Moving Ethical Fashion Forward – Reflections on the 2018 Fashion for Freedom Event
I’ve been spending the last few weeks digging a bit deeper and taking a look at what ethical fashion really means, interviewing fair trade artisan brands, and talking to ethical apparel manufacturers abroad. Producing ethical fashion requires patience and thoughtfulness to navigate complex apparel supply chains and slow industry progress, there is no quick fix answer. There’s a reason why ethical fashionistas turn up their noses at brands like H&M who produce sustainable clothing at impossibly low prices. These low prices are a sign that something isn’t right. They might be using organic cotton or tencel fabric, but they are still producing in conditions where the (mostly) women making their clothing do not make a living wage. Consumer culture is conditioning consumers to expect low-cost clothing and companies are applying this framework to create greenwashed clothing, the fabrics might be sourced a little more consciously, but they’re still producing extreme excess and exploiting workers.
Last Saturday I attended Free the Slaves’ Fashion for Freedom Event in NYC to learn from their speakers on ways we can move forward and drive change as a community. Keynote speaker, Safia Minney, kicked off the event explaining the trajectory of her fair trade work in the fashion industry and how it’s led her to develop successful brands like People Tree and Po-Zu as well as write some foundational books in the industry like Naked Fashion, Slow Fashion, and most recently, Slave to Fashion. The keynote address was followed by a panel with Safia; Rebecca Ballard from Maven Women, a sustainable fashion brand based in DC with a radical approach to design and fit; Aaron Halegua a Research Fellow at the NYU Law School, he is an expert on labor rights, human trafficking and access to justice in the U.S. and internationally; and moderated by Executive Director of Free the Slaves, Maurice Middleberg. The night concluded with the 2018 Fashion for Freedom Award Winner, Flor Molina, telling her story of survival from being trafficked from Mexico to LA to work in garment production. After Flor’s escape from enslavement, her determination and perseverance have led her to play an instrumental role in passing the California Transparency Act and being appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the first-ever U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.
Even though researchers estimate that 40 million people are enslaved worldwide, and 50% of slavery victims are in labor slavery, many people in the U.S. are ignorant of this. The harsh reality is that many of the goods in our homes have been touched by slave labor, yet your average consumer is completely unaware. The Fashion Industry has a responsibility to take action, as one of the least transparent and complex supply chains. The question is how to move the needle forward? Even ethical fashion veterans like Safia say that we’ve only just got the ball rolling, there is still so much to be done.
The Fashion for Freedom Event was a snapshot of what ethical fashion can be at its greatest and reminders of how we need to keep pushing for change. There were three main points that were driven home during the panel:
- Governments around the world, especially in countries with booming garment industries, need to create policies to eliminate modern slavery and find ways to enforce them.
- Consumers, particularly women, need to speak up, demand a better product, and hold brands accountable.
- Garment workers need the freedom to associate and collective bargaining power to stand up to their employers and ask for better working conditions.
These are three complex and tedious steps to eliminate modern slavery from the fashion supply chain, but policies like the California Transparency Act and the Modern Slavery Act (UK), as well as organizations like Fashion Revolution and the Clean Clothes Campaign, are helping to inch the industry forward.
Although big-name fashion brands are slow to take on social issues in their supply chains, disruptive social enterprises have stepped in with innovative solutions for decreasing poverty and helping women through economic development. Before and after the speakers, we got to shop a marketplace of fair trade brands like zero-waste fashion brand made in Cambodia, Tonlé; High-quality basics made by free women in India, Causegear, a brand sourcing locally in Haiti and empowering women, Deux Mains; a jewelry line designed in Maine and made impeccably by artisans in Nepal, Mulxiply, Scarves made by women who escaped trafficking or were at risk in Kenya, RefuShe and more.
Even though there was a sense that this is only the beginning and that enormous efforts still need to be made, there was excitement in the air. The room was full of a supportive community ready to take action and find ways to drive policy, consumer behavior, and industry change to protect people at every level of the supply chain.
—
Learn more about the Fashion for Freedom campaign on their website, http://www.ftsfashionforfreedom.com/.
