Participating with or Supporting YESS
Total Supporters: 77
Last Updated: March 13, 2019
YESS Company Participation
Brands and retailers are invited to join YESS as Founding Partners or Pilot Assessment Sponsors. Joining YESS at one of these levels will demonstrate a company’s commitment to eliminating forced labor in the global textile industry and will help RSN build a YESS program. See the YESS Company Participation document for details.
Statement of Support for the YESS Initiative
Retailers, brands, manufacturers, NGOs and other stakeholders are invited to endorse YESS by signing a Statement of Support. We ask that you fill out the form to add your organization’s name to our list of YESS supporters and to receive updates on our progress. Please note that we will only be posting the names of endorsing organizations.
statement
As the supporters of this statement, we acknowledge it is important for us to work together to create and advance an international ethical and sustainable cotton value chain. YESS: Yarn Ethically & Sustainably Sourced, an initiative of Responsible Sourcing Network, aspires to impede forced labor in cotton harvesting. It will do this by engaging, educating, and enabling yarn spinners to implement a due diligence system to identify and address forced labor. YESS will also coordinate its activities with sustainable cotton and apparel initiatives to avoid duplication and promote harmonization across the industry.
Cotton produced by forced labor is documented in at least nine countries (1). There is a gap in the transparency between where forced labor occurs in the cotton fields and the facilities in which different cottons are blended and spun together. YESS aims to close this gap by training cotton yarn spinners on the OECD due diligence system to address forced labor and verifying that the system is being implemented correctly (2). YESS will also be in a position to provide insight on the various sustainable cottons spinners are processing.
We express our commitment toward ethical and sustainable cotton and yarn sourcing. We confirm our support of the development and implementation of the YESS initiative and encourage our peers to join us.
Click here to download this statement as a pdf.
Click here to add an organization to this statement.
Click here to see the full list of YESS supporters.
1. YESS created a methodology to determine countries at high-risk of using forced labor in their cotton production. For 2018, YESS documented cotton produced with forced labor in nine countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, China, India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
2. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developments (OECD) Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector.
