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Thee truth - stats

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Confronting High Street Shoppers with A Shocking Truth: Stacey Dooley Investigates

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5 Reasons to Recycle Your Clothes - Planet Aid, Inc.

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Even though you can't put your clothes into your curbside-recycling bin, recycling them has never been easier. Planet Aid has thousands of yellow bins across 22 states, conveniently located by the places you frequent the most like schools, grocery stores, and strip malls so you don't have to go out of your way to help the environment.

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Interesting ways to reuse garments

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Decluttering your wardrobe has become a somewhat unlikely fashion trend lately. Consumers have been encouraged to delve into their drawers and emerge with bags bulging with unwanted clothes thanks to Netflix's Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, in which the lifestyle guru encourages people to get rid of junk - starting with their wardrobes.

But despite Kondo's best efforts, there is work to be done. The amount of clothing sitting in wardrobes - or, worse, going into landfill - each year remains a major challenge for the fashion industry. The British public is sitting on £4.1bn in used clothing - the equivalent of £82 per person - research published last month by the Fashion Retail Academy shows. And data from sustainability organisation the Ellen MacArthur Foundation suggests that, worldwide, one rubbish truck of textiles is burned or goes into landfill every second.

If retailers and brands hope to address the problem, the opportunity to be a "force for good" comes with demands - from managing the logistics of a take-back scheme to ensuring customers are aware and fully engaged. But fashion retailers are being prodded into action thanks to a combination of increased awareness around sustainability, the risk of significant reputational damage and the threat of government intervention.

How sustainable is your business?

Drapers' new survey is aimed at providing a comprehensive measurement of how sustainable UK fashion is, and how far it has to go.

We want to find out what challenges retailers face when it comes to embedding sustainability into day-to-day working practices, and obtain views on government support for the industry.

The survey only takes a few minutes to complete and all answers will be treated anonymously.

Govermental demands

Pressure on brands can come from below - customer outcry - or above, in the form of influence from government. Last summer, luxury brand Burberry pledged to stop burning unsold goods after it was criticised summer for setting light to millions of pounds worth of clothes, accessories and perfume to try to maintain exclusivity. In February, MPs urged the government to introduce a 1p levy on every item of clothing sold to fund better recycling and "end the era of throwaway fashion."

The environmental audit committee made the suggestion in its final report on the sustainability of the fashion industry. It said a 1p garment tax as part of a new "extended producer responsibility" scheme could raise £35m for investment in better clothing collection and recycling in the UK.

The report highlighted the French model as an example. In 2007, France introduced an extended producer responsibility scheme that makes clothing, linen and footwear companies responsible for products at the end of their life. The number of clothing collection points rose from 15,600 in 2011 to almost 42,000 in 2016. In 2009, France was collecting 1.9 kg of discarded clothing, linen and footwear per person per year. By 2016, it was 3.2kg. More than 90% of what is now collected is recycled or re-used.

The retail industry has a huge opportunity to be a force for good

Tom Byrne Landsec

Some fashion retailers are introducing recycling or take-back schemes to try to ease their waste troubles. Value retailer Primark will introduce an in-store take-back scheme later this year, and already works with charity Newlife, which collects, sorts and recycles unsold Primark goods and buying samples to raise money for children with disabilities.

"Launching an in-store customer recycling scheme is a natural next step for us," a Primark spokesperson tells Drapers. "Following a pilot in five stores in the UK and Germany (at Reading, Lakeside, Frankfurt Zeil, Frankfurt North-West Zentrum and Weiterstadt), we will be rolling out the scheme in our stores this year. Customers will be able to donate their unwanted garments, textiles and shoes, from any brand, in store to be repurposed or recycled."

Property company Landsec introduced a landlord-led recycling pilot initiative in March at its Westgate Oxford shopping centre.

"We wanted to engage with consumers on why textile waste is a problem and the steps that can be taken to reduce fashion's impact on the environment," Landsec's sustainability manager Tom Byrne tells Drapers. "The retail industry has a huge opportunity to be a force for good, and now is the perfect time. There's been a huge wave of support for reducing waste, which started with an awareness around single-use plastics and coffee cups, and is moving into textiles."

Swedish retailer H&M has been collecting unwanted clothes from any brand since 2013. All H&M stores contain a garment collecting box and the business collected 20,000 tonnes of textiles in 2018. Its next ambition is to collect 25,000 tonnes by 2020. Clothing that can be worn again is sold second-hand (proceeds go to the British Red Cross and the H&M Foundation), older clothes are repurposed into other products, and the remainder is broken down into textile fibres. Customers receive a £5 voucher to use on their next purchase of £25 or more when they drop off unwanted clothes.

To introduce a successful recycling scheme, retailers need to focus on simplicity and communication, says H&M's UK and IE sustainability manager Giorgina Waltier.

"Old clothes and textiles may no longer be wanted by their owners, but they are definitely not waste," she explains. "It is our responsibility to help our consumers to understand this and to dispose of their unwanted clothes in the most sustainable way possible. Recycling schemes need to be easy and straightforward for the customer to use. Likewise, communication around the scheme also needs to be easy to understand and transparent."

Overcoming hurdles

However, introducing a take-back or recycling scheme is not without its challenges. Retailers need to identify the right partner, communicate with customers and ensure they have enough human resource to gather, sort and transport what they collect.

"The main challenges regarding the introduction of a new recycling scheme are logistics and traceability," adds Waltier. "Knowing exactly how the customers' unwanted textiles are being processed once they leave your business and arrive in the hands of your recycling partner is your responsibility. Ensuring that these textiles are handled in the right way is non-negotiable."

Consumers might be happy to pay lip service to sustainability, but ensuring they engage with recycling schemes is another hurdle, says Jack Ostrowski, founder of fashion recycling app Regain. Regain users pack unwanted clothes and then drop them off at a local pick-up point, unlocking discount codes to use at participating retailers. Regain's partners include Boohoo, Missguided, New Balance and Superdry.

"There is still a big education piece that needs to be done when it comes to consumers and recycling," Ostrowski explains. "It is getting better, but a lot of people are still throwing their clothes into landfill, even in cities with a sophisticated understanding of the issues, such as London. We're only on the beginning of a long road when it comes to changing consumer behaviour."

We need to start a conversation with consumers to show them how to start to make better decisions

Romy Miltenburg, Asics

Ostrowski urges retailers to start talking to consumers about what to do with end-of-life product as early as possible to help ease this challenge.

"Why are we not telling customers what to do with their product when they've finished with it at the point of purchase? It would be easy to include on boxes or packaging, or at the checkout. There are so many ways to communicate sustainability very practically that could change things from day one."

