The just-style green report

Transcription

1 The just-style green report In this report sample you ll find an overview of the report, a full table of contents and list of data tables and figures, plus one sample page of each chapter. To order a copy of the full report; Go to: Call: +44 (0) store@just-style.com Author: Malcolm Newbery and Rani Ghosh-Curling Date published: January 2011 Published by: Aroq Limited Seneca House Buntsford Park Road Bromsgrove Worcestershire B60 3DX United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) store@just-style.com Web: Registered in England no:

2 Overview The just-style green report is an innovative research report that looks at ethics, sustainability, Fairtrade and corporate social responsibility in the fashion retail and clothing industries. Included in the report's findings are the results of an exclusive online survey to just-style readers, asking vital questions about these important issues for the modern apparel industry. The report considers moral issues in the supply chain that starts with fibre, moves through fabric then garment manufacturing and ultimately becomes apparel sold to consumers at retail. The research addresses four main areas of interest in greenness : 1. Are the companies, both retailers and clothing brands, acting ethically? 2. Are the products that they sell produced sustainably? 3. Is trade conducted on a level playing field, in a fair manner? 4. Do the companies, both retailers and clothing, behave with corporate social responsibility? This latest just style report investigates green compliance from three different points of view: How governments and other authorities attempt to impose compliance upon the fashion retail and clothing supply and manufacturing industries; How individuals and pressure groups strive to force compliance on the fashion retail and clothing supply and manufacturing industries; How the companies in these industries independently manage compliance. Issues considered include, amongst others: Is compliance a moral issue? Is it good business practice? Is it a marketing tool? Leading people active in the field have been interviewed and their opinions canvassed, including interviews with The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), The All Party Political Group for ethical fashion (APPG), The Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF), Marks & Spencer, The Fairtrade Foundation, The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), and Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). The report then questions the argument that behaving responsibly will also deliver the optimal commercial outcomes by retaining customers, increasing sales and maximising profit.

3 Findings from the 600 respondees of the just-style green survey are analysed, and the following key areas are discussed chapter by chapter: Ethics: Are fashion retailers and clothing suppliers acting ethically? Sustainability: Is the merchandise sustainable? Fairtrade: Is the clothing trade conducted on a level playing field, in a fair manner? CSR: Do fashion retailers and clothing suppliers behave with corporate social responsibility? Finally, just-style s conclusions on the industry's relationship with green issues are presented.

4 Contents Chapter 1 Introduction Why be green? Chapter 2 The argument Whose job is green anyway? The overlap between the elements of green The argument against The argument for Chapter 3 The just-style green survey Green has become a real issue, not just posturing The survey questionnaire The survey results, questions 1-4. The survey results, questions 5-7: responsibility, effectiveness and morals in the fashion business on green issues just-style s survey summarised Chapter 4 Ethics: Are fashion retailers and clothing suppliers acting ethically? Some examples of recent ethical practices The Ethical Trading Initiative Government, pressure groups or industry self-regulation? just-style s commentary on ethics Chapter 5 Sustainability: Is the merchandise sustainable? Some examples of recent sustainable practices Environmental laundering From sheep to chic EU recycling legislation Estethica, the sustainable activity of the British Fashion Council The Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) The Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) just-style s commentary on sustainability, and the stance of Marks & Spencer

5 Chapter 6 Fairtrade: Is the clothing trade conducted on a level playing field, in a fair manner? Fairtrade labelling s international history An example of Fairtrade practices The role of government in Fairtrade The Fairtrade Foundation The Environmental Justice Foundation just-style s commentary on Fairtrade Chapter 7 CSR: Do fashion retailers and clothing suppliers behave with corporate social responsibility? Government legislation and pressure group activities on corporate social responsibility A big retailer company example of corporate social responsibility A clothing industry example of corporate social responsibility CSR according to Lee Ahrendorff, and a criticism from John Zarocostas just-style s commentary on corporate social responsibility Brandix, Sri Lanka: A green apparel manufacturing plant Chapter 8 just-style s conclusion on green How green is the fashion industry in 2010? Conclusions on the survey Conclusions on the issues Conclusions on morality, business policy and marketing List of figures Figure 1: The three spheres of sustainability Figure 2: The three spheres of corporate social responsibility Figure 3: The just-style CSR chart List of tables Table 1: Question 1: Classify yourself into one or more of the following green compliance categories Table 2: Question 2: How interested are you in green issues? Table 3: Question 3: How involved are you in green issues? Table 4: Question 4: Which elements of green capture your attention? Table 5: Question 5: Who do you think is responsible for green in clothing? Table 6: Question 6: Rate the following in terms of their effectiveness within green compliance

