PrimaDollar, Merchant Bay inks deal to incorporate factory social scores and improve ESG transparency in Bangladesh
Adding the Factory Social Score to factory profiles provides transparency over worker conditions and builds the confidence of buyers to place new orders and expand their existing business
Merchant Bay has recently signed an agreement with PrimaDollar in order to add factory social scores to its leading marketplace for Bangladeshi garment factories.
With over 700 factories now on board the marketplace, Merchant Bay and PrimaDollar have agreed to cooperate in bringing the new "Factory Social Score" system to the whole of its community, reads a press release.
The Factory Social Score system is a global solution to monitor the social and governance performance of workplaces, part of the worldwide initiative to improve "ESG".
It has been designed in Bangladesh and London. This is a new class of data that is called "Real-time ESG" data – powering a new wave of initiatives to deliver environmental, social, and governance change across world markets, the press release added.
CEO of Merchant Bay, Abrar Hossain Sayem, commented that "Adding Factory Social Scores is a great value-addition for us. Factories will be able to demonstrate their social and governance credentials via PrimaDollar's technology, delivering real-time ESG data direct to the factory profile in our system. Buyers are very focused on ESG issues right now – and this further establishes our credentials as the go-to platform for the Bangladeshi garment industry."
He further stated: We get hundreds of buyers visiting our platform and through this score we can help them decide on considering new factories to start working with.
Group CEO of PrimaDollar, Tim Nicolle, said from London that "We are delighted to be working with the Merchant Bay team. They have built an impressive and useful system which is growing very quickly. Our Factory Social Score is being rolled out by major international brands and retailers across their international supply chains. The willingness of Bangladeshi factory owners to take the lead in this area demonstrates significant confidence in their ESG credentials."
The Merchant Bay tech enabled B2B platform is a market-leading initiative to showcase Bangladeshi garment suppliers and their extensive capabilities.
Adding the Factory Social Score to factory profiles provides transparency over worker conditions and builds the confidence of buyers to place new orders and expand their existing business.
Munawar Uddin, country manager of the PrimaDollar Liaison office in Banani, Dhaka, opined: The Merchant Bay team has been very focused on ESG and has been quick to drive our discussions forward. This will be an important initiative for Bangladesh and we are looking forward to long and close working relationship.