Instituto Alinha is a social business focused on improving workplace and living conditions for all workers. In order to change the reality of the fashion industry, Alinha supports garment factories in the process of becoming fair and certified (or aligned, from Portuguese “alinhadas”) facilities, connecting them to brands, producers and designers interested in partnering with small garment factories, thereby ensuring fair working conditions.
Any Alinha-certified garment factory is a small garment factory whose owner has completed an entrepreneurism course, to ensure sound business management, and which has received Instituto Alinha‘s support, including a three to six-month (average) monitoring program to achieve the minimum requirements of occupational safety and formalization. Once such requirements are met, the garment factory becomes visible at the Alinha platform to receive orders. As more orders are received and income is generate, the garment factories are encouraged to continue investing in further improvement. Below is Alinha’s step-by-step application process:
The owner of the small garment factory submits an application at our website.
Once selected, we send an Alinha agent with an occupational safety expert to inspect the small garment factory.
We design an action plan including the pending requirements for the garment factory to be certified.
We help the garment factories make the improvements. Once they have met the minimum occupational safety and formalization requirements, they become visible at the Alinha website.
Companies, brands and designers register at the Alinha website. Once approved, they have access to the list of certified garment factories.
It’s a match! Companies, brands and designers find certified garment factories according to their business needs and directly negotiate prices and production periods.
Once the small garment factories are selected, Alinha kicks off the advisory program by inspecting the facilities, when a standard assessment form is used to analyze the workplace conditions and classify factories based on a five-star rank – ideal factories receive five stars.
Three-starred garment factories are eligible for inclusion, which means that the occupational health and safety and formalization requirements have been met. The number of stars received on the first assessment is used as reference to monitor progress and to schedule future visits to the garment factory.
Once listed at our website, the small garment factories may nevertheless be blocked should there be any complaints or irregularity. Below are the requirements of our compliance program:
Factory owners must complete the entrepreneurism courses.
Legal formalization of the small garment factory and proper issue of tax invoices.
Electrical wiring and facilities.
Occupational health and safety.
Workplace organization.
Employment relations and eradication of unfair working conditions.
Read more about the
Blockchain technology used to
trace the products
of Alinha member brands.
After increased consumer interest in further information on the story behind each clothing item, we came up with the Alinha Tag. The tag ensures the traceability of the production process and certifies the fair working conditions in which the products were made using Blockchain technology. Thanks to Blockchain, it is possible to map out supply chains and share decentralized or disconnected information. Below is the step-by-step process of this system:
Companies and brands register and subscribe to one of the plans in order to have access to the Alinha Tag.
The brand then inputs information on the clothing items in the system, including the name of the garment factory that will receive the order. The system then notifies the owner of the garment factory of the new entry.
The owner of the garment factory reviews the service conditions and, if approved, confirms the order.
Upon approval and validation, the product receives a Blockchain-generated tracking code.
Brands download the Alinha Tag with the tracking code to be included in the clothing item.
Consumers can access our website, insert the code on the Alinha Tag and read the story behind the clothing item they have just purchased.