6 Table 7: Question 7: Do you agree or disagree that green compliance is:

7 Chapter 1 Introduction Why be green? The green report is something of a departure for just-style. Most just-style fashion and clothing reports address particular product sectors in the industry. This one considers moral issues in the supply chain that starts with fibre, moves through fabric then garment manufacturing and ultimately becomes apparel sold to consumers at retail. There are four overlapping subjects that the report considers, namely: o ethics; o sustainability; o Fairtrade; o corporate social responsibility (CSR). There are also four main areas of interest in greenness. They are concerned with answering the questions: 1. Are the companies, both retailers and clothing brands, acting ethically? 2. Are the products that they sell produced sustainably? 3. Is trade conducted on a level playing field, in a fair manner? 4. Do the companies, both retailers and clothing, behave with corporate social responsibility? This just style report investigates green compliance from three different points of view: o how governments and other authorities attempt to impose compliance upon the fashion retail and clothing supply and manufacturing industries; o how individuals and pressure groups strive to force compliance on the fashion retail and clothing supply and manufacturing industries; o how the companies in those industries independently manage compliance. Issues that will be considered will include, amongst others: o Is compliance a moral issue? o Is it good business practice? o Is it a marketing tool?

8 Chapter 2 The argument Whose job is green anyway? Put bluntly, the green argument in fashion may be summed up as follows: o Is it anyone s responsibility to be green in clothing? o If yes, whose responsibility is it to be green, and whose responsibility is it to enforce compliance with greenness? just-style s view of the likely opinions on responsibility at the start of the project varied: o it s no one s; o it s the consumer s; o it s the retailer s; o it s the manufacturers (the industry); o it s government s; o it s the role of pressure groups. To cast some light on these alternatives, just-style conducted a survey of its subscriber readership. The results are given in Chapter 3. The overlap between the elements of green As the report will demonstrate through the interviews and material quoted, there is a lot of confusion and disagreement about what constitutes behaviour, that is o ethical; o sustainable; o Fairtrade; o corporate socially responsible; Even the number of organisations that the author has talked to (see Acknowledgements), add to the impression that this is a subject that interested parties come to from a variety of directions. The most frequently expressed explanation of what is involved in being green comes from an original study conducted at the University of Michigan, US in It gave rise to a pictorial representation which is reproduced below in a manner adapted to fit the

9 Chapter 3 The just-style green survey Green has become a real issue, not just posturing There is no doubt that, particularly over the last three years, green has become a real issue in the fashion industry and its supply chain. In its early stages, a cynic could be forgiven for assuming that the retailers, brands and manufacturers were just paying lip service to an idea that they believed would relatively quickly simply fade away. Consumers were presumed to be the rational creatures of Adam Smith s economic theories. Confronted by a choice between green and more expensive or not green but cheap, they would choose cheap every time. However, the amount of interest in green issues has suggested that crude economic choices are not the whole answer. At just-style, we wanted to find out more about the depth of feeling, and the opinions of people who, because they read just-style, would be likely to have a view on green in the fashion industry. The survey questionnaire Accordingly, we have conducted an open survey of just-style users. The survey was sent to all users and the response was immediate and enthusiastic: nearly 600 subscribers answered the survey within ten days. The survey was composed of seven questions which, in simple terms, were: 1. How do you classify yourself when it comes to green compliance issues? 2. How interested are you in green issues? 3. How involved are you in green issues? 4. Which elements of green, ethical, sustainable, Fairtrade, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) capture your attention? 5. Who do you think is responsible for green in clothing? 6. Who do you think is effective in obtaining green compliance? 7. Do you believe that green is:

10 Chapter 4 Ethics: Are fashion retailers and clothing suppliers acting ethically? Some examples of recent ethical practices The survey results about who is doing a good job on ethics in the clothing industry need to be considered against a backdrop of recent activities in this area and then the objectives of some of the founders and developers of the ethical movement. To start with, just-style has edited, from the 1 August 2009 edition of The Sunday Times, two stories that expose the failures in the ethical apparel supply chain. At rubbish dumps in Maseru, children as young as three-years-old pick through waste products thrown away by Maseru s garment industry. They are often collecting offcuts from jeans to burn for cooking. A factory that makes jeans for Gap and Levi Strauss is illegally dumping chemical waste in a river and two unsecured tips where it poses a hazard to children. This scandal was uncovered by a Sunday Times investigation into pollution caused by a plant in Lesotho, southern Africa, which supplies denim to the two companies. Dark blue effluent from the factory of Nien Hsing, a Taiwanese firm, was pouring into a river from which people draw water for cooking and bathing. The firm was also dumping needles, razors and harmful chemicals such as caustic soda at municipal dumps that have attracted child rag-pickers as young as five-years-old in search of cloth fragments to sell for fuel. Many of the children, who work for up to ten hours a day, complain of breathing difficulties, weeping eyes and rashes.

