Ethical Clothing Australia (ECA) - Certified is one of the declarations under the Ekko Score No Exploitation Standard.
Ethical Clothing Australia works with local textile, clothing and footwear businesses manufacturing in Australia. The ECA voluntary accreditation program offers practical and affordable assistance to these businesses, and ensures that their Australian supply chains are fully transparent and legally compliant.The ECA program maps a business’s Australian supply chain throughout design, pattern making, cut, make, trim and dispatch, including all value adding services.
ECA protects the rights of both local factory-based workers and outworkers (also known as homeworkers). Outworkers are particularly vulnerable as they often work in isolation and can be unregulated. They can face unrealistic deadlines, long hours, irregular flows of work and occupational health and safety issues. You can get more information on this Certification on the Ethical Clothing Australia website.
Ethical Clothing Australia - Certified sits in the FAIR TRADE Family under the Societal Standard: No Exploitation of Ekko Score. One set of weighted Ekko Score points are gathered from each Family.
These are the claimable declarations & certifications under the Societal Standard: Multi Sector & Business. Please note that different certifications and declarations may be relevant to each category.
Yes, where the impact of the claim is similar. This is how it works.
IMPORTANTLY, SELF DECLARATIONS ARE GOVERNED BY CONSUMER LAW. IT IS AGAINST THE LAW FOR BUSINESSES TO MAKE FALSE CLAIMS (INCLUDING IMPLIED CLAIMS IN A CONTEXT LIKE EKKO SCORE).
EVEN IF A PRODUCT HAS A FORMAL CERTIFICATION, THAT CERTIFICATION DOES NOT GUARANTEE THE ENTIRE INTEGRITY OF THE PRODUCT'S MAKE UP.
An example might be a Handmade, Australian, Certified Organic chocolate that contains Palm Oil. Under Ekko Score, this product would claim Certified Organic and would self declare: Zero Waste Production and Australian made, but could not claim the No Palm Oil declaration. This would mean a lower score under the No Exploitation Standard, making the inclusion of Palm Oil clear to potential consumers, without detracting from its other assets.
No product is perfect, but some products are definitely better than others. Ekko Score allows you to make the best decision you can, or to put it another way, the least worst decision. And to make that decision with the confidence of not being green washed. Find out more about how Ekko Score works.