Belgium

Partner organisations

• 1 health organisation
• 2 youth organisations
• 1 mutual health organisation
• 1 organisation for elderly people
• 7 sociocultural movements
• 1 trade union
• 1 women’s movement

Some results in Belgium

• Awareness-raising and training: In March 2018, a social sustainability inspiration day was organised for companies (80 participants) because of the publication "A guide for companies on the road to clean clothes". In that same month, a kick-off day for the second campaign year took place. 216 participants, amongst whom campaign partners took part that day. This was followed in the autumn by a publication "How to buy sustainable clothing in my organisation" and a training session on this subject in December. In April 2018, the disaster in Rana Plaza was commemorated in Ghent and Antwerp, which led to a lot of media attention. In June 2018, the international campaign against Nike/Adidas was kicked off in Liège. This because of the Football World Cup. Red Devils Simon Mignolet and Koen Casteels signed our football calendar with campaign demands. 19,101 people signed the petition to support our demands, bringing the total to 43,426 signatures after two years of campaigning. Kwb added 69,930,319 kcal to support these demands. 700,000 football calendars were distributed to the supporters during the World Cup, raising awareness widely.
• Behavioural change: Four cities made their purchasing policy more sustainable and communicated about it: Liège, Mechelen, Ghent and Sint-Niklaas. VVSG supervises and strongly encourages local authorities to make this choice.  Familiehulp also opted for a different policy and clean sportswear for their 12,000 employees. The ECG group joined the Fair Wear Foundation and opted for a structural change towards more sustainability. 
• Influencing policy: Several policy initiatives (from the SERV, NCP of OECD) were taken, but these need to be closely monitored in the coming years to ensure that they lead to fruitful results.

Testimony 

San Cooreman from Familiehulp 

"Familiehulp is a value-driven organisation. Good working conditions are guaranteed for our own 12,600 employees. We think it is logical to also think about the working conditions of the workers who make our clothes. For example, we launched our 'clean' sports jerseys in 2018. WSM brought us into contact with sustainable suppliers so that we could easily make this purchase a reality. It reflects well on our organisation. And our employees work together as a team by doing sports together, often for charity. It’s a real win-win. Our sweaters visibly carry the clean clothes label and we get a lot of positive comments on this. It's also a good way to make our own employees aware of the Clean Clothes campaign.? For us, this story doesn't stop with just one purchase. Sustainability is always an important factor in our purchasing and tendering policy. We also ask for the necessary guarantees for our work clothing. And even for our gadgets we are increasingly looking for sustainable options. For example, our new employees receive a goody bag. Even though the waiting time for a sustainable tote bag was a lot longer and - admittedly - also a little bit more expensive, we deliberately opted for it. That doesn't have to be a problem. It's just a matter of standing behind your values, good planning and a little bit of patience. I want to recommend it to everyone."