Production partners
Working together with long term partners and companies gives security and trust
We work directly with factories as much as possible and we also nominate suppliers for key components to get bigger effect on sustainable sourcing. Today we work with four main assembly factories. Two of them, Chief Vict Industries Corp. and Haksan Ltd. are located in Vietnam close to Ho Chi Minh City. Fulgent Sun group is north of Vietnam and Ironsteel Ltd. is in China.
Since the start of the company, Icebug has a Taiwan-based business partner, Vanbestco, who supports us in sourcing, developing, and following-up on quality and sustainability issues in the production.
Working with long term partners and companies who have been around for a while gives security and trust. Development of products requires close cooperation between brands and suppliers. Production of goods that reach the demanding criteria of brands, customers, and legislation requires even bigger collaboration between different actors. For these reasons, transparency of the value chain is essential. All input streams need to be known. To increase transparency and accountability, we have started working with a blockchain tool called TrusTrace (see Traceability & transparency), that has given us a tool to map our suppliers and sub-suppliers. With this tool, we get a better visual tracking on material streams, countries of origin, and certifications for factories and materials.
Icebug requires yearly self-assessments from factories for both environmental and social performance. We also get access to some third-party audits from other brands through Sustainable Apparel Coalition or by the factories’ sharing. We aim for the factories’ continuous improvement in these fields, and we raise the demands successively. See more in section Workers conditions.