United Apparel Fiji Limited has become the first company in the Australasia region to attain Platinum status as a Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) facility.

Platinum certifications are awarded to facilities that have demonstrated full compliance with WRAP’s 12 Principles for 3 consecutive certification audits. A Platinum facility has to successfully pass every audit with no corrective actions or observations and maintain continuous certification with no gaps between certification periods.

The company has been a WRAP Gold certified facility for the past 2 years  and had attained gold status at the first attempt. Company Managing Director, Kaushik Kumar said they are strong believers in the continuous improvement process and had firmly set their target to upgrade to the Platinum status.

WRAP is the world’s largest independent certification program and mainly focusses on apparel, footwear and sewn products sector.

WRAP takes a collaborative approach to social compliance certification in which it works with facilities to ensure they remain compliant with WRAP’s 12 principles.

The WRAP Principles are based on generally accepted international workplace standards, local laws and workplace regulations, and include the spirit or language of relevant conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The Principles encompass human resources management, health and safety, environmental practices, and legal compliance including import/export and customs compliance and security standards.

The WRAP Certification Program’s objective is to independently monitor and certify compliance with these standards, to ensure that sewn products are being produced under lawful, humane and ethical conditions. Participating facilities voluntarily commit to ensuring that their manufacturing practices will meet these standards, and further commit to passing along, on their part, the expectation that their contractors and suppliers likewise comply with these standards.