Category Archives: Socially Responsible Design

Ethical Fashion Show Paris: Education For Sustainable Fashion

Title: Ethical Fashion Show Paris: Education For Sustainable Fashion
Location: Paris, France
Link out: Click here
Description: Fashioning an Ethical Industry will be hosting a round table on Education for Sustainable Fashion at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris from 1pm to 3:30pm on Sunday October 4th 2009. The event will take place at Tapis Rouge: 67, rue du fg St Martin 75010 Paris.

Speakers and themes are to be confirmed. The event is aimed at fashion tutors and students but everyone is welcome. Tickets will be available from the Ethical Fashion Show website nearer the time.

Source: FEI
Date: 2009-10-04

Project H: 5 Tenets for responsible design

Emily Pilloton is the founder of Project H. If you aren’t already familiar with the initiative, Pilloton’s Design (Anti) Manifesto will give great insight into the type of design goals Project H is working towards.

This week in Inspire, she wrote on the 5 tenets driving her organization.

There is no chapter without action.
Design with, not for.
Start locally, scale globally.
Document, measure and share.
Design systems not stuff.

This is definitely worth a read, with detailed examples on each. If these tenets were adopted by fashion design educators within their individual curriculum, fashion design students might realize their enormous potential and responsibility to design solutions.

You might also note that she has a new book coming out in September, with a forward from Allan Chochinov of Core77, titled Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People.

Below is an excerpt from the back cover. You can sign up here to receive an email notification when the book is available for purchase.

Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action, Design Revolution is easily the most exciting design publication to come out this year. Featuring more than 100 contemporary design objects and systems–safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls–that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world’s biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways–for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of “stuff creators.”

Source: Core77 and Project H

Oxfam Hong Kong launches new CSR report for the Garment Industry

Oxfam CSR Guidebook

Oxfam Hong Kong has just launched a new guidebook for the garment industry titled Good Fashion: A Guide to Being an Ethical Clothing Company.

Although they encourage the use of the guidebook for educational use, as well as for research, advocacy and campaign purposes, be sure to notify them if you are going to use the guidebook so that they may assess its impact.

“As an active promoter of corporate social responsibility (CSR), Oxfam Hong Kong launches the first corporate social responsibility guidebook: Good Fashion: A Guide to Being an Ethical Clothing Company today. Good Fashion targets to support the garment sector in Hong Kong to further develop and implement CSR policy. In producing Good Fashion, Oxfam aims to raise awareness within the business sector on the importance of CSR and to encourage them to put CSR principles into practice.

The 71-page Good Fashion, which is divided into four sections, is a comprehensive guidebook containing practical tips for implementing CSR throughout the production process, such as merchandising and manufacturing. Good Fashion also includes CSR insights from various stakeholders, including workers, community organisations, union representatives, and other groups. Online resources and a simple checklist are also included for companies’ reference.”

You can download the full report in English (PDF) here.

Also, be sure to check out Oxfam Hong Kong’s previous reports. In 2004 they published Turning the Garment Industry Inside Out – Purchasing Practices and Workers’ Lives. They have also published two transparency reports: Transparency Report – How Hong Kong Garment Companies Can Improve Public Reporting of their Labour Standards (2006) and Transparency Report II: Have Hong Kong Garment Companies Improved Their Reporting on Labour Standards (2009).

Source: CSR Asia

Portland Fashion Week: Sustainable and Independent

Title: Portland Fashion Week: Sustainable and Independent

Location: Pearl District, Portland, Oregon
Link out: Click here
Description: As a longtime hotbed of creativity for modern art, design, and urban development, Portland is being unveiled as fashion’s best-kept secret.
On the runway since 2003, Portland Fashion Week is the second-longest running fashion
week on the West Coast. PFW stages the collections of the upcoming season through a
week-long series of high-production runway shows in downtown Portland, and exposes
independent designers to regional, national and international press, buyers as well as
style-savvy consumers.

Source: Portland Fashion Week
Start Date: 2009-10-07
End Date: 2009-10-11

Design Research Conference

Title: Design research Conference
Location: Spertus Institute, Chicago, IL.
Link out: Click here
Description: The Design Research Conference (DRC), hosted by the IIT Institute of Design, brings together a growing community of design professionals advancing the role of design research in innovation.

The conference strives to spread knowledge through the discussion of compelling experiences and case studies, innovative methods and approaches, and the future and sustainability of design research.

Enthusiastic speakers interested in sharing their knowledge take the stage, enchanting the audience with best practices of design research and enthralling stories. The audience, two-thirds professionals and a third students, leaves with key takeaways: new ideas for further discussion and methods to throw into their own toolkits.

