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Q: What do you concretely do when you find something that are missing something, we might actually send people out
seems suspicious? into the field, not ourselves but a consultant, to talk to factory
First, we start with some background research. It’s really about workers outside the factory. If we are concerned about child
finding the facts. If there a possibility labour, we go into the fields too.
that the company has committed “We carry out pretty One of our consultants visited two
a norm violation, it is necessary to 2,500 farms in India, on foot and
examine the case in order to actually thorough investigations in on bicycle. So, we carry out pretty
reach the threshold for recommending thorough investigations in order
that for it be either excluded or put order to establish a set of to establish a set of facts that could
under observation. Most companies lead us to recommend a company for
are generally put aside quite quickly, facts that could lead us to observation or exclusion. If we come
because they are not going to reach to that, we actually send them the
the threshold, but if we think that recommend a company for draft. This wakes them up most of the
they might, we will very often write time because now they understand
a letter to the company saying, for observation or exclusion.” that this is for real.
example, that it has come to our Many companies do understand
knowledge that you are engaged in… the downside of being excluded, for
Or what are you doing, what are your policies on humang we publish a very comprehensive recommendation of 10
rights etc.? At this stage we ask for facts. Most of the time to 15 pages. It is usually picked up by mainstream media –
they answer our requests, perhaps halfheartedly, and then we everything from national media to Bloomberg, BBC, Reuters
do of course more checks. In some cases, if we feel that we etc. So, this becomes very much international news and in

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