Tag Archives: CSR

LEARN // The WellMade Project

WellMade - Facebook banner image

 

A three year project that began in 2013, WellMade provides free online resources designed to help brands better support labour rights in their supply chains.

The Fair Wear Foundation (FWF) is lead partner on the initiative, working collaboratively with other partners and associates.

WellMade2

There are currently four specific case studies to assist brands:

(1) “You know those pants we ordered? We need them in a different color!”

(2) “I’m visiting a factory but I’m not a CSR specialist. What can I do to help?”

(3) “We have found labour problems in one of our factories. What should we do?”

(4) “Subcontracting: How can this small group of workers produce so many t-shirts?”

If you’re in Paris, you can catch the project for a free workshop tomorrow (10 Feb) at Texworld.

Follow WellMade on Facebook and Twitter for updates on resources, as well as future workshops and events.

ATTEND // WEAR 2014 (Updated)


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WEAR 2014 hits Toronto, Canada, November 3rd and 4th, 2014 (updated dates).

The event, presented by Canada’s Fashion Takes Action, offers keynote presentations and panel discussions from industry stakeholders on the following themes (updated themes):

  • Creating Shared Value & Profitability Through Sustainable Business Practices
  • The Evolution of Social Standards & Systems; Navigating Change
  • Make Fair, Buy Fair; Responsible Supply Chain Practices from Design through Delivery
  • Supply Chain Transparency; Tools and Trends in Visibility & Risk Management
  • Innovation, Impact & Perception: Telling New Stories

 

 

ATTEND // Eco Fashion Week, Oct. 6-10: Vancouver

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For the first time in 7 seasons, SA won’t be in Vancouver to support our friends at Eco Fashion Week. As a result, we’re really counting on our Vancouver readers to represent and support the event conference sessions! This season will see Mountain Equipment Co-op, Bluesign Technologies, OEKO-TEX® and Ford Motor Company speak on various topics relating to responsible fashion (session times to be confirmed).

If you missed our talk at EFWV 06, you can still watch it – all of the sessions were livestreamed.

I’ve uploaded the PowerPoint to our SlideShare account, and included the transcript below, along with a link to the sessions (click on the image)

Sorry we’ll be missing the event this time around, but we’ll be there in spirit!

EFWV06

Presentation Slide Notes:

Slide 1 // Myriam Laroche, and the Vancouver ECO Fashion Week team, thank you for inviting me to speak today. Guests in attendance, thank you for your attention. And to the online audience joining us via livestream, welcome.

Social Alterations is an online education lab that myself and Nadira Lamrad developed almost four years ago.

Slide 2 // We are a free industry recourse, offering study guides, lesson plans, and learning modules, with independent research, case studies and reports for responsible fashion education.

Side 3 // We work to create comprehensive programming in creative ways. Our SAGE module, for example, uses Google Earth to take learners on a virtual tour of an example lifecycle of a hypothetical conventional cotton t-shirt, by embedding the interactive curricula directly into the program.

Slide 4 // We’re exposed to so many negative events and imagery…

Slide 5 // Social Alterations is not innocent here… we’ve covered many stories showing such imagery, such as factory fires in South East Asia, or forced child labour in cotton production, for example.

Slide 6 // Do not let the issues overwhelm you to the point that you are paralyzed and unable to take action.

Slide 7 // It becomes easy to lose sight of what’s important and the positive steps being taken. This year, we want to highlight positive action that we can take to move beyond that paralyzing negativity.

Slide 8 // There are a lot of exciting campaigning groups that you can join to showcase individual actions. There are countless petitions for you to sign against a whole host of issues: child labour, animal cruelty, clean water, the list goes on. Or you can take personal actions that demonstrate your values to your own network and community.

Slide 9 // Last year, Nadira and I took Labour Behind the Label’s 6 Items Challenge.

Slide 10 // We had to wear the same 6 items of clothing for 4 weeks to raise awareness on the importance of decent work for garment workers. People still approach us to talk about this challenge. It helped us bring the conversation home.

Slide 11 // These individual actions count within the movement, they play an important role, but we need to expand the circle and create that critical mass. Unfortunately, responsible fashion is still a niche industry within the business.

There is a lot of interesting work being done within this niche market. Like the work that Wes Baker and colleagues are doing at debrand, and the Canadian Textile Recovery Effort. The work that ecofashion week is doing, along with other groups, like member based Fashion Takes Action, that are working to make responsible fashion consumption become the norm in Canada. And of course the work that all of you are doing every day. But to achieve systemic change, we need to organize.