Romy Miltenburg, manager for CSR and sustainability EMEA at Asics, agrees that communication and logistics are at the heart of a successful take-back scheme. The sportswear brand has partnered with recycling services provider I:Co to collect used sports clothing from participants of eight marathons around Europe this year.

"We need to start a conversation with consumers to show them how to start to make better decisions," says Miltenburg. "Finding the right recycling partner - one who shares your vision - is important. Internally, there is the operational side to consider. There are practicalities to think about with your logistics and facility teams, because what you collect needs to be emptied, sorted and transported."

Miltenburg adds that success hinges on both internal and external stakeholders engaging with the scheme: "It is important internally that employees understand where [recycling schemes] fit it into the overarching sustainability strategy, so that there is a sense of shared responsibility to make it a success. And communication is key, because we need participants to be prepared and bring something with them that they want to donate."

But despite the difficulties, sustainable initiatives such as recycling schemes, can have tangible benefits for retailers. Finn Christo is group head of ecommerce at vegan footwear brand Koi, which has partnered with Regain.

He explains that the brand's sustainable focus is paying dividends: "Generation Z and millennials have the information that they need to make conscious decisions, and they know they don't have to choose between having values and ethics and stylish products. By listening to our customers, and recognising that choices such as being cruelty free, vegan and working towards sustainability are a key issue for them, we can build brand loyalty."

Recycling initiatives are one way fashion retailers can begin to tackle the industry's waste problem. Those looking to introduce such schemes need to engage stakeholders from across the business, consider operational challenges and communicate clearly with consumers for success.

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The war on waste: fashion wakes up to recycling

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Decluttering your wardrobe has become a somewhat unlikely fashion trend lately. Consumers have been encouraged to delve into their drawers and emerge with bags bulging with unwanted clothes thanks to Netflix's Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, in which the lifestyle guru encourages people to get rid of junk - starting with their wardrobes.

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our presentation

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how to fix missguideds problem

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consumer consciousness

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The Fashion Transparency Index 2017 reviews and ranks 100 of the biggest global fashion and apparel brands and retailers according to how much information they disclose about their suppliers, supply chain policies and practices, and social and environmental impact.
2) What do you mean by transparency?
For Fashion Revolution, transparency means public disclosure of brands' policies, procedures, goals and commitments, performance, progress and real-world impacts on workers, communities and the environment.

Transparency requires brands to know exactly who makes their products - from who stitched them right through to who dyed the fabric and who farmed the cotton. And crucially, it requires brands to share this information publicly.

Publishing supplier, supply chain and operational information by companies helps NGOs, unions, local communities and even workers themselves to more swiftly alert brands to human rights and environmental concerns and can also help the company keep track of any unauthorised production units being used to make its products. Transparency aids accountability so that if human rights or environmental abuses are discovered, it is far easier for relevant stakeholders to understand what went wrong, who is responsible and how to fix it.

Transparency helps people who are concerned about the human and environmental impacts of what they buy to make more informed decisions.

However, transparency is a means to change, not an end. Transparency alone does not represent the sort of structural, systemic change we would like to see for the fashion industry - but it helps us get there. It puts the spotlight on issues often left in the dark, such as: living wages, gender equality, working conditions, fair trade and environmental sustainability. Ultimately, we believe transparency is the first step towards creating a fairer, safer, cleaner fashion industry.
3) Why did Fashion Revolution conduct this research; what's the point?
We had many reasons for putting together the Fashion Transparency Index. First, Fashion Revolution campaigns for greater transparency throughout the fashion industry and our #whomademyclothes social media campaign has inspired thousands of people to take action. To build on and define this work, we wanted to create a tool that would help people better understand what transparency looks like in practice, particularly when it comes to big brands. We wanted to better understand what information these corporate brands are sharing publicly about how they work, what their supply chains look like and who makes their clothes. By doing this research, it has also helped the Fashion Revolution team distill its own understanding of what transparency entails and what it might look like in future. Importantly we believe that greater transparency will lead to greater accountability and eventually a positive change in the way business is done.

Second, citizens are increasingly demanding greater transparency. During Fashion Revolution Week last year, #whomademyclothes reached 129 million people through 70,000 posts on social media. Transparency is quickly becoming the norm as explained in the Business of Fashion in September 2016:

"For decades, a brand's only priority was to create the best possible product at the most competitive price to ensure sales. But as consumers develop a more comprehensive understanding of issues like sustainability, authenticity and transparency, brands and retailers are being forced to change the way they sell in order to survive".

Through the Fashion Transparency Index, we want to help people know a bit more about the brands they buy. Many of the brands included in the Fashion Transparency Index are selling special collections that use sustainable materials, but what about the rest of their clothes? Where are their clothes made, by whom and under what conditions? What information should we expect to find about these big brands' policies, practices and effects on the people who work in their supply chains? These are some of questions the Fashion Transparency Index explores.

We hope the Fashion Transparency Index will help consumers make more informed choices about what they buy. Perhaps consumers will think twice about where they shop if they know more of the story behind these big brands.

Several campaigning organisations such as Labour Behind the Label, Baptist World Aid Australia, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch are pushing brands to disclose their supplier lists, and we hope that the Fashion Transparency Index adds to this momentum.

32 of the 100 brands are publishing their supplier lists at the first tier of production (where clothes are typically cut, sewn and trimmed), compared to 5 out of 40 companies reviewed last year. 14 brands are publishing lists of their processing facilities (e.g. fabric suppliers, sub-contractors or wet-processing facilities), compared to 2 out of 40 companies reviewed last year.

We hope the Fashion Transparency Index helps big brands better understand what information their peers are publishing and motivates brands to disclose more year on year.
4) How did you select the 100 brands to research?
Brands were selected on the basis of two factors: 1) according to annual turnover, over $1.2 billion USD; 2) voluntarily requested to be included after last year's edition; and 3) representing a variety of market segments including high street, premium, luxury, sportswear, accessories, footwear and denim from across Europe, North America, South America and Asia.

We relied on publicly available financial information. Some big brands are privately held and do not publish financial records, including turnover, which means we were unable to include them in this edition. Where brands are part of a parent company with annual turnover over $1.2 billion USD, we have selected the brand or brands that appear to make up the most significant part of their business.
5) How did you score the brands; what was the methodology?
We used a ratings methodology to benchmark brands across five key areas, including: policy and commitments, governance, traceability, supplier assessment and remediation, and spotlight issues covering the business model, living wages, unionisation and collective bargaining. We awarded scores only for information that has been publicly disclosed. See more below.
View the full methodology here. 6) How was the research conducted?
The Fashion Transparency Index used only publicly disclosed information about each brand's policies, procedures, performance and progress on human rights and environmental issues across its supply chains. We relied solely on information available on the brands' websites, in their annual reports (published January 2015 or later), or via third party websites when linked to directly from the brands' website.