Multi-stakeholder Initiatives: The business case for human rights
As an activist for human rights along the fashion supply chain, it is easy to label corporations, governments and factory owners as “the bad guys”. They are the ones perpetuating unfair labor practices, right? In many ways, yes, but it’s too simple to stop asking questions there. Digging deeper into the situations causing them to exploit people, and understanding exactly how these powerful players are able to skirt systems put in place to protect workers is at the crux of solving this issue. Addressing these oversights and bringing everyone to the table to find pathways for mutually beneficial change is crucial to building better businesses that are able to navigate the apparel supply chain in a way that incorporates human rights at every level.
At NYU Stern, the Center for Business and Human Rights is working on research to tackle exactly these issues in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Stern established the Center for Business and Human Rights in 2013, the first of its kind. Forming right after the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, the center decided to take a close look at how the government and brands address this tragic loss of life in the sector. After their first report, they identified a major issue causing human rights violations to be transparency in the Bangladeshi supply chain. To shine a light on the breadth of the garment industry and how different factories operated, they created an interactive mapping tool to track all the factories in the country. Their latest report, Five Years After Rana Plaza: The Way Forward – released just this month, assesses this critical juncture in the Bangladeshi garment industry where the Accord (mainly comprised of European brands) and the Alliance (mainly comprised of American brands) are gearing up to transfer their responsibilities to the government and outlines recommendations for moving forward.
Although we are five years out from the Rana Plaza disaster and some improvements have been made, the industry is still on the verge of a major disaster in the Bangladeshi garment sector due to the drastic inequalities between factories that have emerged. Instead of lifting up the industry as a whole, the Accord and the Alliance groomed select factories to raise their standards for foreign export, while other factories lagged behind and even decreased in standards as they produced for countries with more lenient standards, the Bangladeshi domestic market or even served as subcontractors for these larger sanctioned factories. In effect, they managed to create a bifurcation between factories and further engrained subcontracted work as a necessary component to meeting foreign brand’s demands.
After reading the report and talking with April Gu, the Associate Director of the Center for Business and Human Rights, I learned how the center is advocating for steps forward that will help to raise accountability with the Bangladeshi government, create a shared responsibility over worker’s rights and funding for remediation, and provide more transparency throughout the web of factories operating in the country. Stressing the importance of mitigating risk across the sector, brands don’t want to invest so much money to remediate factories just to have their garments show up in a subcontracted factory with major fire or structural problems and cause a media frenzy. The next steps for the center are to start forming a task force and build the timeline for their Shared Responsibility model.
This is not the first organization to preach the necessity of shared responsibility and accountability across all parties involved, but their neutral stance and ability to bring different stakeholders together helps them accomplish this better than other advocacy groups. When given a platform to come together and collaborate on important social and environmental issues in a non-competitive space, brands are able to learn from each other and discover ways in which they can collectively change the industry for the better. Since the center is housed in a business school and is approaching the problem from that mindset, they are able to bridge the gap between workers rights and business strategy.
Beyond their research and advocacy work, the staff at the Center for Business and Human Rights also teach courses at NYU Stern in the Business and Society Program, embedding this into the core business curriculum. A speaker series is also put on for all NYU students to explore careers in Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Innovation to encourage them to follow career paths in these fields.
I’m happy to see programs like this emerging within a business context and hope to see more. One of the recommendations from the center for the way forward for Bangladesh is to shift the way in which brands purchase from suppliers. They are encouraging companies to consider including a social component into the cost of good. Having worked in the industry managing production and negotiating pricing with factories, I am acutely aware of how ingrained this mindset of driving down the price of the garment at all costs and the pressures brands feel from consumers to keep their pricing low. The idea of disrupting the industry in this way, and being able to change the way in which fashion businesses interact with their suppliers through education would certainly be revolutionary. I hope to start seeing this shift as more business students are taught to address issues of human rights and ethics along the supply chain.
Multi-stakeholder partnerships were my reason for returning to graduate school, how are they formed, how do different members work together, how are the goals decided upon when everyone has a different approach? Last semester I studied Race to the Top‘s structure in Vietnam and their perspective of setting standard auditing systems throughout the country and also collectively raising money for creating a sustainable garment sector. The Center for Business and Human Right’s approach in Bangladesh focuses more on stamping out subcontracted work and raising the industry as a whole, as well as a system for collective funding. These initiatives are in their nascency and it is too early to measure the positive impact they’ll have in the industry, but it’s great to see the big players taking the first step and start to work together on these pressing human rights issues.
