Translations Best practice in French version Best practice in English version

DAKTARI sells sustainable loss leaders

5. Fair Operating Practices

Responsible purchasing

Context

Daktari is a SME that offers loss leaders made in China and India with competitive pricing.The company is aware of its societal responsibility and now develops an approach on sustainable purchase.

Objectives

- Following the manufacturing conditions of the products to be sold.

APPROACH

Daktari has mainly chosen its partners among Southern countries -India and China. They must fulfil all following conditions :

- Having a promising social audit. A precise follow-up is updated each time the plant is checked and after this first audit.

- Having a global audit that meets Daktari’s requirements as for production capacity, machinery, followed-up products and the possibility to develop new products, etc.

Partners sign a social charter and terms of reference that gets them involved. They are quite often controled through social audits conducted by independent experts. Partners are given some advice to improve the working conditions of the workers.

Daktari organises breakfasts and offers concrete actions such as visiting the partner plants, searching for natural materials, thinking about logistics, funding social audit, etc.

The company mainly uses natural fibers and production patterns that polute less. Wrapping is taken into account when it comes to the design of the products (biodegradable polybags, vegetable inks, limited tests on tincture). The company also pays various eco-friendly wrapping taxes, electric and electronic equipment waste, etc.

Daktari is striving to find solutions that polute less for goods transport : shipowners who signed the « charte bleue » (a charter on sustainable development in sea transport sector) and companies which signed the « clean cargo » agreement are chosen in priority, recyclable pallets are used, river transport is promoted.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

-  The turnover has doubled between 2005 and 2007

-  Daktari is positioning itself and is different from others : it manages social and environmental risks on its brands for its customers

- The employees are getting involved

- Nine partner plants have already been listed ; they have a credible reputation and show  commercial development

- The approach meets the consumers’ demand.

Benefits

- The workers from the partner plants have better working conditions

- Respect for environment is considered from the very design of the product to its transport

- The audit of a partner-supplier costs 2,000 euros.

Turnover
2 millions d’euros
Country
France

DAKTARI

10, avenue Pasteur
59130 LAMBERSART

Mise à jour le 26/05/2016

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.