We also sent each brand a questionnaire in order to help us identify where information is publicly disclosed and to clarify information we found through our own research. Brands were given one month to complete the questionnaire. 48% of brands submitted a completed questionnaire. The other 52% did not respond or declined the opportunity to complete the questionnaire. The completed questionnaires were analysed by our research team and scores were awarded where appropriate.

Our team researched and scored brands regardless of whether they completed the questionnaire or not. However, brands that completed the questionnaire were more likely to receive a higher score simply because our researchers will have had more accurate information. Our researchers strived to be as thorough and accurate as possible.

However, there are limits to desk-based research, and only on-the-ground research by NGOs, unions and academics can reveal the impacts of brands' policies and practices. By encouraging brands to become more transparent, the Fashion Transparency Index will facilitate the work of NGOs, unions and academics.

The research was conducted by Sarah Ditty and Carry Somers, with support from Eloisa Artuso, Sophia Calugay, Ilishio Lovejoy, Aidan Shaw, Sienna Somers and Manon Thomas, between January and March 2017.
7) How was the 2017 methodology devised; and how does it differ from last year?
The 2016 methodology was created by Ethical Consumer with input from Fashion Revolution. For 2017, Fashion Revolution has taken a lead on the development of the Fashion Transparency Index, including a revision of the methodology. We spent four months at the end of last year consulting a diverse group of more than 20 industry experts on revisions. The new methodology focuses exclusively on public disclosure of supply chain information, and we have changed the weighting of the scores to emphasise increasing levels of detailed disclosure, especially on supplier information.

The 2017 methodology has been designed by the Fashion Revolution team, led by Sarah Ditty and Carry Somers, with consultative input and feedback from a committee of industry experts, including:
* Dr Mark Anner, Director of Centre for Global Workers' Rights
* Neil Brown, Alliance Trust Investments
* Ian Cook, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Exeter
* Subindu Garkhel, Fairtrade Foundation
* Jenny Holdcroft, IndustriALL
* Dr Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS, University of London
* Heather Webb, Ethical Consumer
* And several others experts who wished to remain anonymous at this time.
8) How was the Fashion Transparency Index 2017 funded?
The Fashion Transparency Index is funded by C&A Foundation and through individual donations to Fashion Revolution.
9) Won't consumers think the higher-scoring brands are given a seal of approval?
The Fashion Transparency Index does not tell you what brands are good or bad, naughty or nice, nor responsible versus exploitative. Unfortunately, we don't think a simple answer to this dichotomy exists.

Please note: We are not endorsing the brands included in the Fashion Transparency Index, regardless of how they score. By conducting this research, we are not promoting the fast fashion business model, which underpins many of the brands included in the Fashion Transparency Index.

Ultimately, Fashion Revolution believes that the whole fashion industry needs a radical paradigm shift and that the way that we produce and consume clothes needs to be transformed. This means business models will need to change and a multiplicity of solutions will be required.

However, we recognise three important points. First, it is going to be a long journey, requiring many incremental but necessary steps, to turn the tide of fast fashion model or other unsustainable business models. We believe the first step is greater transparency. This will take consumers, brands and retailers, governments and people in supply chains each taking action. Fashion Revolution is engaging with all of these groups to catalyse positive change.

Second, we recognise that many people continue to shop from big corporate brands, and want more tools to understand how products are made, where they are made, by whom and under what conditions. Finally, millions of workers are employed through the supply chains of these big brands, and we must be careful to ensure that future of the fashion industry is able to provide decent work, sustainable livelihoods, hope and integrity for everyone employed in it, from farm to retail.

Through researching and publishing the Fashion Transparency Index year on year, we hope it will push these big brands in a more positive direction towards a reimagining of the fashion industry and a fundamental shift in the way the system works - beginning with being more transparent. The Fashion Transparency Index is simply one small tool in our wider efforts to fundamentally change the fashion industry.
10) What should consumers do with this information?
We hope the Fashion Transparency Index inspires people to ask brands #whomademyclothes encouraging greater transparency.

At the moment none of us have enough information about where and how our clothes are made. We have the right to know that our money is not supporting exploitation, human rights abuses and environmental destruction. There is no way to hold brands and governments to account if we can't see what is truly happening behind the scenes. This is why transparency is essential.

We hope that the Fashion Transparency Index inspires us to think differently about the clothes we buy and wear. We hope it inspires more people to scrutinise the brands they buy and to consider how clothes might have been made, where, by whom, under what conditions and at what true cost. We hope this research activates you to try to find out more about the production processes and people behind what you wear.

To encourage brands to do more, we ask people to take action in 2 key ways:

1. Encourage more public disclosure from brands. You can do this by using social media to ask brands #whomademyclothes and by supporting campaigns that call for brands to publish their supplier lists and supply chain information;

2. Write or call your policymakers and ask them to do two things:
- To implement regulation ensuring brands are responsible for the impact they have on the lives of the people working in their supply chains, at home and abroad;
- Require brands to report transparently about their social and environmental impacts across the entire value chain.

We hope that consumers do not take any of this information as a seal of approval, green light or endorsement of the brands included.

Fashion Revolution encourages you to use your voice, your money and your power to transform the fashion industry. Be Curious, Find Out, Do Something.

Finally, we would like people to share the Fashion Transparency Index with anyone they think might be interested.
11) What should brands and retailers do with this information?
We hope the Fashion Transparency Index influences brands and retailers to publish more information about their policies, practices and the results of their efforts to improve human rights and sustainability.

This year 32 of the 100 brands we surveyed are publishing supplier lists (at tier 1). We are beginning to see increased disclosure. We hope that the Fashion Transparency Index influences more brands to disclose their supplier lists with increasingly detailed information - coming closer to answering the question #whomademyclothes.

We hope the Fashion Transparency Index also sheds some light on how different brands are communicating their sustainability/CSR initiatives, highlighting where best practices and areas for improvement are emerging. We think it might be interesting for brands and retailers to see how they compare to each other in terms of public disclosure of supply chain information and social and environmental priorities.

We ask brands and retailers to take 4 immediate, concrete steps to:

1. Disclose your supplier lists in a searchable format and publish more easy-to-understand information about your social and environmental performance, progress and impacts across the entire supply chain;

2. Improve sustainability/CSR communications -make relevant information easier to find and more simple to understand;

3. Publish direct contact details for the sustainability/CSR department on your website;

4. Answer your customers' #whomademyclothes requests on social media with specific supplier information, not just your policies.

12) How will the Fashion Transparency Index help workers in fashions' supply chains?
Lack of transparency costs lives. It is impossible for companies to ensure that human rights are respected and that environmental practices are sound without knowing where their products are made, who is making them and under what conditions from farm to final product. By encouraging greater transparency from the industry, we hope that eventually producers' lives may be improved.

