The Journey to JUST in China

Since July of 2016, I have been an employee of Aspecta North America, LLC, which provides high-quality commercial flooring to the marketplace. Our products are known for transparency in product ingredients and social justice, as well as rich and beautiful biophilic designs. In my role, I lead the Product Authority Team, which is a talented group involved in every aspect of the product, including R&D, sustainability, testing, transparency, quality, and customer service. This progressive-minded, US-based company is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.  However, our largest employee population is at our beautiful Calhoun, Georgia, campus, which is where my office is located. Aspecta has adopted a very strong position on transparency and social justice, which is due to the support of our Group CEO, Harlan Stone, as well as that of our Chinese manufacturing partners – whom we consider as an extension of our family.

Aspecta has been involved in overseas enterprise with China for three decades. Over time, the company has created a paradigm shift in how social justice is defined for all companies sourcing products from Asia. Harlan Stone’s personal philosophy is firmly rooted to the cause of creating a positive experience for his employees along with a profitable business. As a result, the company has boldly set a precedent in social justice and transparency in general, for all companies doing business overseas, especially in China. 

Harlan’s genuine concern about the environment, social justice and equity inspires his global employees and business partners to be personally and professionally enriched through their association with him and his company. Most recently, his revolutionary support of transparency has transformed what is viewed as possible for companies manufacturing overseas. His company’s journey to earning the first JUST label for its Chinese manufacturing facility — Elegant Home-Tech, in Zhangjiagang – was enabled by the trusting multi-generational relationship between two families, separated only by the Pacific Ocean.

The Stone family has worked closely with its Chinese manufacturing partner to establish a system-wide commitment to transparency through mutual trust and open communication. According to Stone, the relationship is not only long, but deep and personal. “I was at the Elegant Home-Tech factory ground-breaking in 2001, and I’ve been involved with the Song family – owners of the facility – for over 20 years,” said Stone.

Shared family values are the cornerstone of this cross-continental partnership. Said JinSong, son of the owner of Elegant Home-Tech – the elder Mr. Song – and its second-generation General Manager, “My father’s management philosophy is at the core of our company. He believes that in order to achieve the company’s big goals, we needed to understand the employees’ needs and help them achieve their own goals. As China’s income and living standards increase, we have to do our best to evolve. I believe it is part of social responsibility – my responsibility – to take care of Elegant Home-Tech’s employees and their families, to make sure their hard work is rewarded by a company that is fair and publicly transparent.”

Aspecta’s journey to the JUST label began with transparency on the product level, with Declare. Once Harlan became aware of the International Living Future Institute’s Declare program, he saw the elegance of the label and the benefits it would provide to the customers, the company, and the employees. Simon Xia, Halstead/Metroflor’s Shanghai-based General Manager and on-site liaison to Elegant Home-Tech and a member of Aspecta’s Product Authority Team, was a tremendous help in gathering product ingredients from in-house chemists and suppliers. Arthur Clarke, who is overseeing the transparency initiatives across all of the brands, worked with Simon to make sure that the labels were accurate.

Elegant Home-Tech’s commitment to transparency resulted in Aspecta being the first in the flooring industry to issue a Declare label for a rigid core floor. The label adds to its existing portfolio of Declare labels for the entire Aspecta commercial range – over 200 patterns across the three collections. All Aspecta Declare labels have been published in a total of six languages – another industry first. Additionally, the company has issued Health Product Declarations (HPDs) for its full line of Aspecta products – comprehensive transparency documents that provide health-related information for product ingredients. Aspecta’s website (aspectaflooring.com) harbors a sustainability page that contains all the company’s policies, labels and third-party certifications. Aspecta products are currently at the top of the list in the mindfulMaterials database, due to the high level of transparency resources that are associated with this product line.

But for our company, product transparency and Declare were just the tip of the iceberg. It seemed like a natural progression from product to social transparency, which is the new frontier in transparency in the building products industry. While many companies tout their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) platforms, this was a limiting philosophy to us. We could do so much more.

The difference between CSR and social justice relates to an overall relationship between the shareholders versus a more personal connection with the employees themselves. CSR over the years has evolved into a discussion that relates to such things as green building and employee volunteerism. On the other hand, social justice relates to how resources are distributed to the employee base; how the company addresses social issues relating to diversity; the opportunities that are provided to a multitude of employees; and how individual employees are succeeding. CSR has devolved into a communication with corporate legal and marketing departments, not telling the story that increasingly matters most among today’s architects, designers, consumers and end users: Social Justice. The question is: How are the people treated who are involved in making this product and bringing it to market?  I view Harlan as a humanitarian above all else, and this question resonates with him.

And so, the journey to JUST proceeded. Harlan strongly believed that customers were more concerned with how factory workers are treated in foreign countries than the traditional CSR measure. So rather than focusing on the company’s domestic operations, Harlan encouraged us to set our sights higher: to gain a JUST label for Elegant Home-Tech in China. He was inspired by meeting Jason McClennan, the founder and former head of ILFI who developed JUST, at GreenBuild in 2016, who shared his vision for how we could address the needs of the end user through the JUST label – a very powerful, honest and open message.

