The global garment supply chain includes various production steps with high usage of chemicals, pesticides and water, which can easily be polluted. The different national laws for labour rights make it difficult to find a standardised system. High standard settings from European companies are exceeding national requirements in the production countries, and compliance is difficult to measure. Thus companies need to be aware of environmental and social issues and need to have transparent monitor schemes to address violation of requirements.

In the last decades “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a key issue when considering the regulation of globalisation” (France Diplomatie 2012). Governmental bodies, non-governmental organisations and companies are struggling how to stimulate companies’ social responsibility practice to respond to garment workers exploitation and environmental problems in the textile industry.

Companies developed various strategies to approach CSR work. In this report, three selected German garment companies are analysed in order to compare their strategy according key elements of CSR. Comparison is made between companies’ approaches and relevant governmental and non-governmental organisations. It is investigated that a collective approach can benefit companies by sharing experience and knowledge. The overload of certification and the lack of transparency in monitoring CSR performance push companies to join multi-stakeholder initiatives to work reliable and trustworthy. Multi-stakeholder initiatives are enabling a broader perspective to create new strategies, products and systems.