We hope that the Fashion Transparency Index is useful for NGOs, trade unions and civil society groups who are working directly with producers and supply chain workers on human rights and environmental protection.

This research helps NGOs, unions and workers to understand what brands are publishing their supplier lists, what information is being disclosed, where brands are producing and what policies and procedures brands say they have in place to protect workers and the environment. There are many pioneering NGOs working directly on the ground in producing countries, and we hope this information can help them keep brands accountable for what happens in their supply chains, wherever production is based.

[download image="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Resources_thumbnails_transparency_.jpg"] Fashion Transparency Index 2017
Ranking the levels of transparency of 100 of the biggest global fashion companies
Download
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FAQs: Fashion Transparency Index 2017 - Fashion Revolution

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1) What is the Fashion Transparency Index? The Fashion Transparency Index 2017 reviews and ranks 100 of the biggest global fashion and apparel brands and retailers according to how much information they disclose about their suppliers, supply chain policies and practices, and social and environmental impact. 2) What do you mean by transparency?

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Uk is just as bad - missguided need to treat their workers and their conditions much better

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Answer - Awful

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Our editors curate highly rated brands that are first assessed by our rigorous ratings system. Buying through our links may earn us a commission-supporting the work we do. Learn more.
Missguided in every sense of the word, here's why the global fast fashion retailer gets our lowest score of "We Avoid" overall. This article is based on the Missguided rating published in August 2020.
Truly missguided

Founded in 2009 by Nitin Passi, Missguided is a global fast fashion retailer. The UK-based brand is a prime example of ultra fast fashion as it prides itself in creating "not just fast fashion" but "rapid" fashion, by dropping up to 1000 new products every week for its "babes".

Missguided is heavily influenced by social media and streetwear, sometimes a bit too much, as the brand was sued by Kim Kardashian last year for copying her outfits. It has also come under fire in August 2020 for glorifying fast fashion in its series Inside Missguided that has been labelled as "propaganda", "flimsy", and "a PR disaster".

While you might already be aware of fast fashion's harmful impact on the environment and on the workers in the industry, but you might also be wondering about how exactly Missguided is doing, especially in light of this controversy. So, exactly how ethical is Missguided? Read on to find out.

Environmental impact

Missguided's environment rating is 'Very Poor'. The brand doesn't publish sufficient relevant information about its environmental policies to give a higher rating. What's more, as a fast fashion brand and by dropping up to 1000 new products every week, Missguided clearly promotes over-consumption and as a result, creates a lot of waste. In fact, the brand was found to be lagging behind other UK retailers in terms of sustainable practices and is said to be among the worst sustainability offenders.

Labour conditions

Missguided's mission is to "is to empower young women to look and feel confident for every occasion". The majority of garment workers in the fashion industry are female, yet Missguided's mission doesn't seem to apply to its supply chain. While it traces some of its supply chain, there is no evidence of worker empowerment initiatives or payment of a living wage. With 11.4 million women and girls working for the textile industry, the effective protection of women's rights is imperative. The brand also does not disclose any policies or safeguards to protect suppliers and workers in its supply chain from the impacts of COVID-19!

Even in its head offices and stores, Missguided in 2019 reported a 46% median average gap, favouring men. According to the brand, this is because they "have more women than men in [their] lower paid roles and fewer in higher paid ones".

Missguided does audit some of its supply chain including the final stage of production, but its lack of transparency regarding its labour practices and living wages means we rated the brand's labour conditions 'Very Poor'.

Animal welfare

For the animals, Missguided gets a rating of 'Not Good enough'. It has a formal animal welfare policy aligned with Five Freedoms, which is a good first step. It states that it sources wool from non-mulesed sheep, and doesn't use angora, fur, or exotic animal skin or hair. It does use leather and down, however, and there is no evidence it traces any animal product to the first stage of production. In addition to this, in 2017, Missguided was found to be selling a pair of shoes advertised as having faux fur pom pom trims, which in fact contained real fur. Passing real fur as faux fur to unknowing shoppers is, in fact, a disturbing and increasingly common trend in the fashion industry.

Overall rating: We Avoid

Based on information from our own research, we rated Missguided our lowest possible score of 'We Avoid' overall. Good On You ratings consider 100s of issues and it is not possible to list every relevant issue in a summary of the brand's performance. For more information see our How We Rate page and our FAQs.

The brand doesn't communicate sufficient information about its policies. As a shopper you have the right to know how its production practices impact on the planet, people and animals. Missguided could start disclosing more information about how, where, and by whom its items are produced, as well as the materials used. Transparency is crucial to ethical and sustainable fashion and is the first step towards reducing a business' impact.

So, if you're looking to ditch fast fashion, we've found 3 'Good' and 'Great' ethical alternatives to Missguided. Have a look below.

Good swaps

Ethical alternatives to Missguided

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How Ethical Is Missguided? - Good On You

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Our editors curate highly rated brands that are first assessed by our rigorous ratings system. Buying through our links may earn us a commission-supporting the work we do. Learn more . Missguided in every sense of the word, here's why the global fast fashion retailer gets our lowest score of "We Avoid" overall.

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fair trade is how to keep both the people and the environment in the supply chain through safeguarding, health and safety etc

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Missguided and Boohoo THE least sustainable brands

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Missguided and Boohoo THE least sustainable brands

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Boohoo and Missguided have been named as two of the least sustainable fashion brands in the UK in a report published by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC).

In November 2018, the EAC wrote to 16 British retailers and asked them to submit evidence detailing what measures they're taking to reduce the environmental impact of the garments they sell.

This forms part of the government's inquiry into the " fast fashion " business model amid growing concerns that clothing brands are promoting overconsumption and increasing their carbon footprint.

The findings, which were published on Thursday, outline which companies are the most engaged with sustainability and which are the least.

ASOS, Burberry, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Primark were praised for their respective sustainability actions, which include the use of recycled materials in garments, limiting the discharge of hazardous chemicals, and the re-use or recycling of unsold stock.

But many brands were found to be lagging behind, with Boohoo, Missguided, Amazon UK, JD Sports, Sports Direct and TK Maxx among those who hadn't signed up to targets set by the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP) to reduce their carbon, water and waste footprint.

The report also found that none of the aforementioned six brands had signed up to the Action, Collaboration, Transformation labour rights agreement that is working towards getting a living wage for all garment workers.

Amazon UK was singled out by the EAC for its "notable" lack of engagement while Kurt Geiger was criticised for not responding to the committee's requests for written evidence at all.

Next, Debenhams, Asda and Arcadia Group were categorised as "moderately engaged" retailers. All but Asda make use of organic cotton and Arcadia Group and Next were found to have signed up to SCAP targets.

