards, provides advice to ICTI and reports publicly on its findings. Two specific roles include quality control, using check audits at its discretion, and the adjudication of disputes.
Though the Foundation will include (toy) industry representatives, it will be controlled by trustees who have no financial or business relationship with the industry.
Why should consumers feel confident in CARE Certification?
A factory will receive CARE certification only if it can demonstrate that it is committed to compliance with the ICTI Code of Business Practices by establishing effective, verifiable systems to satisfy the Code provisions. This evaluation will be performed after a rigorous review by an independent third party monitor that has itself been accredited by the independent Trustees of the CARE Foundation.
To forestall potential conflicts of interest amongst monitors, factories and brands, the CARE Program has installed several checks to minimise or eliminate the risks of conflict of interest. First, the program will be overseen by the CARE Foundation, an organization independent of the (toy) industry that will be controlled by Trustees with no connection to the (toy) industry or the retailers who sell its products. Second, the CARE Foundation with be charged with accrediting independent auditing firms to evaluate factory conditions and determine whether a facility should be CARE certified. One of the conditions of accreditation is that an auditing firm must not maintain any consulting relationship with a factory or brand that it will audit on social compliance issues. Finally the Trustees of the CARE Foundation will have the authority to impose additional requirements on factories, monitors and brands to address any conflicts, real or perceived, which may arise from the operation of the CARE program.
What is the scope of the CARE Process?
The initial focus of the CARE Process has been on China, where Chinese toy manufacturers have been very supportive of the process and some 80% of the toys sold in the West are manufactured.
In addition for the publishing industry, the same ICTI-approved auditing companies have confirmed their willingness to audit suppliers' factories across all parts of Southeast Asia where books and books-plus products are manufactured, including SAR Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan.
Thereafter, the intention of prelims is to extend the scope of the program and the Resolution to include all parts of the world where books and books-plus products are manufactured.
British Toy and Hobby
Association
- The leading toy industry trade body in the UK.
http://www.btha.co.uk/
International Council
of Toy Industries - The international association of national toy trade
bodies who are pioneering the ICTI CARE Process social accountability standard.
http://www.toy-icti.org/
Publishers Association
- UK trade body for the publishing industry.
http://www.publishers.org.uk/
UN Global Compact
on the Responsibilities of Business - United Nations-backed organisation
who promote principles of social accountability.
http://www.unglobalcompact.org/