Look: An EU Eco-Label for Clothes!
Posted: November 11, 2011 Filed under: Standard, Tool | Tags: Eco-Label, Rapanui, Traceability, Transparency 1 Comment »A recent Ecologist article on Transparent fashion pointed me to the brand Rapanui, which I didn’t know, but which has some great ideas regarding traceability and labelling:
Already in 2008 Rapanui proposed a label like the EU label for electronics. This sounds awesome and is exactly what I recently talked about with Switcher, who also support such a label. It would surely have to be mandatory to have an effect. Rapanui announced that it will come forward with a proposal to a parliamentary commission sometime now:
This development work is being carried out by Rapanui with a view to handing over the draft framework fully to a parliamentary commission over the winter of 2011/12. However, it should be noted that Rapanui’s A-G clothing ecolabel proposal is not currently a scheme, policy, service or certification currently provided by an independent organisation, nor is it not recognised by government or any governmental organisation, or affiliated in any official way with current EU legislation. Instead it is intended to be a real-life demonstration by Rapanui to show and document the viability of a scheme, with the purpose to raise awareness of it’s potential to improve the clothing industry.
Weekly ethical fashion news digest
Posted: November 7, 2011 Filed under: Weekly news digest | Tags: Altkleider-Lüge, ethical behaviour, Patagonia Leave a comment »Here is a weekly update in which I link you to interesting newpaper articles. The selection of articles is arbitrary and the summaries very brief:
Guy Champniss, in Guardian Professional Network: How can we change consumer behaviour to benefit the environment?“
presents the concept of “social labelling”, which follows the idea that attitudes are formed as a result of behaviour – and not vice versa. Sounds interesting and corresponds to what the authors of “The Myth of the Ethical Consumer” say, if I remember correctly. Interesting online platoform is Green Decisions, which calculates the costs of ownership of a product.
Jo Confino, Guardian Professional Network: Time for advertising to steer consumers towards sustainable choices
portrays David Jones, a marketing expert, who pledges that company marketing should play a bigger role in making sustainability more attractive to consumers. He says interesting stuff like:
“There will be people who want brands as badges, and what we can do is change what those badges stand for.” or
“Radical transparency will do more to break our obsession with profit at any cost than anything else” or
“What we are seeing today is that social media has created access to more information about the consequences of our actions, and we are waking up to the fact we can no longer carry on business as usual. If the industrial revolution gave power to the company, digital revolution gives power to the consumer.” or
“The best way to mainstream sustainable living is to legislate. If I had said in 1990 that in 20 years you would not be able to smoke in a bar or restaurant in most places around the world, few people would have believed it. This is the most dramatic way of creating change.”
Martin Wright, Guardian: Success means telling people to buy less.
analyses how Patagonia exists to show that a for-profit companies can have sustainability built into the way it does business: “So we’re willing to have lower profitability at the beginning of a larger project in order to scale out over the long term.” or “We have two budget cycles: annual, and 10-year … This will cost us more upfront, but at the end of 10 years it will have paid for itself. We’re prepared to do the necessary investment to get a long term payback.”
Michael Höft in ZEIT online about the business selling used clothing to Africa: Das Kilo für 1,20 Dollar. Das große Geschäft mit den Kleiderspenden aus Deutschland
analyzes what happens to charity clothing that consumers donate to organizations like the Red Cross. He looks at the world leader in textile recycling, the Soex Group, with a turnover of 58 Mio. Euro, which in 2010 processed 85.000 tons of the annual 700.000 tons clothing collected a year in Germany. The little bad stuff is being recycled, the good clothes go to Eastern Europe and the 60% clothing of lower quality go to Africa, where it is sold and where it destroys local textile markets. For instance, in Tansania, 80.000 former textile workers have lost their job, due to the imports, because the local production cannot compete with the used clothing. One ex textile worker says: »Diese Kinderkleidung hier? Ich bin sicher, dass die Menschen, die sie gespendet haben, etwas Gutes tun wollten. Sicherlich rechnet keiner damit, dass sie uns in eine schreckliche Katastrophe gestürzt haben.« The way out of this? Friedel Hütz-Adams from the NGOS Südwind, who is working on a study on the topic, recommends: Cut-up your clothes before you donate them – but this somehow does not seem rights; maybe better resell them in Germany or in Ebay, as Patagonia tries.