Mary Creagh MP, who is chairperson of the EAC, said the findings highlight how far the fashion industry has to come in terms of sustainability.

"We want to see a thriving fashion industry that employs people fairly, inspires creativity and contributes to the economic success of the UK.

"It's shocking to see that a group of major retailers are failing to take action to promote environmental sustainability and protect their workers."

Creagh hopes that publishing this information will enable consumers to make informed choices when it comes to purchasing clothes.

"Customers can choose whether they want to spend money with a company that is doing little to protect the environment or promote proper wages for garment workers," she continued.

"We hope this motivates underperforming retailers to start taking responsibility for their workers and their environmental impact."

In light of the findings, the EAC concluded that the current business model for the UK fashion industry is unsustainable. Its final sustainability of the fashion industry inquiry will be published in the coming weeks.

This will include reccomendations to the Government for policies that would create a more transparent and sustainable fashion system.

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Boohoo and Missguided among worst offenders in sustainability inquiry

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Boohoo and Missguided have been named as two of the least sustainable fashion brands in the UK in a report published by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). In November 2018, the EAC wrote to 16 British retailers and asked them to submit evidence detailing what measures they're taking to reduce the environmental impact of the garments they sell.

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Missguided should set up a recycling page

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Missguided should set up a recycling page

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Decluttering your wardrobe has become a somewhat unlikely fashion trend lately. Consumers have been encouraged to delve into their drawers and emerge with bags bulging with unwanted clothes thanks to Netflix's Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, in which the lifestyle guru encourages people to get rid of junk - starting with their wardrobes.

But despite Kondo's best efforts, there is work to be done. The amount of clothing sitting in wardrobes - or, worse, going into landfill - each year remains a major challenge for the fashion industry. The British public is sitting on £4.1bn in used clothing - the equivalent of £82 per person - research published last month by the Fashion Retail Academy shows. And data from sustainability organisation the Ellen MacArthur Foundation suggests that, worldwide, one rubbish truck of textiles is burned or goes into landfill every second.

If retailers and brands hope to address the problem, the opportunity to be a "force for good" comes with demands - from managing the logistics of a take-back scheme to ensuring customers are aware and fully engaged. But fashion retailers are being prodded into action thanks to a combination of increased awareness around sustainability, the risk of significant reputational damage and the threat of government intervention.

How sustainable is your business?

Drapers' new survey is aimed at providing a comprehensive measurement of how sustainable UK fashion is, and how far it has to go.

We want to find out what challenges retailers face when it comes to embedding sustainability into day-to-day working practices, and obtain views on government support for the industry.

The survey only takes a few minutes to complete and all answers will be treated anonymously.

Govermental demands

Pressure on brands can come from below - customer outcry - or above, in the form of influence from government. Last summer, luxury brand Burberry pledged to stop burning unsold goods after it was criticised summer for setting light to millions of pounds worth of clothes, accessories and perfume to try to maintain exclusivity. In February, MPs urged the government to introduce a 1p levy on every item of clothing sold to fund better recycling and "end the era of throwaway fashion."

The environmental audit committee made the suggestion in its final report on the sustainability of the fashion industry. It said a 1p garment tax as part of a new "extended producer responsibility" scheme could raise £35m for investment in better clothing collection and recycling in the UK.

The report highlighted the French model as an example. In 2007, France introduced an extended producer responsibility scheme that makes clothing, linen and footwear companies responsible for products at the end of their life. The number of clothing collection points rose from 15,600 in 2011 to almost 42,000 in 2016. In 2009, France was collecting 1.9 kg of discarded clothing, linen and footwear per person per year. By 2016, it was 3.2kg. More than 90% of what is now collected is recycled or re-used.

The retail industry has a huge opportunity to be a force for good

Tom Byrne Landsec

Some fashion retailers are introducing recycling or take-back schemes to try to ease their waste troubles. Value retailer Primark will introduce an in-store take-back scheme later this year, and already works with charity Newlife, which collects, sorts and recycles unsold Primark goods and buying samples to raise money for children with disabilities.

"Launching an in-store customer recycling scheme is a natural next step for us," a Primark spokesperson tells Drapers. "Following a pilot in five stores in the UK and Germany (at Reading, Lakeside, Frankfurt Zeil, Frankfurt North-West Zentrum and Weiterstadt), we will be rolling out the scheme in our stores this year. Customers will be able to donate their unwanted garments, textiles and shoes, from any brand, in store to be repurposed or recycled."

Property company Landsec introduced a landlord-led recycling pilot initiative in March at its Westgate Oxford shopping centre.

"We wanted to engage with consumers on why textile waste is a problem and the steps that can be taken to reduce fashion's impact on the environment," Landsec's sustainability manager Tom Byrne tells Drapers. "The retail industry has a huge opportunity to be a force for good, and now is the perfect time. There's been a huge wave of support for reducing waste, which started with an awareness around single-use plastics and coffee cups, and is moving into textiles."

Swedish retailer H&M has been collecting unwanted clothes from any brand since 2013. All H&M stores contain a garment collecting box and the business collected 20,000 tonnes of textiles in 2018. Its next ambition is to collect 25,000 tonnes by 2020. Clothing that can be worn again is sold second-hand (proceeds go to the British Red Cross and the H&M Foundation), older clothes are repurposed into other products, and the remainder is broken down into textile fibres. Customers receive a £5 voucher to use on their next purchase of £25 or more when they drop off unwanted clothes.

To introduce a successful recycling scheme, retailers need to focus on simplicity and communication, says H&M's UK and IE sustainability manager Giorgina Waltier.

"Old clothes and textiles may no longer be wanted by their owners, but they are definitely not waste," she explains. "It is our responsibility to help our consumers to understand this and to dispose of their unwanted clothes in the most sustainable way possible. Recycling schemes need to be easy and straightforward for the customer to use. Likewise, communication around the scheme also needs to be easy to understand and transparent."

Overcoming hurdles

However, introducing a take-back or recycling scheme is not without its challenges. Retailers need to identify the right partner, communicate with customers and ensure they have enough human resource to gather, sort and transport what they collect.

"The main challenges regarding the introduction of a new recycling scheme are logistics and traceability," adds Waltier. "Knowing exactly how the customers' unwanted textiles are being processed once they leave your business and arrive in the hands of your recycling partner is your responsibility. Ensuring that these textiles are handled in the right way is non-negotiable."

Consumers might be happy to pay lip service to sustainability, but ensuring they engage with recycling schemes is another hurdle, says Jack Ostrowski, founder of fashion recycling app Regain. Regain users pack unwanted clothes and then drop them off at a local pick-up point, unlocking discount codes to use at participating retailers. Regain's partners include Boohoo, Missguided, New Balance and Superdry.

