Since my last update I have attended a workshop in London, and taken part in the final webinar, Stress Testing the NICE Consumer Framework on Sustainable Consumption of Fashion. At this event there were presentations from Puma, Levi Strauss & Co., Futerra, and Vanessa Friedman from the Financial Times. The session also included a summary of the progress midway through the consultation process. Cody Sisco [BSR] spoke about the major priorities raised by participants and other important areas including supply chain transparency, and the need for increased education, understanding and collaboration. For design students out there, he also mentioned the important role designers can play in moving things forward! A full recording of the webinar is available to download at BSR.

The Copenhagen Fashion Summit

The Copenhagen Fashion Summit starts today and promises to be an exciting event, which will bring together around 900 stakeholders to discuss sustainability and CSR in the fashion industry. Organisers have been keen to include young people in these discussions and a number of student representatives from around Europe will gather today for a Youth Summit, and present the results of their discussions at the main event tomorrow. The Summit will also launch an industry specific code of conduct, a joint initiative by the UN Global Compact and NICE.

“As an industry facing serious and widely publicized social and environmental challenges, the fashion and textile industry is uniquely positioned to launch a sectoral initiative under the umbrella of the UN Global Compact.”

George Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact

If you can’t get to Copenhagen but want to keep up with the event then I know that @katetfletcher and the @NICEconsumer have already been tweeting live from the summit!

Further reading//

Press release: United Nations Global Compact joins forces with the fashion industry to launch first sector specific initiative

BSR: NICE Consumer Project Summary

BSR: NICE Consumer Research Summary

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 30^th, 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 suppliers factories? While buyers can go it alone (and have for many years), there are an increasing number of opportunities to join forces with other buyers, with suppliers, with multi stakeholder organizations, and with civil society organizations. Mr. Nebel will discuss how sustainable compliance can be leveraged with a multitude of collaborative activities.” (FIBERcast)

Click here to learn more about Nebel, and to register for this FREE event.

If you’re unable to tune in, keep your fingers crossed that this latest edition will be archived online after the event — previous webinars are available online, here.

‘See’ you there!

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 by the security agencies for his labor activism puts the onus on the government to show it can impartially investigate his killing and bring all those responsible to justice.” (Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch)

Islam’s final words in a statement recounting his 2010 detainment are haunting:

“Now I’m living in extreme anxiety […] Nightmares of torture won’t let me sleep.”

It is important to take time to reflect on Islam’s life and death, and it is imperative to not allow his story to overwhelm to the point of inaction.

It has been reported Babul Akhter and Kalpona Akhter are continuously faced with threats against their lives.

Our actions must be clear: it’s not about boycott; it’s about engagement and support.

International Labor Rights Forum has organized an online petition that can be found here.

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, “[b]oth disappearance and torture are the by-products of the ‘rule of coerciveness’ in absence of the ‘rule of law’ inBangladesh. It is a matter of grave concern that the incidents of disappearance are increasing, alarmingly and unabatedly.”

Islam was a dedicated labour rights’ activist who clearly understood the risks and dangers associated with his work. That he would continue to work under these circumstances tells us he was hopeful for change.

To Islam’s family, friends and colleagues, our thoughts are with you now, yes, but they will remain with you as you continue to fight for change.

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 [ITGLWF], 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 denim and the practice is widely accepted as being dangerous to workers health, including exposing them to the risk of Silicosis, an incurable and potentially fatal lung disease. These concerns are made more worrying where health and safety precautions are inadequate or non existent. The Deadly Denim report contains the findings of research conducted in Bangladesh including interviews from garment workers, suppliers and heath care professionals; it also explores why sandblasting is still widely used despite the known dangers, and offers recommendations to brands, governments and international organisations.

The issue of sandblasting is one which should lead us all to question the real cost of the clothes we buy and whether it is ever acceptable for people to risk their lives in the production of fashion items.

Further Reading //

Sandblasted jeans: Should we give up distressed denim?[article]: BBC World Service

Killer Jeans: A campaign by Labour behind the Label

Deathly Jeans: Sandblasting damages health [video]: Published by Aktive Forbrugere in collaboration with Clean Clothes Campaign

Global Campaign to Eliminate Sandblasting: International Textile Garment & Leather Workers’ Federation [ITGLWF]

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 where poverty is high. The exciting thing about this project (and others like it), is the long term ambition which involves, empowerment through meaningful work and training, and sharing skills that will help to achieve sustained trade opportunities in global markets. Whilst this example demonstrates positive production and sourcing, it is not a solution to ethical production that could be replicated in all sectors of the fashion industry today.

Next up Henrik Lampa (H&M) talked about how H&M is actively seeking to improve its supply chain through a more sustainable fabric sourcing policy, guided by research from Made By. Conventional cotton production has a negative effect on the environment and can also be damaging to people the land they rely on through the heavy use of pesticides and water; working towards ‘better’ cotton is a step in the right direction, and H&Ms efforts here will hopefully prompt other companies to follow suit!

