Their effectiveness has been questioned by some, while others believe they are essential for protecting businesses and improving working conditions in their respective industries. Do you think it's possible for them to both be right at the same time?

According to an Associated Press report published in late December 2018, the Statesville, North Carolina-based supplier was procuring apparel from a Chinese factory that was allegedly employing forced labor at the time of the report's publication. The Hetian Taida Apparel Company's Chinese manufacturing facility was shut down by Badger immediately following widespread coverage of the story in the news media. Following an investigation, the company decided to end its relationship with Hetian and pledged to no longer source from China's Xinjiang region, where press reports indicated that more forced labor was being used than previously.

A direct result of Badger's lightning-fast reaction time was that he was immediately impacted by the consequences of his actions. The company's higher-profile clients, such as colleges and universities, have removed Badger apparel from their campus stores and issued statements stating that they will no longer do business with it. Despite Badger's claims that the factory produced only about 1% of the company's apparel, the company's name continues to appear in media reports about forced labor in the apparel industry. Badger executives were further aggrieved when they claimed that the Hetian Taida facility had undergone an audit, which was later discovered to be untrue by the company itself.

Taking a cue from the cautionary tale, it is essential to ensure that the factories that produce promotional products for businesses operate in a moral and ethical manner. The use of China factory audit service to ensure that their manufacturing facilities meet social compliance standards has become increasingly popular among domestic companies in the promotional products and other industries over the last two decades. The fact that, following a series of high-profile tragedies and exposés, an increasingly vocal contingent of critics is calling into question the veracity and effectiveness of the audits under consideration is not a deterrent to the process.

The results of China factory audit service conducted in four Southeast Asian countries between 2003 and 2010 revealed that employees' working conditions did not significantly improve. In a recent report from Brigham Young University, this was stated to be the case.

Clean Clothes Campaign, a Dutch-based organization, has taken a more aggressive stance against child labor in the last few months. Earlier this year, the organization published a study in which it claimed that audits had failed miserably in their attempts to protect garment factory workers, and that the findings were corroborated by other research. The findings of the study suggest that audits are simply an elaborate cover for the purpose of protecting a company's brand image, rather than anything else. In the report, the collapse of a factory building, such as the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh in April 2013, was used as an example of what can happen when a factory building collapses, and what happened in that case was discussed. Because of the tragedy, more than 1,100 garment workers, many of whom were earning low wages, perished in their workplace. According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, an audit of the factory conducted not long before the poorly constructed building collapsed failed to detect any significant safety flaws or the use of child labor in the factory, despite the fact that the building was poorly constructed. Kalpona Akter, founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, says it's shocking that no one has been held accountable for the massive loss of life, not a single brand, not a single auditing firm, and that this is a source of great concern.


Factory audits are a difficult proposition to put your confidence in. Does the company take precautionary measures to ensure that a supply chain is free of abuse and exploitation of others? Keep in mind that not only is the company's reputation at stake, but also the lives of those who were directly involved in the incident.