Case studies
We are committed to our CR programme and around the world our business units are undertaking initiatives and projects that support this.
The case studies below explain some of the activities under way and demonstrate how we are meeting our corporate responsibilities and developing best practice that we can share across our global operations.
Our Partners
To ensure that we are meeting the expectations of our stakeholders, including our customers and the brands we supply, we have introduced a programme of auditing at our operations in China. This helps us to make sure that we are adhering to our robust CR standards, as well as offering us opportunities to improve the way we operate. Starting in mid-2011, we introduced a training programme for employees that would help us do this. The initiative progressed through two phases:
Certified CR Lead Auditor Training Programme
This external training programme (conducted by the Intertek testing agency) is designed to equip attendees with the skill sets, capabilities and up-to-date intelligence on environmental issues, practices and effective performance management. It provides participants with a systematic and holistic approach to managing social compliance audits, covering the essential key topics, such as audit criteria/standards, typical codes of conduct, auditor professionalism, obtaining objective evidence, overall audit workflow, on-site audit processes, audit tools, writing corrective action plans, writing audit reports, etc.
Coats China’s Shenzhen unit sent participants from different functions (CR, HR, H&S, Procurement) to attend, and after five days comprehensive training, they all passed the training exam and were officially recognised as “CPI Certified CSR Auditors” by the Compliance Practitioners Initiative (CPI) and City & Guilds.
CR Internal Auditor Training Programme
In order to expand the CR Auditor Team within Coats China, the accredited Lead Auditors developed our own CR Internal Auditor Training Programme using the CPI materials, sharing their experience and knowledge by playing the trainer’s role. A number of individuals from three business units and different departments were selected to participate in the training. Following the classroom training participants underwent an assessment which they had to pass in order to become qualified Coats CR Internal Auditors. So far 21 trainees have completed the programme and more training is planned.
As a leading global thread supplier, Coats is committed to maintaining and promoting world class standards of business integrity. One way that Coats North America supports these beliefs is through collaboration with its plastic support supplier. Every day, we collect thousands of used plastic supports from our supply chain and internal processing and send them to the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department (SCVRD) for recycling.
The SCVRD centre’s mission is to “enable eligible South Carolinians with disabilities to prepare for, achieve and maintain competitive employment”. They operate 24 work training centres located throughout the state and contract with many businesses and industries to do outsource work.
They take the supports and – using their equipment and manpower – process them into small plastic chips suitable for injection moulding. The chips are then sent to our supplier, who produces thread spools of various sizes for reuse.
In this way, we are keeping thousands of kilograms of plastic out of the landfills each year, whilst at the same time helping those in need in our local community. See more about the work the SCVRD does at their website.
