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Friday, 26 February 2010

Ethical clothing from strength to strength

As we head into the teenies (and the decade hopefully will not turn out to be known by that name!) it's useful to look around the market place to see further sign of the market for ethical clothing developing, and for pointers on whether abuses in the clothing industry are on the way out.

The promotional clothing market itself is likely to follow trends rather than set them. To see where the future heading it's the likes of independent fashion clothing brands that are likely to be setting the pace.

For example, Fashion United reports the trade fair for independent brands, Margin, in London attracting major international retailers alongside the leading independents you would expect to see. Major stores attending Margin included House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols, Liberty, Top Shop, Next and Fenwick, as well as online retailers such as ASOS and Coggles. The article particularly highlights an increase in these visiting stores interested in fair-trade and organic clothing with correspondingly more ethical fashion labels such as Frank & Faith showcasing their products.

In fact Frank & Faith said "we may be an Eco fashion brand but we want our ethics to be the norm not the exception.... .....we were opened up to great boutiques, buyers and press who just loved us because we are a great indie fashion brand with soul".

We think that's a great quote because there's a danger with ethical stances that it's just the marketing man speaking. Pier 32 likes people with soul....

The main London fair specialising in ethical clothing is Pure, that's some way off yet but their main sponsor, the Ethical fashion Forum is busy around the year and on Twitter they provide a constant steam of titbits (my preferred name for tweets) highlighting the progress being made in the industry.

Something that caught my eye was the reference to a blog article by Jamie Burdett reporting on the DEFRA Sustainable Clothing Roadmap conference and shown there, a new machine in production soon to new machine to separate waste textile and create new thread even from short fibre denim, apparently prompting "the man from Tesco to say, 'we'll buy that from you tomorrow!'".

Unfortunately there are some who do not seem to get the point with the minister from Defra quoted as saying, 'lovely to see so many brands here today, although one is clearly missing, Primark'.

Yesterday's news alert from Business Trading Ethically unfortunately finds it necessary to highlight the other end of the spectrum, referring a new report by the Environmental Justice Foundation labelling Uzbekistan a "Slave Nation" - the government there "continues to lie to the international community while routinely compelling hundreds of thousands of children as labourers in the country's annual cotton harvest". We reported on the situation in Uzbekistan two years ago - it seems that little has changed.

On the theme that every News Alert should have a silver lining, BTE also reported that Ben & Jerry's would be 100% sourced from fair trade certified products by the end of 2013. Can't wait!

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Tuesday, 11 March 2008

Ethical Brand Profile - Hanes

Hanes is a line of promotional clothing produced by HanesBrands, a clothing company headquartered in North Carolina USA which employs 50,000 people internationally.
Hanesbrands owns several other well known brands including Champion (its second largest brand) and Playtex.

So as clothing companies go, Hanes is one of the biggest. How does it stack up on ethics and the environment? Let's take a look at the "Our Values" section of the Hanes website.

Hanesbrands' Vision is "to be a world-class consumer goods company with a distinctive competence in operating a low-cost global supply chain." The last bit here is potentially a bit worrying, if the vision driver is low cost then where does this take you?


Looking further, Hanesbrands' Core Values include "integrity/Ethical Standards" which is more encouraging. They have a Global Business Practices, an employee code of conduct that has been their guiding practice since the 1990s and a set of Global Standards for Suppliers, a supplier code of conduct, has been in place for a similar period, "years longer than similar codes".

Right at the top of the employee code of conduct is the message from the Executive Chairman "These Global Business Standards were developed to provide you with information and resources to make informed business decisions and act on them with integrity. These standards are also a declaration to our customers, business partners and stockholders that we are committed to conducting business as we always have – by doing the right thing. In your career, you may be faced with a situation that does not appear to support our business values or you’re not sure if it is the right course of action." It then goes onto list contact points where to go for advice, outside the individual's direct chain of command.

An interesting statement aimed at empowering the individual employee. I like it although it's difficult to tell how this sort of thing works in practice.

Moving away from employees, how does the
"low-cost global supply chain" work?

In the recent article on B&C we highlighted operations in Bangladesh. The National Labor Committee in the US have been to Bangladesh and their report here from 2006 was not good reading for Hanes. The reaction of Hanes and Wal-Mart (also cited) was to terminate supplies. On the face of it, good, but then some (United Students Against Sweatshops)
say "instead of staying to correct the situation, Hanes abandoned the factory, leaving workers without jobs".

You may think damned if you do take supplies from developing countries, damned if you don't. And with the wide range of interests of people willing to criticise, you are of course right.

That article actually focuses on Hanes' operations in the Dominican Republic - "abusive and unsafe working conditions" - something that is confronted head on and prominently on the Hanesbrands website (a link on the main Values page) and by an independent report.

Hanes have not abandoned their operations but recognised 'managerial issues' and 'overtime pay practices' and other issues that needed addressing and it is to be welcomes that they appear to have addressed them, including the retrospective payment of overtime.

What's the big difference between the Dominican Republic and Bangladesh? In the former the workers are employed by Hanes, in the latter by the sub-contractor.

Ethical Corporation
writes "while brand pullouts from specific factories such as those by Wal-Mart and Hanesbrands may jolt Bangladeshi employers into putting their houses in order, they still are not seen as the most effective way of dealing with a sticky situation, especially when the decision could leave many impoverished".

I am not sure. Closure may seem harsh and simply an easy way to appease some critics, but we do not know what messages were coming from the current owners; in the long run if a consistent approach is taken those in Bangladesh or other places who profit from unethical labour practices will have to changes their ways.

But some engagement with (including where appropriate inspection of) suppliers is important.