Systemic Change – Better Labor Standards in Cambodia
When you start looking into the world of fashion corporate social responsibility, it is not uncommon to stumble upon big game changers that somehow haven’t trickled down to the media. These are often actions taken by corporations out of necessity and have good timing to thank. International trade negotiations in Cambodia during the rise of their garment manufacturing sector are a clear example of this case, which I like to call “accidental ethical fashion”.
One thing I’ve learned since starting graduate school at NYU is that policies may seem to sometimes pop out of nowhere, but there is often a long history of hard work that is goes unseen. Interest groups and activist are waiting to pounce on those perfect, unpredictable opportunities to push forward their initiatives. It’s our job to be ready, and know how to mobilize quickly when those windows open.
In the case of Cambodia, and confluence of multiple factors led the country to be the first to partner with the International Labor Organization (ILO) to monitor labor standards in garment factories. This partnership resulted in working conditions in factories being directly tied to how many garments they were able to export. The pilot program sparked a new era for the ILO and Better Work organizations were formed in other countries to continue the program around the world.
Cambodia has grown from being completely a closed market from 1975 to 1989, to now having 32.65% of the global garment sector share. The country’s entry into the market in the early 1990’s allowed them to sidestep export quotas allowing their garment sector to flourish. The rapid growth in the industry led to growing pains in the workforce and when stricter trade regulations needed to be put in place in 1998 this allowed for the perfect climate to create the first ever trade laws developed to incentivize ethical labor standards.
During the 1990s when Cambodia was stabilizing, the government saw garment manufacturing as a low capital plan for economic development in their country. Cambodia looked to their neighbor’s economies booming after establishing successful garment manufacturing sectors and wanted to reap the same benefits. The state had a large population of unskilled workers looking for jobs and the garment industry’s low barrier to entry was ideal. Minimal capital investment and training were required to get the industry started, so Cambodia jumped on the opportunity to bring economic prosperity to their people.
Seeing the opportunity to work around the Multi-Fibre Agreement (which set strict export quotas in other countries), investors from Taiwan, China, and South Korea descended on Cambodia to build garment factories and attract foreign brands who were limited by quotas system in other countries. This served Cambodia well, and the market grew rapidly from $80 million in exports in 1996 to $6.8 billion in 2015. The rise of Cambodia’s garment industry owes its success to their opportune timing of market entry. The lack of restrictions allowed them to thrive as other developing countries’ manufacturing sectors were dampened.
In 1998 when the US government faced growing pressure from domestic apparel manufacturers to impose restrictions on Cambodian garment imports, simultaneously Cambodian factories were experiencing increasing discontent from their workers leading to strikes and protests. News of the conditions in factories abroad prompted American supportive labor groups who in turn petitioned the US government to take action and review the claimed abuses of workers’ rights in Cambodian factories. This created the perfect climate for US and Cambodian governments to collaborate on a trade incentivized structure for monitoring working conditions in apparel factories.
With acknowledgment from all parties that government monitoring of factory labor standards was not credible, the ILO was approached to step in as a third party auditor. This was an innovative and groundbreaking partnership, at the time the ILO had never monitored private sector operations, nor had they been involved with on the ground audits of workplaces. The Director-General of the ILO at the time, Juan Somavia, cautiously accepted the proposal after much debate with the ILO bureaucracy and governing body. This agreement would prove to be successful and spark the Decent Work program at the ILO, which protects workers and advocates for fair wages and safe working conditions. The partnership also created a more cohesive ILO, and some would argue, more relevant in the increasingly globalized apparel supply chain.
The monitoring system faced some problems at the beginning, but they were amended quickly to ensure transparency and credibility. Firstly, the quotas were set for the entire garment sector in Cambodia, not by the individual factory, and it was not mandatory for factories to participate in the ILO workplace monitoring. This did not incentivize manufacturers to partake in the program, instead, they would be more likely to try and get a free ride off of other factory’s good efforts. Once this problem came to light, the Cambodian government limited availability of the export quota to the US to only factories participating in the ILO program.