Höft also did a 30 minutes documentary “Die Altkleider-Lüge” for the German TV station NDR.
What do you think of this weekly digest format?
Like this:
EU commission: More CSR obligations for companies
Posted: October 28, 2011 Filed under: Government, Law | Tags: CSR regulation, EU agenda CSR, EU commission on CSR, EU strategy 2011-14, EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility, EU strategy CSR, Transparency Leave a comment »
Quiz question: Where is “shared value” hidden in this graph from HBR 1/2011?
Yesterday, we had a workshop with Seco and Swiss stakeholders, where we presented results of our feasibility study on a “Sustainable Trading Initiative Switzerland”. We argued in favour of a national plattform that enables that Swiss companies and public buyers learn more about sustainable trade, because in future, Swiss companies need to invest more into sustainability issues, if they want to remain competitive. At that time, I didn’t know that two days earlier, the EU commission additionally gave important political reasons for investing into CSR.
On Tuesday, the EU Commission published a 15 pages long “COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION : A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility“. Definitely, a MUST-read for all interested in the future of CSR. I will briefly sum up some important issues: The European Commission’s new strategy on corporate social responsibility (CSR), is
“part of a package of measures on responsible business (see IP/11/1238), aims to help enterprises achieve their full potential in terms of creating wealth, jobs and innovative solutions to the many challenges facing Europe’s society. It sets out how enterprises can benefit from CSR as well as contributing to society as a whole by taking greater steps to meet their social responsibility.”
The Commission now newly defines CSR as:
“the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society” – instead of its much criticized definition:
“a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis”.
In the Commission’s view, companies should “have a process in place to integrate social, environmental, ethical human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close cooperation with their stakeholders”. It emphasizes
- the importance of intgrating CSR into the core business strategy,
- creating and maximizing shared value,
- explicit recognition of Human Rights and ethical considerations.
The German “Council for sustainable development” evaluates the new strategy as progressive. It emphasizes that the Commission plans to oblige companies more to CSR-guidelines, prohibit greenwashing and that it announced to soon propose laws that make social and ecological reporting obligatory. Obviously, corporate lobby organizations are vehemently protesting against the new plans and defending CSR’s voluntary character (look at BDA and also look at the article in the Handelsblatt). And also obviously, the CORA network on Corporate Accountability is supporting the proposal.
I have not read the agenda in detail yet, as I am off to a weekend in Montreux at Lac Lemand … but I will report more details when I am back.
In the meantime, you might read Michael Porter’s January “big idea” article in Harvard Business Review on “Creating shared value” – or watch his video on “rethinking capitalism“. I guess the EU proposal reflects on this. This picture sums up his “big idea”. 
Beyond Fashion Summit in Berlin
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: Conference | Tags: Beyond Fashion, Jack Wolfskin, Misericordia, Stiftung Warentest 2 Comments »Friday and Saturday I had two inspiring days in Berlin at the Beyond Fashion Summit. The summit was organized by BeyondBerlin, CIR – in cooperation with ESMOD – who did a great job in getting an interesting mixture of open-minded people together, which created a wonderful atmosphere. The probably largest companies present were:
Jack Wolfskin, who thoroughly presented their comprehensive CSR strategy, even though, like other companies they are still far away of implementing the Asian Floor Wages;
Kuiychi, who admitted that many things went wrong in the last time and that not answering to Stiftung Warentest was their coordination mistake; it seems that they take up things now and will look into the FWF;
Misericordia, whose founder Aurelyen did a charming presentation about the origins of his brand, the empowerment of his workers in Peru – and also about the beauty of Peru. Here is one of his pictures, you find more on their website (sorry for this unpaid advertising, but I liked the pics):
Finally, a lady from Stifung Warentest courageously tried to defend their strategy behind their latest CSR-test of jeans; however, her performance strengthened my impression that Stiftung Warentest does not fully understand the fact that implementing social standards is done in a developmental way and that their poor and intransparent methods of testing CSR misleads millions of German consumers in their purchasing decisions.
As some asked me for my presentation: Here it is, but I guess the slides do not really explain themselves. Well, I am working on producing a published text from my talk.
