Finished product brands that have set up a group to drive the removal of hazardous chemicals from their supply chains by 2020 want tanneries to be among the production facilities tested against a new environmental protocol.

The group, called Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC), has said it will wait until a new version (version 2.0) of its audit protocol is ready before making the details public. But when the new version is ready, perhaps by the end of 2014, ZDHC has said it wants tannery audits run by multi-stakeholder body the Leather Working Group (LWG) to adapt and take the ZDHC protocol on board.

ZDHC, whose members include Mulberry, adidas, New Balance, Lin-Ning, Inditex, Puma and Nike developed a first version of its “comprehensive environmental audit tool”, with an emphasis on chemicals management, in 2013, and member brands took part in pilot audits to evaluate how well the protocol worked.

At the same time, ZDHC shared the protocol with outside bodies including the LWG and has said the feedback it received will be integrated into version 2.0 of the tool.

This feedback and the pilot audits have flagged up what ZDHC refers to as “many opportunities for improving” the tool and it has, therefore, decided to wait until version 2.0 is ready before releasing it for wider use.

The group has said it aims to make the tool user-friendly enough for manufacturing companies to be able to use it for self-assessment and it has expressed the hope that the tool will be “endorsed and included” in the suite of tools currently in use by groups including the LWG.

An initial group of six brands set up a group at the end of 2011 to promote a roadmap towards zero discharge of hazardous chemicals in their supply chains, with the year 2020 as the target date. This followed pressure from campaign groups who were concerned about hazardous chemicals being found in rivers in China.