Environment, health and safety (EHS) compliance audits of textile dyeing and printing units
Student name: Ms Himashree Bhattacharyya
Guide: Dr Nandini Kumar
Year of completion: 2010
Host Organisation: KPMG
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Danish Ahmad Farooqui
Abstract: Globalisation has introduced the phenomenon of outsourcing of production processes by large
textile brands to the developing countries like India. The level of compliance to environmental,
health and safety of workers in these supplier units are not always very high owing to less
stringent regulations and their implementation in these countries. To ensure that international
standards are followed in these units, the ambit of corporate social responsibility of the buyer
has been increased to include the social and environmental performance of their suppliers.
The Indian dyeing and printing industry consists mostly of small and medium scale enterprises
and employs a large number of unskilled labours. The work done during this study focussed on
improving the environmental conditions of these industries and of the health and safety
conditions of the workers. For this purpose, third party audits of dyeing and printing units which
were suppliers for the client were conducted. The process of audit involves pre- audit
preparation, an opening meeting, walkthrough, closing meeting, sample collection and report
submission. The purpose of these audits is to improve EHS management system of these units and
to increase the compliance to relevant laws and legislations related to establishment and
operation of a factory in India. The audit reports were used to find out the major problems
assailing the dyeing and printing units and also to rank these units on their level of compliance.
These rankings were helpful to decide the approach to be taken to bring these units up to the
required standards. Also the reasons behind some common non- compliances in the Indian textile
industry were discussed.
KEYWORDS –Supply chain management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Compliance, Audits,
Factories Act 1948