The new JUST platform measures social justice in a simple, easy to read ‘nutrition label’ that measures such criteria as diversity, worker happiness and local benefits to the community: all the important factors that relate to the relationship between the company and its own employees.

According to Simon Xia, the social justice seeds were planted early by factory owner the elder Mr. Song. “Mr. Song is a caring and kind person who grew up in the countryside, and he understands the difficulties of farmers, which often drive them into cities for factory work – the majority of his employee base. When they came to work at Elegant Home-Tech they were separated from their families, especially their children.” Song responded by building dormitory-like furnished apartments in 2003, as soon as the factory could afford making them available. With workers in apartments, they could bring their spouses and children to live with them. But that created another issue: education. In China, schooling is only provided for local children, but these children needed to be educated locally. So, the factory began subsidizing the schools to accommodate the wave of new students. He also invested in a day care center, allowing employees to focus on their work when on duty knowing their children were in good hands.

Said Xia, “To succeed in business, only taking care of your customers is not enough, you have to take good care of your workers. Satisfied workers will be more efficient, productive and innovative. Their work quality will be higher.” In addition to the other prerequisites, Song is willing to pay higher wages to retain workers, especially experienced ones, at a time when more and more factories are being built, to secure the highest-quality workforce. Taking good care of employees comes from Mr. Song’s heart, but there is also business logic involved. Noted Xia, “If you are looking to make the cheapest product, these kinds of social objectives cannot be achieved.”

Leading the mission to be transparent and sustainable beyond product ingredients, the company’s cross-continental team pursued the first-ever JUST label for a Chinese company in Elegant Home-Tech because it was a natural evolution of what had previously been accomplished: the human, social justice side of transparency.  

To achieve JUST, Elegant Home-Tech reported and was rated on a wide range of metrics including safety, diversity, worker benefits and community engagement. The bilingual Xia was able to translate lengthy, existing human resource policies and worked in tandem with JUST Program Manager Francis Janes at ILFI and his team to take the existing policies and incorporate them into the JUST requirements.

The process was not without its challenges. Some of the standards and measures intended for western companies are irrelevant to China. For example, for the ethnic diversity measure, the criteria refer to Caucasian and non-Caucasian workers, but in China, ethnic diversity is viewed differently. Elegant Home-Tech does not have Caucasian employees although there is diversity with people of the Han dynasty and other minority races.

Janes, the JUST program manager, came to the rescue during a visit to Shanghai and met with Xia for clarification. Prior to the meeting Xia had completed a self-assessment and identified which measures were irrelevant to China. Janes helped modify the problematic criteria to make them more applicable to the Chinese environment, making it possible to keep pursuing the JUST label. Said Xia, “The ILFI had the wisdom to be flexible in making JUST globally relevant by being willing to adjust the criteria to be more local for the country in consideration.” This was the final chapter in the process to earning the JUST label. Said Janes, “When dealing with policy nuance, sitting face to face always helps. We have tried to make JUST a presence in as many countries as possible – 12 so far – and for a new program with a US-centric focus to be accepted in multiple nations is significant. Having it established in China is groundbreaking. Elegant Home-Tech is showing the way, laying out markers for what can be possible. We will follow their lead.”

This JUST label – which is the very first for China – will definitely have a ripple effect – not only in the flooring industry, but beyond. Aspecta’s second major supplier, known as Yihua, also decided to pursue the JUST label, which was recently issued. So, we’re already seeing how it’s spreading around the flooring industry in China. Said Jin Song, “Transparency helps build the trust between factories and markets. I believe more and more companies will notice this. It is a great honor to receive the JUST label, but also proof that what we did for employees at the very beginning was the right thing to do. It is a very important milestone for my family, and we are eager to do better.”

For years, Harlan was seeking the right opportunity to open up the conversation about the people and the products that his company sells. When I visited China and met this amazing group of people and saw the modern factories, I broached the subject of sharing this story publicly – first with Harlan – and his reaction was, “Finally!” He took the risk of facing backlash from others in the flooring industry for embracing what many were afraid to acknowledge: that his products are “Positively Made in China”. Harlan supported open transparency on this topic, and we are now emphasizing the company’s product origins within the context of demonstrating what greatness in product and social justice are in China. Working to foster positive change in the perception of Chinese manufacturing within the business community and among consumers, Harlan is empowering the future direction of manufacturing in China.

“People should not make broad brushstroke evaluations based on others’ ethnicity. Every human being can act well in the benefit of others, and it’s great to see that unfolding in the new young generation of Chinese manufacturing leadership,” he said.

Even though people live in far-flung places with different cultures, languages, etc., they are all essentially seeking the same thing: good quality of life, a decent environment, and security. The JUST label helps people around the world identify which workplaces they should be seeking.

All of us at Aspecta applaud and thank ILFI for creating the JUST program along with their other transparency programs. I truly believe this is making a very positive impact on the manufacturing sector, on employees, and the world.