Following months of consultation with industry experts and stakeholders, the Open Apparel Registry has launched its biggest development since creating the platform – all users now have the option to contribute and search by a new set of facility data points in the tool.

Brands already using the registry include Another Tomorrow, Antigua, C&A, Columbia Sportswear, Mountain Equipment Company (MEC), Ralph Lauren, Rapha and Ted Baker.

The new data points are:

-Number of workers

-Parent company

-Type of product

-Type of facility

-Type of processing

Providing this information enables brands to meet the disclosure requirements of both the Transparency Pledge and the Fair Labor Association through the Open Apparel Registry, as well as ensuring these disclosures are open and standardised, for more efficient and effective collaboration.

In turn, building on the existing search capabilities of the platform, users to will be able to filter data searches specifically to their needs or area of interest, such as searching only for dye houses, or facilities with a high numbers of workers.

Users are able to see which organisation has contributed which data point, and on what date.

“The aim is to open up supply chain data for the benefit of all,” said Open Apparel Registry executive director Natalie Grillon. “The power of this approach lies in transforming messy, inconsistent data into structured datasets, made freely available to all stakeholders under an open data license. In launching this development, we are driving further consensus within the apparel sector around key data points, leading to the increased data standardisation the sector so desperately needs.”

The development has been welcomed by stakeholders across the sector.

“As a long-standing data contributor to the Open Apparel Registry, we are delighted to see this development of the tool,” said Gerhard Grimm of C&A Europe. “The ability for users to contribute and search through additional data points about facilities creates enormous opportunities for more efficient collaboration. It catalyzes the supply chain improvements stakeholders across the sector are working hard to achieve.”

www.openapparel.org