1. RDS Production Management Plan

2. RDS system plan

3. Business license

4. Production flow chart

5. Workshop and storage area plan

6. RDS Standards and Management Manual Training Record

7. Supplier evaluation records and checklists and corresponding RDS certificates

8. Sales contract

9. Purchase contract

10. Delivery note (procurement)

11. RDS raw material acceptance inspection record

12. Inbound order (purchasing)

13. Purchase invoice

14. Purchasing TC

15. Production Notice

16. Picking list

17. Cleaning record

18. Production process related records

19. Finished goods receipt

20. Finished product inspection report

21. Sales delivery note

22. Sales fine code list

23. Sales invoice

24. Sales TC

25. Finished label

26. Total Balance Sheet

1. Venue - means a farm or facility within the scope of this standard.

2. Slaughterhouse - refers to any place where slaughtering live birds obtain feathers. The slaughter process can be carried out in any small or large manual or mechanical slaughter.

3. Small farms - Farms that are farmed by individuals or farms rather than owned by the company. These animals are farmed for personal consumption, not for commercial or export.

4. Non-advance notice audit - is a surprise audit, the audit agency will give a two-month deadline, which can be reviewed at any time during this period.

5. Commercial farm - means that the company owns waterfowl and is sold by meat.

7. Pre-processing place - refers to the behavior of the down processing, such as drying, pre-dispensing, washing, inspection, packaging and so on.

8. Scope of Certification – A document issued by a certification body to certify that a designated location meets the criteria for producing the product.

9. Semi-Notification Review - Refers to up to 72 hours of notice review to ensure that the facility is open and that relevant personnel are present.

10. Confirmation of the audit time - refers to less than one hour notice in advance, visual inspection of animal welfare compliance, and whether there is no need for animals.

12. Farming – Refers to any place where poultry and poultry are farmed.

13. Forced feeding - refers to any feeding that forces the birds to exceed their needs. In particular, manual interventions that use mechanical equipment (transfusion tubes) to increase the liver fat required for foie gras are not allowed.

14. Trader - The entity that conducts RDS down commodity trading in the supply chain between the down source and the retailer of the final product, does not bear the cargo ownership agent and the retailer that only sells to the end customer is not a trader.

15. Transaction Certificate TC – refers to the traceability document provided by the certification body that can prove that the goods are transported from one organization to the next and meets the “RDS Down Responsibility Standard”. The transaction certificate is issued when the ownership of the goods changes. Matches invoices and shipping documents. However, a transaction certificate may face the case of multiple transactions. The transaction certificate is applied to the corresponding certification body for issuance.

16. Warehouse - refers to the location and related facilities for collecting down and storing down.

17. Audit by notice - refers to the venue in advance to set the date of on-site audit.

18. Assemble - refers to the processing point of down into consumer goods (such as down jackets, sleeping bags, quilts, etc.).

19. Certification Body (CB) - means a third party authorized to perform inspections and audits in accordance with the provisions of this standard.

20. RDS certified products - RDS certified products include 100% certified waterfowl; 100% RDS certified waterfowl down; mixed waterfowl down contains 5%-99% certified raw materials; no finals containing non-RDS certified waterfowl are allowed The product uses the RDS logo label.

21. Chain of custody – refers to a system of systems or records used to ensure the entire regulatory process of RDS incoming materials from transport to production to finished goods, and the chain of custody is used to ensure consistency of incoming identity.

22. Hair sellers - individuals or businesses that collect down from farmers and trade with other vendors, down jackets or other processing sites. The hawker can independently certify the RDS and can also perform contracts with other processing sites. It can be a multi-level hawker. In the RDS certification standard, the registered hawkers are small hawkers collected from the farmers and registered by the big hawker.

23. Audit – refers to a means of verifying compliance with the RDS standard.

24. Content Declaration Form TE (CCS) - CCS is a chain of custody standard used to track and verify one or more specific materials for the final product. For example, organic textile CCS and GRS product raw materials CCS.

25. Or pull down - refers to any act of obtaining hair removal from live birds. For the RDS standard, it also includes any form of peeling.

26. Breeding farms - refers to any place where the poultry maintains the raw eggs. The responsibility of the down RDS standard from the poultry farm to collect the down at any time, must pass the auditor's approval, is the compliant RDS down.

27. Down - refers to the quality feathers located under the feathers of the bird. Simply put, this standard applies to down and feathers.

28. Parallel production - refers to the same location RDS certified and non-RDS certified.

The purpose of RDS certification is to provide a starting point for the humanitarian protection of animals and to protect animals from treatment.

The scope of RDS certification:

The RDS standard certification applies to the entire poultry supply chain from hatching to the final product produced, and is not subject to geographical restrictions. RDS certification applies to small farm vendors.

