The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) is a registered non-profit organization based in Beijing. Since its establishment in May 2006. IPE has developed a pollution database to monitor environmental performance across several industry sectors – including textiles. IPE's aim is to expand environmental information disclosure to allow communities to fully understand the hazards and risks in the surrounding environment, thus promoting widespread public participation in environmental governance.
M&S has already been using the IPE website as a useful screening tool to ensure ECP applications are highlighting any previous pollution violations. M&S is now making public disclosure of PRTR on IPE website a mandatory requirement of the ECP approval process.
The full name of PRTR is ‘Pollutant Release and Transfer Register’ and they are broadly defined as systems or platforms to collect and disseminate information on environmental releases and transfers of toxic chemicals from industrial and other facilities.
PRTR on the IPE website consists of an Excel spreadsheet that facilities complete, and includes details such as supplier background details, pollutants, resource consumption and recycling management data.
As part of its ongoing commitment to greater supply chain transparency and responsible manufacturing M&S is now making PRTR disclosure on IPE’s website a mandatory requirement of the ECP approval process. This addition to the ECP submission process takes place with immediate effect for Chinese wet processing facilities only.
If you are M&S partner involved in wet processing, you are now required to disclose pollution data information from your own facility, or outsourced facility, via the PRTR
Once completed, IPE will conduct desktop data audit to check disclosed data in PRTR against testing report evidence. After data validation, IPE will approve and post the PRTR form to platform.
If your PRTR data is not declared via the procedure below, we will NOT approve the facility‘s subsequent ECP renewal after 18 months. We will allow 3 months to fully complete the PRTR registration.