The reports of the second social audit of working conditions on the premises of Chinese and Indian suppliers to Swiss textiles enterprises Migros, Switcher and Veillon were published during March 2003, in the context of the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC).

At a time when public social labels are beginning to appear, private labels are becoming more important and hundreds of codes of conduct can be catalogued, issues relating to the existence and effectiveness of control (or monitoring) systems and the reliability of the social audit are becoming acute.

The European Commission is aware of this problem and states in its communication on 2 July 2002 on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that the most fundamental challenge for codes of conduct is to ensure that they are implemented and that their implementation is monitored and controlled effectively. As regards labels, it calls for common criteria to be respected when formulating and evaluating social practices.

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