The training unit on the environmental performance of production facilities ensures that auditors are familiar with all environmentally relevant factors in order to successfully identify critical points at all stages of production.

The topics included safe handling and storage of chemicals, efficient use of energy resources (electricity, gas, heating oil, etc.) and water, wastewater treatment and its discharge into public waters or treatment plants as well as emissions from boiler and production systems.

Another aspect in this context was the compliance with the limit values required by STeP by OEKO-TEX. A further section covered the environmentally friendly handling of (critical) waste, the functionality of waste management and the environmental impact of any accidental discharge.

This unit also included a detailed discussion of the use of best available technologies (BAT) with regard to resources, plants and processes as this is also of central importance for the environmental performance of production facilities.

Understand management systems (MS) & Introduction to the Resource Efficiency (RE) concept

The first unit identified the common factors of different management systems (MS) from ISO 9001 (quality) and 14001 (environment) to OHSAS 18001 (occupational health and safety) and SA 8000 (social responsibility).

This showed how the correct functioning of managements systems (MS) can be verified on the basis of the company policy, using simple questions for existing indicators. A second unit then presented the concept of resource efficiency (RE) and showed how companies can use sometimes very simple measures to fundamentally improve their environmental performance while saving money.

Social Responsibility

SAI Field Services Director, Doug DeRuisseau, in Zurich, and SAI Lead Trainer Badri Gulur, in Hong Kong, worked with OEKO-TEX to train the auditors to assess the social working conditions in the textile production facilities, as required by STeP.

As SA 8000 auditors and trainers, Doug DeRuisseau and Badri Gulur were able to contribute their long-standing experience to the workshop. Using practical examples from the textile industry, the auditors learned how different the social conditions can be in the facilities and the complexities of social auditing, which points require special attention and how to manage difficult situations.