"There is still a big education piece that needs to be done when it comes to consumers and recycling," Ostrowski explains. "It is getting better, but a lot of people are still throwing their clothes into landfill, even in cities with a sophisticated understanding of the issues, such as London. We're only on the beginning of a long road when it comes to changing consumer behaviour."

We need to start a conversation with consumers to show them how to start to make better decisions

Romy Miltenburg, Asics

Ostrowski urges retailers to start talking to consumers about what to do with end-of-life product as early as possible to help ease this challenge.

"Why are we not telling customers what to do with their product when they've finished with it at the point of purchase? It would be easy to include on boxes or packaging, or at the checkout. There are so many ways to communicate sustainability very practically that could change things from day one."

Romy Miltenburg, manager for CSR and sustainability EMEA at Asics, agrees that communication and logistics are at the heart of a successful take-back scheme. The sportswear brand has partnered with recycling services provider I:Co to collect used sports clothing from participants of eight marathons around Europe this year.

"We need to start a conversation with consumers to show them how to start to make better decisions," says Miltenburg. "Finding the right recycling partner - one who shares your vision - is important. Internally, there is the operational side to consider. There are practicalities to think about with your logistics and facility teams, because what you collect needs to be emptied, sorted and transported."

Miltenburg adds that success hinges on both internal and external stakeholders engaging with the scheme: "It is important internally that employees understand where [recycling schemes] fit it into the overarching sustainability strategy, so that there is a sense of shared responsibility to make it a success. And communication is key, because we need participants to be prepared and bring something with them that they want to donate."

But despite the difficulties, sustainable initiatives such as recycling schemes, can have tangible benefits for retailers. Finn Christo is group head of ecommerce at vegan footwear brand Koi, which has partnered with Regain.

He explains that the brand's sustainable focus is paying dividends: "Generation Z and millennials have the information that they need to make conscious decisions, and they know they don't have to choose between having values and ethics and stylish products. By listening to our customers, and recognising that choices such as being cruelty free, vegan and working towards sustainability are a key issue for them, we can build brand loyalty."

Recycling initiatives are one way fashion retailers can begin to tackle the industry's waste problem. Those looking to introduce such schemes need to engage stakeholders from across the business, consider operational challenges and communicate clearly with consumers for success.

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The war on waste: fashion wakes up to recycling

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Decluttering your wardrobe has become a somewhat unlikely fashion trend lately. Consumers have been encouraged to delve into their drawers and emerge with bags bulging with unwanted clothes thanks to Netflix's Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, in which the lifestyle guru encourages people to get rid of junk - starting with their wardrobes.

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Government Responsibility and Law Proposals

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Government Responsibility and Law Proposals

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Missguided need to follow ASOS and H&M sign up to agreements to help the environment

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Sustainability tool Missguided need to use to improve sustainability

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The tool has been designed to help companies add visibility to their supply chain at the raw material stage.

It uses data analytics and machine learning on Google Cloud to give brands a more comprehensive view into their supply chain, particularly concerning cotton and viscose production.

The project was announced at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit this week, and is set to launch early next year.

In a post on Instagram, chief innovation officer at Current Global, Rachel Arthur, said: "Currently, there exists little to no visibility of this tier, while simultaneously it is responsible for the largest amount of environmental damage most items of clothing hold.

"With this tool, fashion brands will be able to better understand the cost to nature of their raw materials by measuring key factors such as air pollution, water scarcity, greenhouse gas emissions and more in near time."

She added: "Our ultimate aim is to create an open industry-wide tool by working with fashion brands, NGOs and industry bodies."

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Google launches fashion supply chain tool

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The tool has been designed to help companies add visibility to their supply chain at the raw material stage. It uses data analytics and machine learning on Google Cloud to give brands a more comprehensive view into their supply chain, particularly concerning cotton and viscose production.

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what missguided had to say

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the mistreatment of workers

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When Hassan Doshi moved from India to Leicester in 1982, he had good reason to feel optimistic. He had landed in a place that was hungry for sewing skills, a city of factories whose motto was "Leicester clothes the world". He arrived on a Friday and started work on Monday. "1982 was good timing! I miss that time," says Doshi, who is now 60 and still makes his own trousers. He remembers 29 days of paid holiday, 12.30 finishes on Fridays, and factory owners poaching him with the promise of higher pay.

These good times ended in 2001. The factory where he had worked for a decade - a supplier to the retailer BHS - closed down because, he says, production moved to Sri Lanka. It had done well to hold out so long. Retailers had already started "chasing the cheap needle round the planet", as one retail executive puts it, and they have continued to do so.

The garment trade in Leicester, a city in the heart of England that boomed in the industrial age, managed to cling on, fragmented and weakened, in small units in the shells of old factory buildings. Market traders and wholesalers kept sourcing clothes there, as did some high-street brands like New Look when they needed to top up stocks. Doshi spent years bouncing from struggling small factory to factory, "always moving, moving, moving".

Now, new economic forces have started to blow on the embers of Leicester's clothing industry. Since the financial crisis, dozens of upstart British online retailers have prospered by catering to what Boohoo, one of the biggest of these brands, calls the "aspirational thrift" of young millennials. This is the Instagram generation that wants to buy today what their favourite celebrity wore yesterday. Fulfilling these desires quickly means sourcing close to home.

"Speed is our main USP and the UK is as quick as you can get," said Nitin Passi, founder of online retailer Missguided, in 2014. Both Boohoo and Missguided source at least half their clothes in the UK, with hubs in Leicester, Manchester and London supplying a host of brands. I bought two Boohoo dresses for £6 and £7 respectively; both turned out to have been made in Leicester. Trendy, fast and cheap has proved a winning strategy. Boohoo 's market value has more than doubled to about £2.3bn since listing on London's Aim exchange in 2014.

How is it possible to make cheap clothes in a country where the minimum wage for over-25s is £7.83 an hour? Online retailers' nimbleness and lower overheads allow them to pay more for products while still giving consumers a good price. In addition, there are manufacturers that use technology to make clothes more efficiently. But factory owners in Leicester say some take a different route, one more reminiscent of the 19th century than the 21st. They call these places "dark factories."

Part of Leicester's garment industry has become detached from UK employment law, "a country within a country", as one factory owner puts it, where "£5 an hour is considered the top wage", even though that is illegal. Doshi (not his real name) says he has worked in places with blocked fire escapes, old machines and no holiday or sick pay. There are garment factories that follow the law, but a "perceived culture of impunity", as a 2018 government report puts it, has created a bizarre microeconomy where larger factories using machines are outcompeted by smaller rivals using underpaid humans.