[For insight into the limitations of current LCA models and benchmarks, check out Pulling Wool over our Eyes: The Dirty Business of LCAs, by Tone Skårdal Tobiasson, Editor at www.nicefashion.org, and Kjersti Kviseth, Partner 2025design.]

Of course we also know that fast fashion is problematic in relation to the volume of disposable goods produced, and the production speed that is necessary to be competitive. These factors can translate into difficulties for suppliers and negative conditions for production workers; however it is hard to see how improvements here can be made from within individual companies when this would compromise their competitiveness in their market sector. Perhaps tackling this problem requires a multi-brand approach that will give all companies a level playing field whilst improving conditions for garment workers?

The next presentation by Mo Tomaney of Central Saint Martins, focused on design-led responses to sustainable consumption. Mo inspired us with these case studies from the design world, Junky styling, From Somewhere and Gary Harvey. Finally she introduced the student program Reclaim to Wear, which aims to prompt the next generation of designers’ to think sustainably. As a student designer myself this is of real interest to me, and I believe design could be involved at every level of sustainable consumption in diverse and exciting ways. Design can also act as a valuable conduit between seemingly conflicting needs, such as the desire for rapid change and the need to reduce waste.

Aptly, the last speaker Ellen van den Adel, talked about post-consumer textile waste. Discussing how the consumer benefits emotionally from the knowledge that their waste will be reused, and how consumers understand the message about recycling and many do recycle or want to. However the viability of the textile recycling industry is threatened by a number of factors which are likely to become more influential into the future. In response to this Work in Progress have collaborated with Textile 4 Textile to develop an automatic sorting machine capable of sorting textiles by colour and fibre type; this sort of technological advancement may help protect the used textile trade. Education and dialogue between companies, designers and textile recyclers could also help to improve the end of life opportunities for our clothing.

The seminar inspired a level of optimism about what is already happening to improve the sustainability of the products we consume, at the same time an approach to disposable ‘fast fashion’ remains unclear. This is the most complex of topics as it is inseparable from broader themes such as our economic structure, competition, and many social and cultural factors (for example the speed at which information travels today is related to the rapidity of trend cycles), all of which go far beyond fashion itself.

Listen to the entire webinar and view the presentations here.

Social Alterations tweets on the Burkina Faso cotton issue

In response to this activity, Professor Chris MacDonald [from the ever-excellent The Business Ethics Blog] wrote an article in Canadian Business Magazine entitled Victoria’s Secret and child labour. In it he made some great points about:

a) the complexity of supply chains:

“The case of Victoria’s Secret’s cotton supply illustrates a clear failure of third-party supply-chain monitoring, but it is also an illustration of the complexity of that monitoring. It’s a lovely idea to promise your customers organic, fair-trade cotton, but making good on the promise is another thing altogether.”

b) the importance of context:

“The fundamental problem, though—the one that makes the life of a parentless child in Burkina Faso so miserable—is that Burkina Faso is a miserably poor country.”

and,

c) paying more does not always translate to better conditions:

“Pouring more money into a supply chain has complex effects…paying more for something draws more people into the business, which increases supply, which drives down prices. Note also that if VS customers are willing to pay more for the cotton in their panties, that inevitably means they’re spending less money on something else—and spending less on something else means someone else, somewhere, is earning less money.”

He also concludes that:

“The sad truth is that for some kids there, labour in the cotton fields is their best alternative; their families can’t really afford to feed them, let alone to send them to school. This is why I say that while child labour is always bad, it’s not always wrong.”

Further arguing that companies may avoid Burkina Faso’s cotton to keep their hands clean of this issue or the ‘child labour’ rules may even be enforced which would leave child labourers struggling to survive.

Clarisse left transporting cotton to a store house. Copyright: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg.

Some really interesting stuff and in light of the allegations by Fair Trade International that Cam Simpson, Bloomberg’s reporter, staged the whole thing, this story got much more complicated and attention shifted to the accusations instead of the debate on child labour.

I agree with Chris MacDonald’s arguments, including the one about child labour being bad but not always wrong. But, the thing that was missing from this story is a focus on context and understanding that one cannot superimpose global [sometimes Western] normative standards over local norms and expect them to be adopted and prevail. I don’t have issues with child labour if and only if children have legal protection and are working in safe conditions free from fear, with the freedoms given to all workers and the special rights drafted in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Realistically, the world doesn’t work that way. Most of the countries where children are working do not have the governance capacity to ensure the safety and legal protection of full grown workers let alone children. We are also talking about a normative environment that socializes its members to view child labour under such conditions as acceptable. Look at the Bloomberg article’s section on Kamboule, Clarisse’s guardian and cousin:

“Kamboule acknowledges striking Clarisse.
“I sometimes beat her,” he says. “This is when I give her work and she doesn’t deliver.”