The standard also includes certification for breeder modules and for hybrid and 100% certified products. The final product is marked as a Responsible Down Standard, and an independent third party audit applies to the entire supply chain, including the down processing plants, the final product weavers and all traders, with the exception of retailers.

The RDS certificate is valid for 14 months and should be renewed upon expiration.

The purpose of RDS certification is to provide humanitarian treatment of poultry in the downstream supply chain by providing the industry's best tools and best practices to ensure that feathers come from non-essential animals. And establish a traceable system to verify that the source of the down material meets the RDS standard requirements.

The RDS Responsible Down Standard was led by TEXTILE EXCHANGE, a certification program developed by VF Group's The North Face in collaboration with the Textile Exchange (A global non-profit organization that has been committed to the sustainable development of apparel and textiles)  and the third-party certification body, the Dutch Control Alliance. The project was officially launched in January 2014 and the first certificate was issued in June of the same year.

The Textiles Exchange announced that their RDS is currently receiving widespread attention in the outdoor and casual fashion industries, besides the earlier advocator THE NORTH FACE, many brands have pledged to implement this standard, and a number of fashion brands and bedding brands have also actively joined.

The scope of the RDS Responsible Down Standard should include the entire waterfowl down supply chain from Hatchery to the assembler to produce the final product of the Lefith, without geographical restrictions. 

And this standard applies to mixed and 100% certified products.

During the development of the RDS certification program, the issuing party and the leading suppliers Allied Feather & Down and Downlite analyzed and verified that every link in the down supply chain is standard.

The feathers of poultry, ducks and other poultry in the food industry are among the best quality and best performance down apparel materials. However, it has received the attention of animal protection groups due to issues such as plucking and forced feeding. The Human Down Standard is designed to evaluate and track the source of any down-based product, creating a chain of custody from goslings to end products.

Brands and retailers who have recently adopted the standard of humane down and have recently joined the ranks are EddieBauer, H&M, HellyHansen, Mammut, Marmot and OutdoorResearch.

In addition, the revised version of Human Down Standards 2.0 (RDS2.0) was released and sought public feedback. The revised standard includes: providing the Parent farm model for companies that want to go beyond all direct sources of their own, eliminate the downslope of any verified and non-verified waterfowl production on the farm, enhance animal welfare standards and audit requirements, and improve RDS labeling standards (only for products that use the 100% human down standard, the verification label is issued).

The purpose of RDS certification is to provide a starting point for the humanitarian protection of animals and to protect animals from abuse. The purpose of RDS certification is to provide humanitarian treatment of poultry in the downstream supply chain by providing the industry's best tools and best practices to ensure that feathers come from non-essential animals. And establish a traceable system to verify that the source of the down material meets the RDS standard requirements.

1.Construction and fire permit for Architecture buildings，fire safety report of annualreview.

2. Routine inspection records (fire extinguishers, fire hydrants, fire alarming system,emergency lighting, safety exits lighting, fire pumps, etc.)

3. Fire drills and evacuation plans with related records

4. Factory evacuation plan.

5. Canteen hygienic permit, and health certificates of cooks

6. First aiders certificates and related training records

7.Certificates and routine safety inspection records for elevators, boilers, compressing containers (air compressors, etc.), generators, forklifts, etc.

8. Organization chart of working safety committee and activity records.

9. Certificates of Safety Officer, annual training of fire safety and working safety(if applicable).

10.  Certificates for electricians, welding operators, elevator operators, boiler operators, forklift drivers, etc.

11.  Environment evaluation records including annual government report (dust, noise,ventilation etc.).

12.  Chemicals List and related MSDS.

13.  Broken needles records for the past 6 months (if applicable.)

14.  Test report of drinking water.

How to conduct RDS certification is a difficult problem for every factory that needs to be audited. 

Let's have a brief look.

First, you need to talk to brands and suppliers to understand their supply chain. Ultimately, every step of the supply chain, all the way to the farm, will be certified by a third party. 

On farms and slaughterhouses (where any animal is present), the certification body checks the welfare of the animal and looks for evidence of any or picking or forced feeding to ensure that everything is done according to standards.

RDS certification involves two steps. The first is on-site audit, and the second is certification.

On-site audit: The inspector visits the factory or company, conducts visual inspections, checks documents and procedures, and conducts face-to-face conversations with employees and staff. The result of this visit will lead to an audit report.

Certification decision: The audit report is sent to a verifier. The verifier reviews all results and decide if a certificate will be issued. Each certification conducted by a auditing body involves two people: one inspector and one verifier. This is called 'four-eye principle'.

It is also necessary for the certification body to inspect the RDS materials (down, jacket, feathers, etc.) entering and leaving the facility. To make sure they are correctly identified. RDS-certified products are tracked as they move through production and separated from uncertified products.