And while some retailers blame unethical factory owners, the factories say retail's relentless push for cheap prices makes it impossible to improve. As a result, what should be a good news story for people like Doshi has become a cautionary tale about how the reshoring of manufacturing jobs can go wrong when the government fails to enforce its own laws.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this labour exploitation is that it is an open secret. Central government knows; local government knows; retailers know. "When I came to the UK and I discovered what was going on in Leicester, it was mind-blowing," says Anders Kristiansen, who was chief executive of high-street retailer New Look from 2013 until September last year. "This is happening in front of your eyes and nobody's doing anything?!" he remembers thinking. "How can society accept it - not even society, how can government accept it? It's so sad, I've not spoken about it for a long time because it frustrated me so much."

Saeed Khilji, the chairman of the Textile Manufacturer Association of Leicestershire, drives around the garment district pointing out old industrial complexes. This part of Leicester is crammed with factories, red-brick terraces, mosques and churches. "This Temple building - one building - there's 100 factories in there," he says. "Each with 10 people, 15 people, 20 people."

Khilji is a sharp dresser, with a groomed black beard. He set up TMAL last year because he felt the local industry needed a collective voice. As we drive, he keeps stopping to shout greetings to people. Then he points out a row of doors on St Saviours Road. "You only see one door but there are three or four factories behind each one."

When I came to the UK and I discovered what was going on in Leicester, it was mind-blowing

Anders Kristiansen, former chief executive of New Look

Having been inside some, "factory" does not feel like the right word. In its heyday, Leicester garment manufacturer Corah employed more than 6,000 people. Now the average UK garment factory employs fewer than 10, according to University of Leicester research.

In the ones I was allowed into, there were workers at sewing machines listening to the radio, big ironing boards, and tables where people folded and packed clothes. One was doing a run for PrettyLittleThing, an online "fast fashion" brand owned by Boohoo. Another was making trousers for an over-40s catalogue.

Khilji parks outside the Imperial Typewriter Building, where Leicester's famous typewriters were once made. Now the 1930s building is old and dirty. A broken window is patched up with a cardboard box. It too is home to garment factories. Khilji and I only get as far as the stairwell, where a spaghetti of wires dangles from the ceiling. One person who has visited said he was "frightened to be in the building. There's just so many small units, there's fabric stacked high." He worried about potential fire risk. Khilji says many factories are now moving out because they see it as unsafe. "The condition of that building is very bad, but it's not representative."

How did the industry get here? When big manufacturers started to leave, some workers spent their redundancy money on buying the machines left behind. They set up small units, but clothing prices kept falling and working conditions worsened as they tried to stay competitive. As successive UK governments pushed up the legal minimum wage, parts of this bit of Leicester seem to have simply moved into a twilight world. It is not the only place where this has happened: New York and Los Angeles have grappled with poor conditions in garment factories as has Prato in Italy.

Today, people in Leicester earning £5 an hour "walk out of factories with their heads held high", says Mick Cheema, who runs a garment factory called Basic Premier that pays legal wages. He says the average wage in dark factories, as he calls them, is about £4.25 an hour. Factories often under-record hours, so people's payslips look as if they have been paid the minimum wage. "Say you're working 40 hours for £4 [an hour], but legally you should get almost £8 - so these people are showing 20 hours at £8 an hour," explains Khilji.

Doshi has experienced both the good and the bad when it comes to pay. Once he worked for three weeks without wages, then the factory suddenly shut down, giving him just £100. About 18 months ago, he was working in a factory in Cobden House, a six-storey building with razor wire on its wall, earning the minimum wage. Then the company went bankrupt. "I'm crying now [it's] closed down."

He went upstairs where a "fast fashion" factory had vacancies. They said his wage would be £4 an hour. When I went to look for it, it appeared to no longer exist. One manufacturer in Cobden House told me factories don't always last long. Someone opened in the unit next to him "working all sorts of hours" for online retailers, he says, but then disappeared three months later.

As ever with illegality, pinning down its scale is tough. A study by the University of Leicester in 2015, commissioned by the Ethical Trading Initiative, an alliance of major retailers and unions, concluded the majority of the city's garment workers were paid less than the minimum wage. When politician Harriet Harman led a group here last year from the joint committee on human rights, she estimated it was between a third and three-quarters. Khilji disagrees. "I should say 99 per cent," he says. "I'm saying openly, these are the problems and we need to address them." The root cause, he argues, is the way retailers treat suppliers.

Enforcement agencies uncover illegal migrant workers in occasional raids, but life goes on. Cheema remembers people fleeing from a factory on the other side of the street as it was raided. Nearby, he says, was another dark factory. "The boss of that factory was looking out of his door and down the street and letting two people out at a time," he says. When raids happen, word spreads quickly and the streets fill with people as factories empty out.

Workers do not necessarily have better options, Khilji explains. Many are either from Doshi's generation and have never learnt good English, or are more recent arrivals from eastern Europe or India. "They don't have any skill, so manufacturers are actually taking them and training them and giving them something." Lately, people have been coming from Daman in India on Portuguese passports because the place used to be a colony. "Some of the people is struggling, you know - so, £3? £4? OK," says Doshi. He knows of a three-bedroom house with three or four families living in it.

Some factory owners say that workers believe they are better off with lower pay and fewer hours on the books, because they will receive more help from the state in tax credits and housing benefit. If that is what workers think - and I did not hear it from any directly - they are mistaken.

Calculations by the Resolution Foundation show that in every scenario it is better to be paid the minimum wage for 40 hours than for 20. But it is certainly true that taxpayers are losing money because workers are illegally underpaid, both because the government has to pay more benefits, and because HMRC loses about £1,000 in tax from the employer per worker.

Trade unions lack a strong presence here. Community organisations do their best but funding has been squeezed. The local Highfields Centre lost all its council funding in 2015. Its chief executive, Priya Thamotheram, who says he took a 65 per cent pay cut at that time, is keen to run an advice service for workers and provide more education programmes, but he cannot do it without money. "It's got to be about building up their confidence and opening their horizons to other things," he says. "If you walk the streets in the early mornings in the St Saviours area, you'll see people . . . who are youngish, well into their sixties, and everything in between . . . It's sad to see some of them . . . going into these factories, dingy little places, some of them."

Retailers audit their suppliers in Leicester and say they do not work with any that break the law. But unauthorised subcontracting is a problem and factories can present books that look clean because they under-record hours.

Dispatches, a Channel 4 programme, sent a worker undercover into various factories in 2010 and again in 2017. Both times they were paid well below the minimum wage. In the most recent one, they were making clothes for New Look, River Island, Boohoo and Missguided. All retailers said their orders had been subcontracted to those factories without their permission or knowledge.

Last year, Kristiansen, while still chief executive of New Look, and Asos's chief executive Nick Beighton, wrote to parliament's human rights committee to say they wanted to source more in the UK, and Leicester could be the "driving force" behind the industry's resurgence, but that "serious underlying concerns . . . could fatally derail any such success story". They called for better law enforcement.