Secondly, transparency of information was imperative for the industry but whether the ILO should name all factories by name or produce an aggregate report was left unresolved. In order to address this issue, the ILO came up with a two-step approach to their reporting. First, they would release a synthesis report of all factories, highlighting overall trends and problems that need to be addressed in the industry. Then, after a re-inspection for compliance, the ILO would name factories that weren’t complying by the ILO standards for labor rights and working conditions. This allowed for the transparency needed and did so in a more impactful way than comparable private monitoring programs.
The private sector responded positively to the ILO monitoring program, which allowed for risk mitigation for operating in Cambodia. Nike, for example, had left Cambodia due to labor rights scandals tarnishing their brand image. Once the ILO started their monitoring of labor conditions in factories, Nike returned some of their production to the country.
There have been debates whether these private sector fashion brands should financially support these initiatives since they are largely benefitting from them. This idea, however, raises issues of incentives. If the private sector is funding the monitoring, they could be driven by driving profits and improving public image, not necessarily by ensuring fair and safe working conditions. That being said, there is a trend in the market for brands to invest in complying with labor laws, so there is some hope that brands may become more invested in this effort in the future.
As the program continued to grow and response from the private sector was highly supportive of their efforts, Better Factories Cambodia was created to manage and oversee the monitoring program in apparel factories. This monitoring agency was founded in 2009 and has grown to offer training programs to help factories reach the ILO standards.
Although this ILO partnership was revolutionary for it’s time, we are still left wanting more. Working conditions in garment factories are still lacking, as seen by the mass faintings occurring in Cambodia in the summer of 2017. Now that we are creating better systems for monitoring and change, how can we inspire a higher level change in the way we conduct business?
Elements of a Textile – Who Are the People Behind the Fabric?
#HawaiiFiberProject Part IV – Textiles
Do you see the people behind the fabric you wear? Traditionally weaving textiles for clothing, blankets and rugs was done artfully and carefully by women. Children grew up watching their mothers and grandmothers spinning yarn and weaving intricate designs in the home. As our societies have changed, these traditions have slowly left our households and have become a far away industry in developing countries. An industry in which many laborers are exploited and suffer harmful working conditions. Something that was once globally ingrained as a part of our everyday cultural heritage has shifted to big garment industries in economically struggling countries eager for work. There are still small pockets of artisan made textiles and fiber artists, but our visceral connection to textiles has been more or less lost.
In this post I want to bring the textile back to life, and look at the human lives touched along the way. From harvesting and gathering materials to weaving the fabric, there are many hands in the process before the textiles even enter a garment factory or design studio. During the #HawaiiFiberProject, I researched every step of the supply chain for natural materials. The process for creating textiles would be similar for synthetic materials except for steps one and two (spinning and harvesting), and leathers and furs deserve a whole dedicated post, which I’ll put out another time. For the purpose of this project and showing the many layers and people involved, I stuck with wools and plant based materials.
I’ll walk you through each step, harvesting and gathering, spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing. As we go, imagine the men, women and children around the world that work to make these textile take shape. To take a peek into the lives of those constructing clothing, you can learn more in the Fashion Revolution’s Garment Diaries series, where they researched the day to day lives of garment workers in Cambodia, Bangladesh and India. Textile mills and dye houses exist in these countries as well and this valuable research provides a snapshot of what their lives may be like as well.
Step 1 – Harvesting and Gathering
For each fiber this will vary slightly. In my project I looked at three different fibers, pineapple, waste materials, and locally grown wool. You can check out my post on pineapple fibers to learn more about the process of stripping the leaves and extracting the fibers. For the waste fabric I cut strips of waste materials that my mom had saved, it took several hours to cut up enough fabric for one tote bag. The locally grown wool is by far the most labor intensive fiber in this group. First the sheep need to be sheared, then the wool needs to be washed and carded until it’s ready for spinning.
This stage of textiles is often overlooked but it has a huge impact. Cotton, for example, requires a lot of water to grow, making it a controversial sustainable fiber. There are vast differences in the treatment of sheep between locally grown wool and mass produced wool. Oftentimes breaking down plant fibers is extremely labor intensive and requires a lot of difficult manual labor. With every fiber there are different concerns. I would encourage you to research the fibers in your clothing and thoroughly understand the process of growing and harvesting the fibers. Is there a history of forced child labor? How do pesticides affect the workers? Are the animals treated well?