In its eighth year, DRC (formally About, With and For) will be more participatory in nature. Workshops, student presentations, twenty-minute lightning round TED style talks, and other group activities and networking opportunities will fill the two days.

Source: Core77 and IIT Institute of Design
Start Date: 2009-10-01
End Date: 2009-10-02

The University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative (UDSAI)

University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative offers ten policies for apparel brands and retailers to implement into their business practices. Click here to learn more about the policies and the initiative. Although all ten policies are crucial considerations for sustainable practices, “Policy 5: Consider and implement end-of-life strategies (recycle, renew, or reuse) when choosing materials, designing, and producing apparel” pays particular attention to design through suggested best practices in both material and design assembly considerations. In the context of socially responsible fashion design education, how can these policies be integrated into your fashion curriculum? Early next week, Social Alterations will be opening a members based discussion forum for fashion and apparel educators to ask questions and share ideas on how to best approach social and environmental concerns within the industry in their design classrooms. I hope you will join in on the conversation and share your ideas with this community.

Press Release: UD publishes sustainable apparel business guidelines

What does it mean for a clothing or footwear company to be environmentally sustainable? Browsing some brands’ Web sites, you might think a company can lessen its impact on the environment just by using organic cotton in some of its clothing. But it’s not that simple.

The University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative (UDSAI) is demystifying the process of becoming more environmentally sustainable for brands and retailers. Companies seeking this information are invited to read and utilize UDSAI’s recently produced policy guide, “Creating a More Environmentally Sustainable Apparel Business: Policies for Apparel Brands and Retailers.”

“Sustainability is the ‘buzz’ throughout all industries. The problem is there is no clear definition of what this means,” said Rick Horwitch of Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services. Bureau Veritas is an international firm that helps clients comply with standards and regulations relating to quality, health and safety, environment and social responsibility.

“I applaud the University of Delaware for taking on this daunting task of trying to put some structure and context around this very important issue. UDSAI will help bring clarity and direction,” Horwitch said.

University of Delaware faculty and students collaborated with industry professionals involved with environmental sustainability to research best practices.

“The apparel industry is predicated on change and planned obsolescence, which often results in overconsumption and waste throughout the value chain,” said Huantian Cao, UD associate professor of fashion and apparel studies and co-director of UDSAI. “UDSAI attempts to provide some simple guidelines that, when followed, will result in a more sustainable company.”

Source: UD News Releases

Greener By Design 2009 Conference

The second annual Greener By Design 2009 “Greener Products for Leaner Times” conference was held yesterday and today in San Fransisco. William McDonough gave the keynote speech at the conference yesterday. This article, “Greener By Design: Nature’s Rights, Nutrients and Quality Design,” by Jonathan Bardelline sums it up.

Check it out. For more on the conference, live blog posts, and twitter feeds (#gbd09) visit Greener Design

cradle to cradle

Just added William McDonough’s TED talk on ‘cradle to cradle’ design theory to the videos section. You will also find Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things in the suggested reading section of the site.

“I think we have a design problem.” (William McDonough’s, TED)

upcoming FEI events

Image Source: Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI)

7th July 2009

Teaching Ethical Fashion

“A Fashioning an Ethical Industry tutor training day and official launch of Sustainable Fashion: A Handbook for Educators edited by Liz Parker for Fashioning an Ethical Industry, UK, and Dr Marsha A. Dickson for Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Business, USA.

This event will bring together educators from fashion-related courses and organisations around the country to share ideas and resources, and support tutors in teaching about ethical fashion. The day is aimed at tutors on any fashion-related further or higher education course who are looking to be inspired and share best practice with other tutors.

The event will also launch the HEA funded research, being coordinated by the Centre For Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, into the needs and expectations of fashion industry employers in relation to sustainable education within fashion related courses at HE.

The event will take place at London College of Fashion between 9.30 – 4.30.” (FEI)

Direct Source: Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI)

The Cotton Conundrum

Nowadays, when it comes to cotton, you can pretty much take your ‘pick’: low-chemical, organic, low-water use, fair trade, conventional. So what’s all the hype this week about organic cotton? Well, Organic Exchange released their 2007-2008 Organic Cotton Market Report.

According to this article:

“Global retail sales of organic cotton apparel and home textile products climbed 63 percent in 2008 to $3.2 billion […]

‘Despite the global retail outlook, most brands and retailers selling organic cotton products remain committed to their sustainability plans and upbeat about market growth with plans to expand their product lines 24 and 33 percent in 2009 and 2010, respectively, to result in an estimated $4 billion market in 2009 and a $5.3 billion market in 2010,’ the report said.