Slide 12 // Let’s start now. We’ve got a pop-up photo booth here today, where we are challenging you to share what you stand for and articulate your values clearly. We’ll compile the images and share them online so that you can see the diversity of values that fit under the sustainability umbrella, and learn what matters most to you, Canadian sustainable fashion leaders….But then what?

Slide 13 // More and more we are seeing global industry players come together to formalize sustainability networks. These networks can be global, like the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, for example. Or localized, like the Hong Kong based Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium (SFBC).

As I have mentioned, we already have groups working tirelessly on various pieces of the sustainability puzzle – waste recovery, responsible consumption practices, responsible education – we need to formalize a network where we come together to create and manage our own best practices to achieve the systemic change we looking for..

We need viable alternatives to the system we have in place right now. And we can’t wait for the government to take up these issues. We have to be active as a community to make sure that responsible fashion has a seat at the table, when our government finally addresses sustainable systems in Canada.

In the end, the whole point of coming together for events like this, industry conferences or academic lectures….is to learn and share ideas on how to create that systemic change, but it’s not going to happen if we don’t carry the conversation outside of these meetings to start building a roadmap for that systemic change, to transform the industry from the inside out. Let’s be clear that by industry I mean the entire fashion industry.

These are important values in Canada – Human Rights, labor rights, sustainable communities, environmental stewardship, cultural diversity – all issues that fit under the sustainability umbrella. It’s time that Canada leads the way.

Slide 14 // There is power in numbers, so let’s make it happen.

While you’re at the popup photobooth, talk to us if you’re interested in being involved in the first meeting to discuss what a “Canadian Responsible Fashion Consortium” would look like. We promise to facilitate that first meeting and we can move forward from there.

ATTEND // FIBERcast: Challenges of Including Smallholder Farmers in the Global Organic Cotton Market

The Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware will broadcast the next FIBERcast through the “Fashioning Social Responsibility” lecture series on Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Speakers Heinrich Schultz and Roger Frank will address the following challenges:

· Organizing farmers’ associations or cooperatives

· Training and technical support for farmers

· Providing organic inputs such as seed and non-synthetic chemical additives

· Assuring quality and quantity of production

· Providing traceability and certification

· Marketing for aggregated suppliers

· Financing equipment, storage and processing

Details:

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

Click here to register – registration is free.

Click here for more information and here for past episodes (all free).

WATCH // Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on cultural capitalism and corporate social responsibility

 

You know we’re fans of RSA Animate videos, so here’s another important one to add your video collection – if it’s not there already.

In “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce” philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s questions the relationship between capitalism and charity.

It has become common practice for global apparel brands to showcase charitable acts under corporate social responsibility mandates, but are you buying in?

 

 

Winners Announced! Fashioning the Future

Miriam Rhida

Miriam Rhida

I’ve got some exciting news to share with you! On November 25th I won the “Systems for a Sustainable Future Award” in the Fashioning the Future international student competition. This competition is run through the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. There were 5 winners in total, each representing five separate categories, with forty finalists over all. I’m excited to have had the opportunity to showcase and share my graduate research, and this website.

 

Emma Rigby

Emma Rigby

Zoe Fletcher won the Enterprise & Communication Initiative for a Future Fashion Industry Award (Highly Commended: Ruby Hoette and Julia Crew)

Varun Gambhir won the Role of Materials in a Sustainable Fashion Industry Award (Highly Commended: Karina Micheal)

Mary Hanlon won the Systems for a Sustainable Fashion Industry Award

Miriam Rhida won the Design for a Thriving Fashion Industry Award (Highly Commended: Eleanor Dorrien-Smith and On Ying Lai)

Emma Rigby won the Water – The Right for All Citizens of this Planet Award (Highly Commended: Anne Prahl).

 

 

International competitions such as the Fashioning the Future awards offer students the chance not only to showcase their work, but to benchmark themselves against other students in their field at the international level.

Please visit the Centre for Sustainable Fashion to check out the details of the competition, and the full list of finalists! For more images, check out this photo gallery from The Guardian.

On Ying

On Ying

Also, if you are in London, be sure to stop by London’s City Hall and London College of Fashion to check out the highlights from the 2009 awards. Here are the details:

FASHIONING THE FUTURE AT CITY HALL, 19 November – 4 December 2009
Highlights of the 2009 awards to be showcased at London’s City Hall, with thanks to the London Sustainable Development Commission.
Open to the public, free of charge.
Greater London Authority, City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA

FASHIONING THE FUTURE AT FASHION SPACE GALLERY, 16 November – 11 December 2009
Highlights of the 2009 awards to be showcased at London College of Fashion.
Open to the public, free of charge.
London College of Fashion, 20 John Princes Street, London W1G 0BJ

 Congratulations everyone! And thank you for your support!

 

Images via The Guardian