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An international study on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of jeans manufacturing called for manufacturers to improve in the areas of corporate policies, workers' working condition, environmental consideration, transparency, and consumer information.

The study was coordinated by International Consumer Research & Testing (ICRT) and participated by 14 member organisations. 15 international jeans brands and jeans manufacturers of chain store brands were invited to take part but only 7 brands responded and allowed ICRT researchers to visit their factories in Bangladesh, China, Italy, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey.

ICRT researchers studied the publicly released CSR reports of the remaining 8 manufacturers.

Highlights of the study include:

- All brands under survey had drawn up CSR and environmental policies, but about 80% of them failed to implement monitoring of supply chain. Only one manufacturer was rated as "very good" in corporate policy.

- In the areas of workers' benefit and working conditions, performance was unsatisfactory in the categories of "Health & Safety and Decent Hours of Work".

- In environmental aspects, 7 brands and their production sites had formulated environmental policies and restricted substances list. However, most of the production sites performed poorly in pollution reduction measures.

- 5 manufacturers were rated "good" in transparency, 2 were "average", 1 was "poor" and 7 were "very poor".

- In providing information to consumers, 1 manufacturer was rated "good", 3 "average", 7 "poor" and 3 "very poor". The remaining one did not provide information.

The study also looked into safety measures adopted by manufacturers during sandblasting process in which jeans are sprayed with sand to create a used and old look.

As sand contains silica, it might cause silicosis in the lungs if workers inhale the dust. The proper use of adequate protective equipment while performing sandblasting can protect workers from exposure to silica.

The study found that sandblasting was carried out in 3 production sites. The operation in the Italian production site was either automated or semi-automated, and workers were wearing protective clothing. The production site in Bangladesh, however, practiced manual sandblasting. Although workers were provided with safety gears and annual lung tests, they had low awareness of the health and safety risks of such work process. And there was no air quality monitoring in the facility.

In April 2009, a legal ban on sandblasting was put in place in Turkey, following an announcement that 40 workers had died from silicosis from 2005 to 2009.

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