Step 2 – Spinning
This stage is a bit simpler, and nowadays would mostly be done by machine. The biggest concerns I would have are in regards to labor conditions and working with the machines. Are the machines safe? And are the workers treated fairly?
Traditionally, hand spinning was done in the home and is still practiced as a fiber art. You can still find artisan made, hand knit or hand loomed products made with hand spun yarn, but since this is so time intensive, these products are a luxury item.
While in Hawaii I got to learn to spin with the Hawaii Handweavers’ Hui at the Hilo public library. It was fun to chat with the members and hear what they planned to do with their yarn. I was also excited to see three young girls learning to spin, loved to see that the younger generation had an interest in the craft. I have to say, it takes a lot of patience to get an even and fine thread. I didn’t quite get the technique down, but it was almost mesmerizing to keep the thread consistent. It seems like it could be useful as a meditative practice.
Step 3: Weaving
Weaving, like spinning, has been mechanized for large scale production. The introduction of the power loom in the late 1700’s revolutionized the textile industry and has led to the high tech industrial looms of today. In this stage the fiber is transformed into usable fabric, and depending on the type of weaving, this stage can determine the end use for the textile. For example a cotton can be woven into a heavy weight denim or a thinner cotton thread can be used to create a lightweight lawn fabric. Each type of textile would be used for completely difference products.
There are different levels of mechanized looms and since hand loomed products are very popular, some of the easier to use looms are used to make artisan products. Since these artisan made products can be sold at a higher price point, this allows women in rural areas use their cultural heritage to make textiles and get paid fair wages. There are also those who still use the original rustic looms of their ancestors to create truly stunning works of art, further increasing the value and earning potential.
Although both spinning and weaving have largely been mechanized, people still run these machines. The human element is not removed by the introduction of high powered machines, just lessened to some degree. The introduction of big machines can bring up new concerns, such as safety precautions.
Step 4: Dyeing and Finishing
Sometimes the dyeing process happens before weaving depending on the textile being created or the process at the mill, but it can be done after the textile has been woven as well. Dye houses work in batches, and it’s important to use fabric from the same dye lot for each production run. The fashion industry tends to identify colors via pantone numbers in an attempt to get everyone on the same page, but even though the dye house uses the same dye and same process, different dye lots can produce slightly different shades.
When working with factories overseas, they are often in charge of confirming colors and will usually provide swatches from different dye lots to ask for preference. As a production manager in the America you may have little to no interaction with the dye houses and textile mills. Many overseas factories handle the sourcing, dyeing and finishing, which means this part of the supply chain is left unseen.
Like I mentioned in my last post, dyeing is extremely water intensive, and depending on the dye, can be very harmful to those working in the factories and those living in nearby communities. What is the global environmental impact of using so much water? How can these communities recover from being exposed to toxic chemicals from dye run-off?
The last stage of a textile is finishing. This includes chemical washes to decrease flammability (which is mandatory for children’s clothing), mechanical shrinking, water resisting treatments and an array of techniques for altering fibers for better hand feel. Finishing has similar concerns to dyeing, water waste and chemical run-off. This part of the process can be virtually unseen in the finished product, but can be necessary for selling in any major retail store. For example chemical washes to decrease flammability are mandatory for all children’s wear. Is it good to expose workers and the children wearing the clothes to these chemicals?
—
This all happens before a garment worker gets a hold of the fabric to start sewing the product, and I’m afraid it’s the most overlooked part of the garment industry. Granted, it can be challenging to find information on these stages of textile creation, many companies are not forthcoming about these processes. It never hurts to ask questions and express concern, consumer behavior can drive serious change in an industry.
Today, on Labor Day, I thought it was important to call attention to those workers around the world who contribute to the products we wear daily and who are overlooked and often unseen. Labor Day is traditionally about the social and economic achievements of American labor workers, but I think it’s also our responsibility to be aware of the laborers abroad who make our American consumed products. Who are the workers behind the goods that we buy at Labor Day sales? And what is our responsibility to them? Should we be fighting for their rights and safety in the work place? I think the answer is yes.