11 Chapter 5 Sustainability: Is the merchandise sustainable? Some examples of recent sustainable practices These can vary from the obviously serious to the somewhat bizarre. To begin with, an example from Levi s on the lack of knowledge of how to launder jeans in a sustainable manner. Environmental laundering According to Robert Hanson, President of Levi Strauss Americas, as quoted in just-style on 21 January 2010: Consumers are broadly unaware of the environmental impact of their laundry habits, despite the launch of more efficient washing machines. A joint investigation by Levi s and washing machine maker Whirlpool found that significant numbers of consumers still believed in a number of laundry myths. For instance, nearly xx% of people are unaware that water temperature has an environmental impact, with xx% using warm or hot water to wash their jeans. Meanwhile, about xx% of consumers think their washing machine needs to be full of water to wash effectively, and almost xx% of those washing jeans do so after each wear. Waiting for a full load of laundry instead can save x,xxx gallons of water per household a year, according to the US Department of Energy. We all do laundry, but we don t all realise that small changes in our habits can add up to a big difference for the planet, Hanson said. From sheep to chic The second is also hippy and somewhat like The Good Life, the 1970s UK television eco-comedy series. The plan was simple: buy sheep, spin their coats into wool, knit wool into designer knitwear. When 38-year-old Beate Kubitz ditched the London rat race and moved to Cumbria in Northwest

12 Chapter 6 Fairtrade: Is the clothing trade conducted on a level playing field, in a fair manner? Fairtrade labelling s international history It is quite easy to suggest that the whole ethical and environmentally sustainable bandwagon started with a much narrower objective, Fairtrade. The concept of Fairtrade has been around for a long time but a formal labelling scheme didn t get off the ground until the late 1980s. In 1988 the first Fairtrade label was introduced under the initiative of the Dutch development agency Solidaridad. The first Fairtrade coffee from Mexico was sold into Dutch supermarkets, using the brand Max Havelaar. The Max Havelaar initiative was replicated in several other markets across Europe and North America using the Max Havelaar brand and also Transfair, Fairtrade Mark, Rättvisemärkt and Reilu Kauppa. The Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) was established in 1997 in Bonn, Germany to unite the labelling initiatives under one umbrella and establish worldwide standards and certification. In 2002, the FLO launched a new International Fairtrade Certification Mark. The goals of the launch were to improve the visibility of the mark on supermarket shelves, facilitate cross-border trade and simplify export procedures for both producers and exporters. In 2004, the FLO split into two independent organisations: FLO International, which set Fairtrade standards and provided producer business support, and FLO-CERT, which inspected and certified producer organizations and audited traders. By 2006 there was one Fairtrade Certification Mark although the harmonisation process is still under way.

13 Chapter 7 CSR: Do fashion retailers and clothing suppliers behave with corporate social responsibility? Government legislation and pressure group activities on corporate social responsibility We asked Baroness Young, in the light of her previous hands-off answers to the government s role in sustainability and Fairtrade about CSR. just-style: Where does the government stand on CSR? Baroness Young: The government doesn t enforce corporate social responsibility (CSR). There are laws, rules and regulations about, for example, environmental pollution and the disposal of toxic substances, and also employment laws regulating the number of hours worked, and so on; but it is up to each individual organisation how and if they adopt CSR policies and what that means to them and their shareholders. We asked some similar questions of the pressure groups. Everyone said that they could only cajole and plead with commercial organisations to act responsibly, fairly and morally on both ethical and sustainable issues. As a consequence of this and all the other interviews conducted in the last three chapters, just style has concluded that social responsibility is not: o a policy; o a set of activities; o a moral approach. It is rather a state of corporate mind which has decided that the social and environmental good is equal to the commercial good and that both can exist

14 Chapter 8 just-style s conclusion on green How green is the fashion industry in 2010? just-style set out to address a number of issues connected with greenness. They were concerned with answering the questions: o Are the companies, both retailers and clothing brands, acting ethically? o Are the products that they sell produced sustainably? o Is trade conducted on a level playing field, in a fair manner? o Do the companies, both retailers and clothing, behave with corporate social responsibility? The report has also investigated green compliance from three different points of view: o how governments and other authorities attempt to impose compliance upon the fashion retail and clothing supply and manufacturing industries; o how individuals and pressure groups strive to force compliance on the fashion retail and clothing supply and manufacturing industries; o how the companies in those industries independently manage compliance. It has also considered whether: o compliance is a moral issue; o greenness is good business practice; o being seen to be green is a marketing tool. Conclusions on the survey The just-style survey results were unequivocal. From a survey sample that was xx% clothing industry, xx% fashion retail and xx% government, organisations and academia: o xxx% were interested or very interested in green issues; o xx% were involved in green issues; o most respondents are interested in all the elements of green;