The amount of organic cotton farmers grew worldwide in 2007/08 increased 152 percent, according to the 2008 Organic Cotton Farm and Fiber Report.

The amount hit 145,872 metric tons, which is equivalent to 668,581 (480-lb.) bales. It was grown on 161,000 hectares (400,000 acres) in 22 countries worldwide.

Organic production is based on a system of farming that maintains and replenishes soil fertility without using pesticides, fertilizers or genetically modified seeds.”

Keep in mind, just because the cotton is certified organic, doesn’t necessarily make it the best defence against the many negative effects of conventional cotton.

Take, for example, the Sustainable Cotton Project (SCP). The low-chemical system of biological integrated pest management (IPM) helps farmers reduce chemical usage at a much larger scale than what would be achieved through a smaller number of completely organic cotton farms. This approach looks toward the overall impact of the sector, rather than just on one farm at a time. To help growers and consumers make sense of the difference, the project has developed an online calculator. Buyers and growers can use the calculator as a means of comparing the ecological footprint of BASIC (biological agricultural systems in cotton) against conventional cotton. The ecological calculator measures land, water and carbon footprints. I haven’t used the calculator (as I am neither a cotton buyer nor grower) and would like to welcome anyone who has used it, or who is interested in using it, to leave a comment with some feedback on the success/failure of the SCP initiative. What impresses me most about SCP is their involvement in sustainable fashion design education. Based out of California, the SCP initiative has partnered with California College of the Arts and The Academy of Art educating fashion design students in the area of sustainable design through the BASIC program. This is exciting.

Social Impact?

Missing from most footprint calculators is a fibre’s social impact. But, how do you measure a social footprint? How do you measure happiness? Certified Fairtrade cotton is not always organic, so what is it?

According to the Fairtrade Foundation

“The Mark is an independent product certification label which guarantees that cotton farmers are getting a better deal – receiving a fair and stable Fairtrade price and Fairtrade premium, receiving pre-financing where requested and benefiting from longer-term, more direct trading relationships.

The Fairtrade minimum price is set at the farm gate level and is based on actual costs of sustainable production. If the local market price is higher than this minimum price, then the market price applies. An additional payment of a Fairtrade premium is set aside for farmers’ organisations to spend on social and environmental projects or to strengthen their businesses. This ensures that communities have the power and resources to invest in long-term improvements. Elected farmer committees decide democratically how these premiums are spent.”

Organic Cotton ≠ Fair Trade Cotton: Responsible fashion is not just about being ‘organic’.

“All Fairtrade certified cotton producers are required to demonstrate increased diligence in choosing appropriate non-harmful chemicals or a biological or home-made alternative wherever possible. As would be expected, farmers are prohibited from using pesticides in the Pesticide Action Network’s “dirty dozen” list and those in the FAO/UNEP’s Prior Informed Consent Procedure list.”

According to Kate Fletcher, “[t]he total area of land dedicated to cotton growing has not changed significantly for around 80 years, but in that time output has tripled” (8). Fletcher directly associates the increase in production to a swell in pesticide and fertilizer use, and recommends organic, low chemical, hand-picked, rain-fed, or drip-irrigated cotton as alternatives, or using hemp or flax as a fibre substitution (9). A rise in consumer awareness about the negative effects of conventional cotton on the environment has no doubt created the business case for companies to begin to source organic cotton.

Top 10 companies:

1. Wal-Mart (USA)
2. C&A (Belgium)
3. Nike (USA)
4. H&M (SE)
5. Zara (Spain)
6. Anvil (USA)
7. Coop Switzerland
8. Pottery Barn (USA)
9. Greensource (USA)
10. Hess Natur (Germany).

But how have companies such as these been able to incorporate organic cotton into their production lines? According to Fletcher, “[u]nlike more politically contentious and technically challenging ‘alternative’ fibres such as hemp, organic cotton fibre is a fairly straightforward like-for-like substitute for conventionally grown cotton” (21). And what stands in the way of an increased use in organic cotton? Apparently the answer is supply. According to Fletcher, “organic cotton makes up a tiny percentage (0.18 per cent) of the world fibre demand and around 1 per cent of the total cotton market.” (21)

So what does all this mean? When searching for sustainable fibres make sure to consider the entire lifecycle of that fibre (both environmental and social). Eliminating pesticide use is only part of the solution. Let’s not forget to think outside the crop.

Source: Greenbiz, Fairtrade, Reuters, SCP and Sustainable Fashion & Textiles: Design Journeys, by Kate Fletcher