Greenpeace links Italian fashion to destruction of Amazon rainforest
Posted: October 19, 2011 Filed under: NGO studies | Tags: Amazon rainforest, Amazon Rainforest Destruction, Greenpeace, Greenpeace Rainforest Campaign, Italian fashion designers 1 Comment »Last year, I reported about how Timberland’s former CEO dealt with 65.000 angry emails. The background of the post was an HBR article in which the Jeff Swartz explained how he reacted to mails of angry Greenpeace activists complaining that Timberland might be connected to the destruction of Amazon rainforests: Basically he looked into the issue and tried to understand his supply chain better.
Greenpeace now reports that the situation in Brazil is about to worsen:
In part, this non-compliance can be traced back to the proposed changes to Brazil’s Forest Code, the law which protects the Amazon rainforest. If these changes go through (the Brazilian president is due to consider them in the coming weeks), then the area available for legal deforestation will increase enormously, as well as letting off anyone involved in previous instances of illegal deforestation scot-free.
It now demands from Italian fashion designers to pressurize the comapnies in Brazil selling the leather to stick to their promises. Look at this clip.
Save the dates: Berlin & Münster
Posted: October 17, 2011 Filed under: Conference | Tags: Beyond Fashion Summit, CIR Herbsttagung Leave a comment »I am travelling a bit in the next weeks.
At the moment I am in Utrecht at the Multi-Stakeholder Symposium of the FLO, where corner stones of the future Fair Trade standard for textiles is discussed. I will report about it, when I find the time.
Friday & Saturday, I will be at the Beyond Fashion Summit in Berlin with presentations from Kuyichi, Jack Wolfskin, The Ecologist, Misericordia and many others.
And November, 5th, I will be in Münster to the CIR Herbsttagung about “Ethical consumption in the supermarket?” (it will be in German). Representatives of Rewe, the BSCI, the FWF, IMO etc. will talk there.
How can a T-Shirt at discounter Takko only cost 3 Euros?
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: TV report | Tags: 3 Euro T-Shirt, Costs of a T-Shirt, H&M, How can a T-Shirt cost 3$?, Takko, Warum ist Takko so billig?, Why is Takko that cheap? 2 Comments »Recently I reported about a ZEIT article that explained why H&M T-Shirts cost less than 5 Euros. Now we get even cheapter: The German TV show Galileo on the private channel Pro 7 recently examined products of the German textile discounter Takko. Takko has a turnover of over 1 Billion Euros and apparently has 1500 salespoints and opens a new one every three days.
The result is a quite interesting 17 Minutes TV reportage in which the reporters follow a 3 Euro T-Shirt to the production in Tirupur, trying to find out:
How can a T-Shirt be that cheap?
They calculate the costs of the T-shirt as follows:
- Cotton: 0,60 Euro
- Maschines and technique (I guess production overheads and profits): 0,55 Euro
- Wages: 0,25 Euro
- Transport to Europe: 0,10 Euro
- Takko overheads: apparently 1 Euro
- Takko profits: 0,50 Euro
The journalists argue that the price is not low due to poor quality, and to proove it, they have Intertek test the Takko clothes and more expensive products of competitors. The results show that the Takko products were as bad or better as the competitors’. In additino, they argue that an expensive Italian designer uses the same production unit in Tirupur, and conclude that the quality cannot be that bad. They further argue that the low price is not made through particularly poor working conditions, as the workers in the factory get the minimum wages, like those of competitors.
They underline that the low prices are certainly due to the T-Shirts being produced in a developing country with low wages and poor environmental regulation, as compared to Europe. However, as compared to competitors, who also produce under similar conditions, their arguments were:
- Takko has lower risks than other companies, because they mainly copy designs and do not come up with innovative designs;
- The shops are situated outside the cities, often close to Aldi and Lidl; according to the CEO this saves costs up to factor ten (they neglect that this produces negative externalities through urban sprawl with all consequences, which Takko does not pay);
- Takko does not invest much in advertising;
- The margins are relatively low; Takko makes profits through mass production – and indeed, the white T-Shirt they sold for 6 Euros together with a black one was sold 120.000 only in one week.
