Most of the clothes sold in Europe today are produced in developing countries where the production costs are lower. The exploitation of the developing countries has led to that the inferior working conditions in these countries have attracted attention from media and NGOs. Globalisation makes company activities more transparent and the absence of transnational laws calls for alternative regulations. Many companies in Europe has since mid 1990s developed codes of conduct to satisfy the demands of external and internal stakeholders. EU also brought Corporate Social Responsibility to it’s agenda in the beginning of the 2000s and subsequently signals of approaching laws were given. To avoid laws being made FTA gathered representatives from companies and NGOs to discuss the possibility of a joint European standardised collaboration. The result was Business Social Compliance Initiative, BSCI.

The aim of the study is to illuminate on what grounds the Swedish companies made the decision to develop and to join the collaboration BSCI. The thesis is based on interviews and written sources and theories used are the theory of new institutionalism and standardisation theory. Since the study is a case study on AB Lindex, KappAhl AB and JC AB it is not meant to be generalised but aims to give a deeper understanding of the chosen companies.

The study reveals that the decision to transfer to BSCI was a natural step which was not preceded by any serious discussions. The companies believe that the cooperation will give them more power to influence the suppliers, they also expect the collaboration to facilitate procedures since they no longer have to implement, audit and evaluate the codes of conduct individually. There is also a positive outcome for the supplier who will not be audited by several companies but instead by a common audit company. The cooperation simplifies information sharing and offers companies the possibility to learn from each other. The companies state that there is a correlation between well run factories and efficient production, hence the codes of conduct will not reduce the efficiency.

Since the implementation of the BSCI code only been going a year it remains to see what the effects of a standardised audit collaboration will be. Although it is positive that the trade business has taken an initiative for sustainable consumption.