At PVH, our Forward Fashion strategy continues to help move our business and the fashion industry toward a more innovative and responsible future. A key aspect of this strategy is Empowering Women in our supply chain through creating access to financial literacy resources and savings opportunities, as part of our commitment to providing professional and life skills development programs and services to 500,000 women in our supply chain by 2030.
To support this, we are partnering with Mastercard, the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and the Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) HERproject on four digital wage programs with our suppliers in Cambodia and Egypt. PVH, Mastercard and BSR have the shared goal of fostering financial literacy and equitable economic growth for workers around the world, with a focus on women.
During this yearlong program, Mastercard and BSR will work with factory leaders to develop new management systems for digital wages, provide access to digital financial products for workers and ensure clear communication and transparency. The program will conduct trainings with workers on how to best use digital wage payments and provide financial tools to help save money and pay bills. This program will bolster financial resilience and inclusion while unlocking opportunities to increase savings.
“The program is empowering workers, especially women, to manage their own money. It is creating an opportunity to enable workers to approach benefits from digital financial services such as savings and remittances,” said Thi Thu Huong Hoang, a PVH associate working on the program.
We are also joining the Better Than Cash Alliance. This United Nations (UN) Capital Development Fund partnership of governments, organizations and companies, such as H&M, Gap Inc., and Inditex, is accelerating the transition from cash to digital payments to advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. PVH has committed to adopting responsible digital payments with our suppliers to increase efficiency and transparency across the apparel supply chain, improving the livelihoods of garment workers and furthering progress on our Forward Fashion Empower Women target.
Together, these efforts build on our partnership as part of the Gap. Inc. P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement & Career Enhancement) program, which is focused on building women’s life and professional skills in factories and communities surrounding our supply chain. The program includes a financial literacy course where participants learn the basics of financial planning and building savings. Implementing the digital wage program while committing to digital payments allows women to connect their learnings from the P.A.C.E. program to make their financial goals a reality.
To learn more about our Forward Fashion strategy, visit our Responsibility page.
Photo by BSR/CDS – M. Moawad