If these reasons (and not the wage costs) explain the low price for the clothes, why then does Takko not improve its working conditions and pay living wages? What is the logic behind not paying higher wages? Would consumers move away, if they had to pay 3,50 Euros for a T-Shirt? More interestingly: How much room for manouvre does a discounter like Takko have with its low margins to really improve social and environmental standards before it is thrown out of the market?
Can we make the cheapest products be the best regarding environmental quality (internalizing external costs), as Yvon Chouinard recently suggested in his HBR article “The Big Idea: The Sustainable Economy“.
Finally, I would support the argument that many clothes are well overpriced and that the price is often not correlated with the quality of social and environmental standards. However, I find problematic that the reportage uses a product with huge social and environmental externalities to suggest that T-Shirt and clothes, in general, are too expensive. I am still happy to pay more for clothes that were not produced in huge masses, that use organic cotton, that have better working conditions, and that are sold inside the city and not somewhere outside.
Like this:
How Stiftung Warentest promotes fast fashion …
Posted: September 24, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diesel jeans, H&M, H&M Jeans, Hugo Boss Jeans, Nudie, Stiftung Warentest, Warentest jeans, Zara Jeans 2 Comments »… and calls it “truth”.
The German consumer magazine “Stiftung Warentest” (SW) is an opinion maker for many German consumers – apparently it influences the majority of German consumers in their purchasing decisions. In its current issue it tested the CSR commitment of popular jeans companies and titled pretty self-confident “The truth about jeans”.
The test evaluated the following criteria and weighed the factors: production (social) (35%), production (environment) (35%), brand (general policy) (10%), brand (CSR-info) (10%), transparency (10%). A company could get 0=no answer, and 1=poor attempts at CSR, … 5=very strongly committed. The results show that:
- No company got the best marks 4 and 5
- Mark 3 (committed): H&M and Zara
- Mark 2 (attemts at CSR): G-Star, J&J, Kik, Levi’s, Nudie
- Mark 1 (did not answer the questions): 7 for all mankind, Diesel, Hugo Boss, Kuyichi, Lee, Wrangler, Salsa, Jeans Fritz
Here you see what was tested (if this zoom from the article breaches any copyrighs, please tell me). I have some remarks:
- I think that the fact that no company got a better mark than 3 does indeed reflect the current situation that working standards in most supply chains are still very poor. It is also good that critical issues like sandblasting etc. are mentioned critically in the report. But why did they not test a company that would very likely have resulted in a 5 (maybe Hess Natur)?
- Why is Stiftung Warentest (SW) not transparent regarding the detailed criteria they used. The magazin is surely aware that the final mark will very much differ, depending on what criteria you use and how you measure it (the SW board is full of PhDs and Professors). Or did I miss this out in the 7-pages PDF? A magazine claiming to present “the truth” about Jeans should know better (I wonder, whether a company could sue SW for telling wrong facts). In order to better assess the test, I would like to know: What information did SW use from the companies’ reports and what from verification bodies? What information did they collect in personal interviews and who conducted these interviews (experts?!) in what way?
- Why did SW not evaluate, a companies’ membership in an independent verification of the companies’ commitment (like FWF, FLA or even ETI membership)? Or did it? But why then, as Kristen Brodde asks, is Nudie only “making attempts” at CSR, even though it commits to the strong FWF standards and certifies its jeans according to GOTS? Is this, because the jeans are produced in Italy, where FWF need not commit so strongly? But then Nudie produces its work plan and so on. Maybe something is wrong with the test criteria?!
- Maybe this: Why did they interview workers in the factories – to then be surprised “they were all happy with their working conditions although they did not earn enough for their living”. Pardon me, but it is well known that workers are afraid to tell the truth inside a factory – so why do you use such methods?!
- It is truly sad that brands like Kuyichi, Lee, Wrangler, Hugo Boss and Diesel did not participate in the test at all; knowing about the relevance of Stiftung Warentest, I don’t understand their company policies (To me, it only makes sense not to answer, if you fear your result is not much better, if you answer). It particularly seems strange that the “eco-company” Kuyichi did not react, but apparently Kuyichi wants to explain itself at the Berlin Fashion Summit.
