An International Trade Centre (ITC) report states that while social audits in other surveyed countries, including China, Vietnam, Turkey, and India, decreased, the average number of social audits in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG) industry increased.

Excessive auditing has been linked to “fatigue” and “inefficiencies” in supply chains, according to the paper.

Audit fatigue may not only divert organisations from the primary goals of audits self-improvement, transparency, and compliance but may also encourage them to view audits as routine tasks to be completed as quickly as possible, sometimes resorting to fraudulent practices, it added.

Social auditing in supply chains is used to identify labour and human rights risks and ensure that suppliers satisfy global, regional or company standards of ethical labour and supply-chain practices.

“The decrease in social audits is also evident in countries where the Social and Labor Convergence Program (SLCP) operates. While adoption has increased, the average number of social audits has declined in all countries except Bangladesh, which also holds the highest average number of social audits among all SLCP countries,” said the ITC report published last month.

The average number of social audits per facility in Bangladesh was 3.6 in 2021, rising to 3.7 in 2022 and then returning to 3.6 in 2023.

In China, the number was 3.1 in 2021, decreasing to 2.8 in 2023. Vietnam also experienced a similar downward trend, with an average of 3.2 audits in 2021 declining to 2.6 in 2023.

The average number of social audits in Turkey and India was 2.9 and 2.5 in 2021, respectively, and fell to 2.3 and 2.2 in 2023, according to the ITC report.

The research titled Navigating the Regulatory Landscape: Audit Fatigue in the Garment and Textile Industry examines the SLCP as an example of how data alignment and reduced auditing can be achieved.

Of the 439 respondents who participated in this SLCP signatory survey, 83 per cent were from China, 72 per cent from Vietnam, 57 per cent from Bangladesh, and 49 per cent from Türkiye, followed by India 45 per cent, Indonesia 33 per cent, Pakistan 21 per cent, Sri Lanka 11 per cent, and Thailand and Taiwan 9 per cent each.

The SLCP offers instruments for gathering precise information regarding labour conditions in international supply chains.

By enabling data exchange, this multi-stakeholder project eliminates the need for recurrent social audits.