Workers still paying for our cheap clothes
IT IS four years since 1138 workers were killed when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Bangladesh.
The tragedy turned many of us from being just fashion conscious into consumers with a conscience.
The Rana Plaza disaster made global headlines but, sadly, workers paying for our cheap clothes with their lives is no isolated incident.
How do we know what we are buying isn’t from a sweatshop?
A new report has revealed that the top 100 brands have a long way to go before they provide the transparency we need to make an informed decision on how to use our purchasing power to make changes.
The way fashion is made, sourced and consumed continues to cause suffering and pollution but, unless retailers are upfront, we could be unconsciously contributing to the problem.
On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza, a structurally unsound, eight-storey garment factory building disintegrated.
Since then, campaign organisation Fashion Revolution have been encouraging consumers to think about the working conditions of the people who make their clothes.
The group have now released the Fashion Transparency Index 2017, which reviews and ranks how much information 100 of the biggest global fashion companies publish about their social and
The Rana Plaza factory disaster four years ago left 1138 dead – but are conditions any better now for the people in sweatshops?
environmental policies, practices and impacts.
The research found that even the highest-scoring brands on the list still have a long way to go towards being transparent. The average score brands achieved was 49 out of 250, less than 20 per cent of the total possible points, and none of the companies on the list scored above 50 per cent.
Adidas and Reebok achieved the highest score – 49 per cent – fractionally ahead of Marks & Spencer and H&M.
Only eight brands scored higher than 40 per cent, while a further nine brands scored four per cent or less.
Luxury brand Dior disclose nothing at all. Few brands disclose efforts on living wages, collective bargaining and reducing consumption of resources, so it is almost impossible to know if we are buying clothes made, predominantly by women, on a pittance. Only 34 brands have made public commitments to paying living wages to workers in the supply chain, and only four brands – H&M, Marks & Spencer, New Look and Puma – are providing towards achieving this aim. The good news is that 31 brands, including ASOS, Benetton, C&A, Esprit, Gap, Marks & Spencer, Uniqlo, and VF Corporation brands, who produce names such as Vans, are publishing supplier lists.
This is an increase from last year, when Fashion Revolution surveyed 40 big fashion companies and only five were publishing supplier lists.
This year, 14 brands are publishing their processing facilities where their clothes are dyed, laundered, printed or treated.
Banana Republic, Gap and Old Navy scored highest on traceability (44 per cent) because their supplier list includes detailed information such as types of products or services and approximate number of workers in each supplier facility.
Fashion Revolution co-founder Carry Somers said: “People have the right to know that their money is not supporting exploitation, human rights abuses and environmental destruction.
“There is no way to hold companies and governments to account if we can’t see what is truly happening behind the scenes.”