Ethical Sourcing In Garment Manufacturing: What Brands Should Ask Their Suppliers

The five questions that separate genuinely responsible supply chains from those that merely look compliant on paper.

The global garment industry employs over 75 million workers worldwide — and yet labour violations remain rampant even among suppliers who carry certifications and pass standard audits. For brands that care about the people behind their products, a badge is not enough.

Ethical sourcing has become one of the most discussed topics in fashion procurement. European and UK brands in particular face real regulatory pressure — from the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive to the UK Modern Slavery Act — to demonstrate that their supply chains are clean. But knowing where to start, and what questions to actually ask, is harder than it looks.

In our experience working with international brands from our facility in Howrah, West Bengal, the brands that build the most responsible supply chains are not necessarily the ones with the longest compliance checklists. They are the ones who ask the right questions and build real relationships. Here are the five that matter most.

"The brands that build the most responsible supply chains are not the ones with the longest compliance checklists. They are the ones who ask the right questions."

The five questions every brand should ask

Question 1

Who actually makes your product?

This is the most important question in ethical sourcing — and the one most brands forget to ask. Does the manufacturer you are contracting with produce everything in-house, or do they subcontract parts of the work to other facilities? Subcontracting is extremely common in garment production, particularly for embroidery, printing, washing, and finishing. It is also where the majority of undisclosed labour violations happen. Ask for a full map of every facility that will touch your order, with addresses and ownership. A manufacturer unwilling to share this is one you should think twice about.

Question 2

What are your workers paid — and how?

Minimum wage compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. Ask specifically what workers are paid relative to the local living wage — a number the Global Living Wage Coalition publishes by region. Ask whether wages are paid on time and in full, whether deductions are used for accommodation or equipment, and whether piece-rate systems are in place (which often result in workers being paid below minimum wage during slow periods). Transparent manufacturers will have payroll records they can share. Those who deflect this question often have something to hide.

Question 3

What happens during peak season?

The most ethical factories in the world can look very different in the weeks before a major deadline. Ask specifically about overtime: is it voluntary or mandatory? Are there caps on weekly hours? How are night shifts managed? What are the policies for pregnant workers and those with young children? Peak season is when the gap between a factory's written policy and its actual practice becomes visible. A manufacturer who has genuinely thought through these pressures — and has systems to manage them — will have clear, specific answers.

Question 4

Can we visit — unannounced?

This is the simplest and most powerful question on this list. Willingness to permit unannounced visits is one of the strongest signals of genuine transparency a manufacturer can give. Scheduled audits are gamed constantly — floors are cleaned, workers are briefed, records are prepared. An open-door policy, by contrast, signals that the day-to-day reality of the factory is something the manufacturer is proud of. If the answer to this question is no, or comes with significant conditions, treat that as a red flag regardless of what any certification says.

Question 5

What certifications do you hold — and can we see the actual audit reports?

Do not stop at the badge. Ask for the full audit report, including findings, non-conformances, and corrective action plans. A GOTS or SA8000 certificate tells you a factory met a threshold at a point in time. The corrective action plan tells you what was actually wrong and whether it was fixed. The best manufacturers welcome this scrutiny — they have nothing to conceal and often use the process to demonstrate genuine continuous improvement to their brand partners.

Red flags and green flags

Once you have asked these questions, the answers will generally sort manufacturers into two clear camps. Here is what to watch for.

Red flags — walk away

✕ Prices so low they cannot support fair wages at any reasonable productivity

✕ Resistance to factory visits or significant conditions attached to access

✕ Vague or evasive answers about subcontracting arrangements

✕ No documented grievance mechanism for workers to raise concerns

✕ Certification badges but unwillingness to share underlying audit reports

✕ Verbal assurances without any supporting documentation

Green flags — lean in

✓ Proactive sharing of audit reports including findings and corrective actions

✓ Full and named supplier map shared without hesitation

✓ Living wage commitments that go beyond local minimum wage requirements

✓ Anonymous worker feedback systems with evidence of use

✓ Open-door policy for unannounced visits from brand partners

✓ Honest acknowledgment of areas still being improved

How we approach this at Mettaloom

Our practice

Transparency is not a policy. It is how we were built.

Our facility in Howrah, West Bengal spans 100,000 sq. ft. and operates under a single roof. We do not subcontract. Every cutting table, every stitching line, every finishing station, and every quality checkpoint is in-house, in one building, under our direct management. When a brand partner asks us who makes their product, the answer is always: we do.

We pay above the West Bengal state minimum wage across all roles, and we are in active conversation about what a credible living wage commitment looks like for our team. Overtime is voluntary and capped. We have a worker feedback process that operates outside the standard management hierarchy, so that concerns reach us directly.

We welcome visits — including unannounced ones — from any of our brand partners. We share our audit reports, findings included. We do not present a sanitised version of ourselves to new clients. If there are areas we are still working on, we say so.

This is not a differentiator for us. It is simply how a serious manufacturer should operate.

A word on price

Ethical sourcing costs more. This needs to be said plainly, because one of the most common patterns in the garment industry is brands demanding ethical compliance from manufacturers while simultaneously negotiating prices below what ethical compliance makes possible.

Fair wages, safe working conditions, genuine quality management, and transparent supply chains all cost money. The margin required to sustain them is real. Brands that consistently drive prices to the floor are, whether they intend it or not, the root cause of many of the violations they say they want to eliminate.

The brands we most want to work with understand this. They see manufacturing cost not as something to minimise at all costs, but as part of what their product actually is — a fair reflection of the skill, care, and conditions that went into making it.

"Brands that consistently drive prices to the floor are, whether they intend it or not, the root cause of many of the violations they say they want to eliminate."

Ethical sourcing is a relationship, not a checklist

The five questions above will get you most of the way there. But ultimately, the supply chains with the fewest problems are the ones built on long-term, honest relationships between brands and manufacturers — not on annual audits and compliance documents.

Visit your factory. Talk to the people making your product. Ask the hard questions. Return the following year and ask them again. Build the kind of partnership where your manufacturer calls you when something goes wrong, rather than hiding it until your auditor finds it.

That is what ethical sourcing actually looks like in practice. And it starts with asking the right questions from the very first conversation.