Sourcing: tool to better understand brand practices

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Oct 7, 2014

The tool Mode Tracker is designed to enable brands to better communicate their production methods, their commitment to sustainability and the working conditions of their employees.

Among those who have already signed up: G-Star, Ted Baker, Nomad, Haikure and Claudia Sträter. Introduced in early October, the system should officially be launched in 2015 for pilot brands and should be extended to brand partners in 2016. 

Mode Tracker is intended to enable clothing brands and retailers to develop a roadmap to engage on a series of sustainability issues, to demonstrate their improvements and to communicate these actions publicly. 

More concretely, brands provide Mode Tracker with confidential information regarding their sustainability projects and their strategy to improve their management systems and production methods. The information is then verified by experts before being published via an interactive infographic outlining the brand’s commitment to sustainability.

The tool has been released eighteen months after the tragedy of Rana Plaza, a dilapidated factory in Bangladesh whose collapse cost the lives of 1,127 textile workers, and seriously marred top brand’s public commitment to ethical production.