Responsibility

UPDATE III // The NICE Consumer Project & the Copenhagen Fashion Summit

May 2, 2012
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UPDATE III // The NICE Consumer Project & the Copenhagen Fashion Summit

The initial stage of the NICE consumer project comes to an end this week and the NICE  Framework for Achieving Sustainable Fashion Consumption through Collaboration will receive its final revisions during the Copenhagen Fashion Summit. The framework is designed to inspire action from government, industry and civil society, it also highlights areas where more discussion is needed; for example, how can we create a transparent value chain, or an environment which fosters sustainable business models and supports sustainable behaviors? Since my last update I have attended a workshop in London, and taken part in the final webinar, Stress Testing the...

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LISTEN // FIBERcast: Is The Product You’re Buying Made In a Way That Is Fair, Healthy, and Safe?

April 29, 2012
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LISTEN // FIBERcast: Is The Product You’re Buying Made In a Way That Is Fair, Healthy, and Safe?

    We love the FIBERcast series out of the University of Delaware. These FREE webinars are supported through FIBER, the Online Journal of the International Fashion and Apparel Industry — an invaluable resource for responsible fashion education. Be sure to tune in Monday, April 30th, at 12:30 p.m EDT, for the next FIBERcast: Is The Product You’re Buying Made In a Way That Is Fair, Healthy, and Safe? Guest Speaker: Gregg Nebel, adidas “With brands and companies outsourcing production to extended global supply chains, how does a company ensure there are fair, healthy and safe conditions in those...

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TAKE ACTION // Labour rights activist Aminul Islam found dead: Bangladesh

April 25, 2012
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TAKE ACTION // Labour rights activist Aminul Islam found dead: Bangladesh

    Dear friends and colleagues, It is difficult to express thoughts and feelings on the reported murder and alleged preceding torture of Aminul Islam, a union organizer working with the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity (BCWS). Please click through to read a letter written by Human Rights Watch, accounting events leading up to Islam’s disappearance. In 2010, Islam was arrested alongside BCWS labour rights activists Babul Akhter and Kalpona Akhter, as well as others, for helping Bangladeshi garment workers organize themselves to stand up for the right to decent work and a living wage. “Past torture of Islam...

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Killer Jeans: Sandblasting continues…

April 6, 2012
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Killer Jeans: Sandblasting continues…

    A new report by the Clean Clothes Campaign exposes the continued use of sandblasting in the Bangladesh garment industry, despite it being banned by some big brands and outlawed in Turkey since 2009. The CCC recognise that this problem is not exclusive to Bangladesh, and like the International Textiles Garment & Leather Workers’ Federation , call for global action on the issue. ”This report shows that a voluntary company ban is simply not enough – governments worldwide should enforce a national ban as well as enforcing import bans.” Clean Clothes Campaign 2012 Sandblasting is a technique used to distress...

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EVENT // Re-dress; Better Fashion Week 2012

April 2, 2012
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EVENT // Re-dress; Better Fashion Week 2012

Better Fashion Week is an annual public awareness event by  Re-Dress; an organisation working towards developing  sustainable fashion practices within the Irish fashion industry. Better Fashion Week hosts a mixture of talks, exhibitions, workshops and more; highlights of this years event include talks by  Kate Fletcher, Lucy Siegle and Helen Steele.  There is a fee for Better Fashion Week.

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UPDATE II // The NICE consumer project

March 27, 2012
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UPDATE II // The NICE consumer project

As promised here is an update of the second NICE consumer consultation webinars, The Art of Sustainable Consumption. At this session we heard from four speakers presenting a range of responses to sustainability. In bringing them together we were able to imagine what  ’sustainable consumption’ might look like and also how some of these approaches could be linked. Giordano Capuano -Vivienne Westwood- presented the model of ethical production behind Westwood’s Ethical Africa collection. The project began as part of an initiative of the International Trade Centre, which aimed to link luxury brands in the West to producers in communities...

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What about the local context?

March 25, 2012
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What about the local context?

In December, news came out that the organic cotton fair trade program in Burkina Faso is not all it’s cracked up to be. There was a flurry of twitter activity against Victoria’s Secret since they buy most of the cotton from this program. And, in the interest of full disclosure, SA was one of those with input on the case both on our twitter feed and on our fb page: In response to this activity, Professor Chris MacDonald wrote an article in Canadian Business Magazine entitled Victoria’s Secret and child labour. In it he...

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UPDATE // The NICE consumer project

March 19, 2012
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UPDATE // The NICE consumer project

Last Tuesday I took part in the first of three webinars on the sustainable consumption of fashion entitled Introducing the NICE CONSUMER Project and the Draft Framework on Sustainable Consumption of Fashion. The webinar experience was new to me and I was unsure of what to expect, but also enthusiastic about the opportunity to participate in such an important conversation. Over the next month I will keep you updated with this project and its development in the run up to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit in May.     The event began with an introduction by Jonas Eder-Hansen of the Danish Fashion Institute followed...

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GET INVOLVED // A framework for sustainable consumption

March 9, 2012
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GET INVOLVED // A framework for sustainable consumption

“Consumers can play a pivotal role in transitioning the fashion industry toward more sustainable business models.” (BSR) This year the Copenhagen Fashion Summit follows the theme of consumption, and will see the launch of a framework for sustainable consumption, developed by the NICE Consumer project. The framework will also be presented to the EU presidency council, and at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development later in the year. The NICE consumer is a collaborative project between the Danish Fashion Institute and BSR, which actively engages stakeholders from the industry, civil society and the government. So how can we be involved? As consumers we are...

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Canadian youth speak out against garment worker exploitation

March 5, 2012
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Canadian youth speak out against garment worker exploitation

This past Friday, on behalf of SA, I delivered a tailored version of the workshop to a dedicated group of young Canadian activists – 60 Grade 8 students taking part in a 24-hour fast to raise awareness and funds for childhood rights through Free the Children. Seeing as how the group had already not eaten for nearly 12 hours by the time our workshop began, we thought we’d spare them the Power Point presentation and replace it with two new activities—the first encouraged students to draw connections between key players, and the second allowed students the opportunity...

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