“Ethical Fashion” means different things to different people. For the EFF, ethical fashion represents an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing, which is both socially and environmentally sustainable. We work with fashion designers, companies, and industry partners to promote and implement progressive sustainable practices
across the fashion industry supply chain.
The global garment industry is one of the most lucrative in the world. The worlds consumers spent around US$1 trillion buying clothes in 2000, with around one third of sales in Western Europe, one third in North America,
and one quarter in Asia.
With the majority of garment manufacture concentrated in some of the poorest parts of the world, the fashion industry represents an enormous opportunity to create sustainable livelihoods and to lift communities out of poverty. However, very little of the value of the industry is currently transferred to those who need it most. Poverty wages, unfair and unsafe conditions for garment workers continue to be widespread.
When it comes to the environment, the global fashion industry has an enormous impact, through the use of toxic chemicals and pesticides,
polluting and depleting water supplies, inefficient processes, transport, and waste.
For information what action you can take, go to Sign Up!
For more information for fashion designers and businesses, see FAQ: Sourcing
See below for further information on the following topics:
1. FAST FASHION, CHEAP FASHION
2. POVERTY & WORKERS RIGHTS
3. CULTURE AND SKILLS
4. TOXIC PESTICIDES & CHEMICALS
5. WATER
6. ENERGY & WASTE
7. OPPORTUNITIES
1. FAST FASHION, CHEAP FASHION
Women’s clothing prices in the UK have fallen by a third in ten years.
(Mintel 2005)
While UK consumers spend on average £780 per capita on fashion, clothes are being produced to increasingly short lead in times and low costs. These low costs do not account the social and environmental costs of production.
2. POVERTY & WORKERS RIGHTS
The minimum wage for garment workers in Bangladesh..is now equivalent to £7.16 a month- two and half times less than its value of £18 in 1994 (The Ethical Trading Initiative)
Garment workers still face unfair and unsafe working conditions with few rights.
3. CULTURE AND SKILLS
Values led sourcing practices for fashion allow developing countries to tap into their traditions and culture, deliver finished products, and harness the power of national branding, rather than supply raw materials.
(www.tradeforum.org)
4. TOXIC PESTICIDES & CHEMICALS
Cotton uses 22.5% of the world’s insecticides and 10% of all pesticides, on 2.5% of agricultural land. Chlorpyrifos, used in West African cotton, causes brain and foetal damage, impotence and sterility. (Pesticide Action Network UK)
5. WATER
The Aral Sea has shrunk to just 15% of its former volume, largely through cotton farming (The Environmental Justice Foundation)
The fashion industry uses vast quantities of water during production
and dying stages.
6.ENERGY & WASTE
More than 1 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year in the UK (www.wasteonline.org.uk)
Transport and high energy and inefficient production processes mean that the energy cost of clothing is high.
7. OPPORTUNITIES
The fashion industry has changed the lives of thousands of people in some of the poorest parts of the world though providing jobs, sustainable incomes, skills and training. With equitable trade, fair wages and working conditions, the fashion industry has the potential to have an enormous impact in the reduction of poverty and hardship across the globe.
Socially and environmentally sustainable practices by fashion businesses are the key to the reduction of both poverty and environmental damage in fashion supply chains.