- We all knew that companies that sell overpriced jeans need not be better in CSR than companies that sell cheap jeans. But Kuyichi’s non-reaction made me personally angry, as I once paid 220$ for a Kuyichi jeans, thinking they were committed – and now they don’t answer … My personal experience with Kuyichi is that the tracking code in my jeans did not work, and once I bought a shirt to later read in the tag that this “sample” was “not for sale”… Warentest recently called Made-By’s tracking system a way of deceiving consumers.
- Finally, I do not think that the signal that SW is giving (keep on buying cheap fast fashion and keep your fingers from organic cotton jeans) is one that should be the guiding consumers’ purchasing decisions. In terms of global sustainability, Stiftung Warentest should recognize the bigger picture and report about this. Maybe reading Lucy Siegle’s “To die for” and being a little more critical about “cheap” products would have helped.
Also read Kirsten Brodde’s comment.
And also check the Austrian consumer magazine KONSUMENT 7/2011, which did a similar test, where the same brands did not participate.
Penelope Cruz’s contribution to unfair trade
Posted: August 31, 2011 Filed under: NGO studies | Tags: celebreties, Charles Vögele, fair trade, Penelope Cruz, unfair trade 2 Comments »Various scholars have analyzed celebreties’ involvement in ‘fair trade’ (Goodman or Richey & Ponte). Has anyone looked at how celebreties contribute to “unfair trade”? Let’s do it. Recently, Penelope Cruz (PC) pops up all over Zurich again on ads for the Swiss company Charles Voegele (CV).
Charles Voegele (626 Million CHF turnover & 62 Mill losses in the first half year 2011) sells rather cheap, low quality clothing for relatively low prices (but the PC campaign is for higher segment clothes). The Swiss NGO Declaration of Berne and the Asian Floor Wage Campaign recently criticized CV for not committing to pay living wages (to my information CV also only employs less than one person to improve working conditions, which is too little to really change things):
In this situation, does Penelope Cruz contribute to poor working conditions (i.e. unfair trade)?
According to the dead American political philosopher, Iris Young, poor working conditions are the mediated result of complex structures, into which different actors are embedded and to which they all contribute. She claims that no one is singularly responsible for poor working conditions (no company, no supplier, no consumer and also not PC), but all share a forward-looking responsibility to better working conditions. She suggests that power, privilege, interest and collective ability define what responsibility single actors share to make the things better and argues that we should discharge our responsibility through collective action.
In the Cruz case, the actor does not need to collectively engage, it simply seems sufficient, if she does not support a company that seems to support unfair practices: She certainly does not need the few millions she earns with the ads; she has the power and privilege to say no to advertise for a company that does not support high wages (she could select a fair trade company). She might not have the collective abillity to change the situation, but she can choose not to contribute (last year her whole family travelled to Switzerland and was the star at a CV event and not she is an ‘ambassardor’ and certainly leads women to buying at CV). I would thus argue that Cruz has the shared responsibility not to advertise for a company that is criticized for doing little to prevent poor working conditions. Simply: PC is not PC.
Please not that this is nothing personal against PC – on the contrary, I Almodovar’s movies in which she plays belong to my favourite ones.
Been There! Done It! Not sure I’ve earned the t-shirt!
Posted: August 18, 2011 Filed under: Book, Clip | Tags: Been There, Done It, Lucy Siegle, Northumbria School of Design, sweatshop conditions, Working Conditions Leave a comment »I am just reading Lucy Siegle’s “To die for”. On page 43 she explains ‘sweatshop’ working conditions. She reports about the ‘virtual factory standard’, which allows workers to take 15 Minutes for a pair of five-pocket jeans. To explain what that means, she refers to an interesting experiment of the Northumbria School of Design.
A team of 60 first year students set up a typical production line of a factory for producing T-shirts. While the standard factory allows the workers 48,5 seconds for sewing each sideseam, the students were allowed 1 min 55 sec ….
After 7,5 hours the students produced 95 T-Shirts. The daily target in a factory in Bangladesh with the same line load is 900.
Siegle writes: “… these guinea pigs aren’t exposed to conditions that can include being punched in the face for attending meetings, having their documents and permits taken from them, being denied access to a foetid toilet unteil their bladders are about to burst, being sexually assaulted or forced to have abortions…“
HERE you find the video they produced.
BBC 3 produced a similar idea “Blood, Sweat and T-shirts“