That thought takes me back to Hanesbrands' Global Standards for Suppliers, an interesting read. Asides from what you would expect to see in terms of ethical business practices there is some quite refreshing content (such as "Gifts, favors and entertainment are not needed in order
to conduct business with Hanesbrands,") and an ethical "Mirror Test".

The Global Standards say....

"Failure to observe and abide by these Global Standards for Suppliers may result in Hanesbrands ceasing to do business with such supplier. As evidence of their concurrence, suppliers will enter into a written commitment to comply with these Standards and sign the attached Acknowledgement Card."

The document includes a tear off reply slip to certify "I hereby acknowledge receipt of Hanesbrands’ Global Standards for Suppliers, and certify that our company is, and will continue to be, in compliance with the provisions of the Global Standards for Suppliers."

I assume the Bangladeshi factory owners had looked in the mirror, admired their well cut suits, and then returned the reply slip! Hanesbrands' written standards point to their heart being in the right place but perhaps they need to be a bit more proactive in getting out there into the field and seeing first hand what is going on.

There is only limited time for each of these brand profile summaries - I welcome any further feedback on this or others.


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Thursday, 28 February 2008

A voice from the Philippines

It's one of the countries that in my mind I need to be watchful of - when I see a Made in the Philippines tag I start wondering about the conditions in which the clothing might be made.

It's up to responsible brands to ensure that sourcing from countries such as the Philippines treats the people there fairly.

Today I found a blog from a student in Manila - in this post SPIRITUALITY PAGE: Children in poverty Kebelle provides an insight into a world far from the UK, (a world far from his own in Manila even). A comment maker focussed on Kebelle's thought - "What they need is not actually charity but empowerment. They need respect. They need their dignity untouched."

That is why fair trade is important and why I view that we in the West spending a little extra to buy responsibly is at least as good as, and perhaps in the long term far better than, putting the same money into a charity can.

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Friday, 11 January 2008

Ethical brand profile - Adidas

Sparked by my last post, it seems a good idea to do a little bit of digging into the status of the brands that Pier 32 have access to so that our customers can make a better judgement on whether they fit in with their own ethical statements. Ethical behaviour towards humans and in terms of looking after our planet.

Adidas, who acquired Reebock recently, is the world's second biggest sports brand behind Nike. You'd expect them to be under the microscope and they know it. On their corporate website they have a section labelled sustainability "For the adidas Group, being a global leader in the sporting goods industry means improving working conditions in our suppliers’ factories and reducing our environmental impact as a business." with lots of information on all sorts of initiatives on the supply chain, human rights and the environment.

Leaving aside the case studies (we are always inclined to do this because of the ease of cherry picking when you have a mega budget) was is available is the "Supply Chain Code of Conduct" where they set out their standards and we we need to go to get to grips with their stated intentions on ethical purchasing.

"Outsourcing our production in no way absolves us of moral responsibility for the way our products are manufactured and the conditions they are produced under."

"Recognising this responsibility led us to create a set of guidelines for our suppliers that set minimum social, environmental and health and safety standards"

"Based on International Labour Organization conventions, the 'Workplace Standards' describe clear rules of conduct for issues such as the environment, safety in the workplace, child labour, and hours of work."

On the environment, adidas also look at their suppliers (95% of the environmental impact of adidas's operations is in the hands of suppliers) and have setting up supplier energy efficiency workshops. On VOC emissions "Our footwear suppliers have reduced VOC emissions from 140 grams/pair in 2000 to 19.3 grams/pair in 2006".

Globalisation impacts the environment through transport of goods not manufactured locally - adidas give the following statistics:


Sea freight contributes 17.5 grams carbon dioxide CO2/km t

Road freight by truck contributes 147 grams CO2/km t

Airfreight contributes 903 grams CO2/km t.

adidas explain that the 2006 World Cup meant "time sensitive products had to be transported via air freight to meet customer requests" which implies at least that most products are transported by sea. Here's the backup data - http://www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability/performance_data/environment.asp#freight

adidas are using carbon offsetting to lessen the impact of air travel by some of its people - but since this is the SEA team, involved in monitoring their sustainability targets etc it's just a drop in the ocean....

All in all, from my brief review adidas seem serious about what they are trying to do. And you'd expect nothing less. They will not be perfect by a long way but for a major multinational I expect what they are doing will be close to those setting the pace on ethical and environmental issues in clothing production.

Briefly digging for dirt, globalmarch.org disclose "Children in Pakistan were found stitching Adidas footballs, a major sponsor for the 2002 FIFA World Cup." Then it all get's all a bit murky and this article discloses "Adidas says Global March Against Child Labour photographed a counterfeit operation." The end result of all this was a major investment by FIFA in tracking abuses; and counterfeit operation or not, some good seems to have come out of this whole episode. My brief Google search on "adidas child labour" did not disclose any more recent episodes.

(As with all these brand profiles I'd be delighted for further information or help from readers).


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Wednesday, 19 December 2007

Undermining fair trade in Cotton

When people think of fair trade the first thought is that the producer is paid a fair price for what is being produced. In a world economy where everyone is competing on price then what exactly is a fair price? That's where basic ethical considerations come into play. A government of a country that is a major producer of cotton on a global scale that in an organised way enslaves children to produce cotton cheaply undermines the whole market place, forcing many ethical farmers to live in poverty or simply put them out of business.

The country - Uzbekistan. The investigative journalism putting together the video evidence was carried out of the BBC's Newsnight programme. The video is in 3 parts, first part here, the remainder can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6BnqPQGITU




Many will argue that in the end the real responsibility rests with the Western consumer. We believe the vast majority of people care enough to pay a fair price but are unaware of what is going on. Our supplier Continental is running a major campaign to raise awareness on this issue. See their site: Boycott Uzbeck Cotton

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