Kamboule, Clarisse's cousin, copyright: Bloomberg.

“As with Clarisse, his own parents left him with relatives to labor rather than attend school. Strong and lean, the illiterate farmer seems to toil endlessly, wearing the same pair of tattered shorts each day.”

What Bloomberg is describing sounds like a practice that has been institutionalized in Burkina Faso. I mean, they have a name for a child in Clarisse’s situation and it has occurred through at least two generations. But the description given by Bloomberg would have you believe that it’s a thinly veiled excuse for child trafficking.

When I saw the term describing Clarisse as Kamboule’s enfant confie and later read that he himself was also an enfant confie, I realized that this is a well entrenched social practice. When I did some quick research on enfant confie, I couldn’t find anything in English, so I did a search in French and what I learned is that the understanding of ‘family’ in West Africa is not limited to the direct family or even the extended family. It includes the community. Traditionally, this practice, enfant confie, is not exactly adoption; it includes a social and educational aspect. The children are entrusted to their guardians with the goal of improving their access to education and participating in a form of apprenticeship. In the process, the practice helps to strengthen familial solidarity and the social bonds of kinship. However, socio-economic conditions have a great impact on social practices so it’s important to try to understand the root causes and the consequences of  enfant confie as it is practiced today.

When organizations try to embed global standards into a new context, it’s important to take into account the social practices that already exist in the country and try to imagine how local practices would influence outcomes. So, when stories like this emerge, we need to suppress our judgement and look beyond the surface. Victoria’s Secret got a lot flack for this story, but at the end of the day, I think it’s a shame that the real lesson was not learned: ‘global’ norms and standards are not exactly ‘global’. They enter into different countries with different conditions and are filtered through a local normative lens. People in these countries are acting within their own paradigms. Our job is to try to understand these paradigms and then work within them to slowly push for real change. Any action that aims to simply transplant a ‘global’ norm or standard into a local context without any adjustment to fit this local context is bound to fail.

Some sources on enfant confie:

Guillaume, A., Vimard, P., Fassassi, R. and N’Guessan, K. (1997). La Circulation des Enfants en Côte-d’Ivoire: Solidarité Familiale, Scolarisation et Redistribution de la Main-d’œuvre.

Pilon, M. (2003). Confiage et Scolarisation en Afrique de L’Ouest: Un Etat des Connaissances.

Rakoto-Tiana, N. (2012). Confiage et Scolarisation des Enfants en Milieu Rural à Madagascar (UMR DIAL Working Paper No. 2012-01).

Younoussi, Z. (2007). Les Déterminants Démographiques Et  Socio-Economiques Du Confiage Des Enfants Au Burkina Faso.  African Population Studies/Etude de la Population Africaine, 22 (2), 205-231.

The event began with an introduction by Jonas Eder-Hansen of the Danish Fashion Institute followed by an overview of the research (thus far) by Cody Sisco from BIS. Both speakers highlighted  the infancy of this project and clearly set out the aims, objectives and limitations of this work….the road to sustainable consumption will be a long one, beginning with an attempt to define sustainable consumption and the NICE consumer.

The next speaker- Ian Morris, Head of Technical Services, Marks & Spencer plc.- described an on-going collaboration between M&S and Oxfam, which rewards consumers who donate their old clothes to charity. This project is an illustration of how a company has acted to positively influence consumer behaviour; in this case conscientious disposal, one strand of sustainable consumption. Part of the NICE consumer project involves analysing examples like this, which will help to inform the debate and the final framework.

Another feature of this project is its inclusive and open approach, making use of new technology and social media to extend the reach of discussions and inform a wider selection of society. As part of this, the webinar series gave attendees the opportunity to vote in online polling and ask questions directly to the speaker. This information is included in a recording of webinar which is already freely available to download. Opinion and feedback on the content of this webinar and the questions posed are encouraged and are easy to access through Twitter (@niceconsumer) and Facebook.

This event has given me an insightful introduction into the emerging conversation on the sustainable consumption of fashion. I am looking forward to the next event on Tuesday -The state of the Art in sustainable consumption- when the speakers will include H&M, TED (Textiles Environment Design) and Vivian Westwood.

Additional Resources //

Cody Sisco [blog]  The Journey to Sustainable Fashion  Consumption Has Begun

“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?

This past Friday, on behalf of SA, I delivered a tailored version of the [Fashion High] 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 to communicate and share their feelings of hope and frustration.

We’d like to thank these activists for their dedication and congratulate them on their great work in raising nearly $5,000 for a cause they wholeheartedly stand behind.

I can say, with confidence, that the young activists I met on Friday will not tolerate being a part of any system based on human exploitation. And this we can look forward to…

Note: the activities mentioned above will be included in the upcoming GE module.