Manufacturers, meanwhile, are sick of retailers saying everything is their fault. When Khilji called a meeting last year, he says about 300 people turned up, many of them factory owners. They complained retailers offered such low prices per garment that they simply "cannot be manufactured ethically", according to meeting minutes. "They're asking cheap, cheap, cheap," Khilji says. "Where last year they paid £8, now they're asking £7 for same garment . . . So I don't think they have any right to shout about ethics."

Santoshan Sangha, who has spent 30 years working in and running factories in Leicester, says: "I can put the retailers to shame - 'You know full well this is not a price you're able to buy for, so how are you looking to buy?'" Many retailers employ ethical trade teams, then a separate team of "buyers" who negotiate orders and prices. Sangha said the former understand the manufacturers' concerns, "but the buyers just say, 'We're under pressure.'" Several suppliers said young buyers often had no idea how to cost material and labour. When asked why they wouldn't just refuse an order, they said they had to keep their factories busy to cover their costs. If they said no, the person next door would say yes.

Helen Russell, a former senior buyer for high-street retailers who became a lecturer in fashion at De Montfort University, has seen inexperienced buyers "that see it as a little bit of a game to play suppliers off against each other at a very late stage" because of "margin" pressures from managers. She said best practice was to treat suppliers with respect and keep their samples confidential.

[Retailers] are asking cheap, cheap, cheap. If last year they paid £8, now they're asking £7 for the same garment

Saeed Khilji, chairman of the Textile Manufacturer Association of Leicestershire

Suppliers also say the retailers give them no commitments, forcing them to live from order to order. Because speed is so important, they risk penalties if they deliver late, which can incentivise them to subcontract. Khilji reserves his strongest criticism for the high-street retailers that source in Leicester but who, he says, have "no connection" with factories. Online brands like Boohoo grew out of family-owned wholesaler businesses so they understand the supply base better, he says, and would, for example, help a struggling factory with a loan.

But others say the online brands are particularly aggressive on price. Boohoo holds weekly meetings at its Manchester head office, where suppliers bring samples to the product teams in a single room with 10 to 12 large tables. "It's like a cattle market," says one person from a supplier who did not want to be named. "Say I'm the buyer, and [you've] just given me the price of this [dress] for £5. I will literally hold it up to the next table and say, 'How much for that?' and he'll tell you £4. It's ruthless."

Boohoo said suppliers appreciated having "regular, open contact" and offered private discussions in separate rooms if they preferred. "Buying a garment is a negotiation and Boohoo would never force a supplier into selling something against their wishes," merchandising director Paul Horsfield said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Jenny Holloway, owner of London factory Fashion Enter, went to Leicester at the request of the council to give a workshop to other owners. Fashion Enter has an ongoing order commitment from Asos and uses technology to monitor tasks and ensure decent wages.

After hearing from the manufacturers, she fired off a letter to Peter McAllister, executive director of the ETI. "Have you been to review the cost prices given to these factories by certain retailers and etailers? Any person in the industry would know that these cost prices are totally unobtainable," she wrote. "The onshoring of production back to the UK is happening here and now but it's fragile. The mighty retailers have clout and financial resources and factories don't . . . [Retailers should] work with carefully selected manufacturers and support them."

To be fair to the ETI, this is the approach it has been advocating in Leicester. "We want to see UK manufacturing thrive, but it mustn't be based on a 19th-century model of exploitation and poor working conditions, where profit comes at the expense of workers," McAllister said in a statement. "Clothing brands hold a lot of power over their suppliers and need to recognise that unreasonable demands are likely to drive poor working conditions for the women and men who actually make the clothes. At the same time, suppliers mustn't use brand-buying practices as an excuse for exploiting their workers and breaking the law. Both are wrong."

It has got worse. Because nothing has happened, people have seen they can get away with breaking the law

Mick Cheema, general manager of the Leicester-based clothing manufacturer Basic Premier

ETI-member brands such as New Look, River Island and Asos created a forensic auditing system for UK suppliers called Fast Forward several years ago, and have cut the number of Leicester factories they use from about 130 to just 30. New Look alone reduced its UK suppliers by 80 per cent "due to concerns regarding working practices", a spokesman said. He said working "ethically and sustainably" was "fundamental" to its business, and that it used suppliers' feedback to "support them whilst ensuring alignment with our ethical requirements".

Asos currently only uses 16 factories in the UK, seven of which are in Leicester, and says it gives them regular orders. Sourcing director Simon Platts says the sector needs investment in infrastructure and training, as well as enforcement and legislation, all of which require a joint effort. Missguided has recently joined the ETI too and Khilji says it has cut its Leicester-based suppliers. (It declined requests for comment.) The ETI has arranged for a consultant and specialist from Acas, the workplace relations advice service, to help factories set up ways to give workers a voice.

Khilji says that as these brands have partially retreated, more Leicester factory owners are reliant on Boohoo and the host of wholesalers and other brands that do not use Fast Forward. Boohoo confirmed it was not a member of the ETI but said its ethical trade policy was "based on the ETI base code, which sets out worldwide standards of labour practice". Boohoo's Paul Horsfield said it used the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit to govern relations with suppliers, and that Boohoo also had a sourcing and compliance team based in Leicester which pays "regular unannounced visits" and helps suppliers "work towards best-in-class working conditions".

But some manufacturers who chose the high road say that, far from being rewarded with more business, they are struggling to survive. Mick Cheema and his wife Rajinder thought they were on to a winner when they opened Basic Premier in 2012 with the idea of appealing to retailers as a compliant factory. The Cheemas knew that to compete with factories paying below the minimum wage they would need to be more productive, so they planned a big operation and bought two £100,000 machines to cut fabric in the most efficient way. The factory is bright and clean, humming to the clatter of the sewing machinists.

To begin with, workers flocked to them. "My wife and I would get so excited," says Cheema. After interviewing candidates, he would say, "'Before you start, just bring over your P45 or a National Insurance number and your right-to-work documentation . . . ' and you would never see them again." Eventually they managed to recruit people - though not as many as hoped. The culture was a shock for some. "We need an efficient workforce to be competitive [so we were telling them] when you're on your machine you can't be talking on your mobile phone . . . You can't eat your food on the machine . . . You have to clock in." The new recruits weren't used to any of this. "If you're working in Tesco's or for an engineering facility outside of this square mile, it's the norm," Cheema says. But in the Leicester microeconomy, it was odd, and not everyone stuck it out.

Then there was the problem of securing orders. The factory has successfully passed a slew of audits, including Fast Forward, but it is still seen as one of the most expensive factories in Leicester. "It's so frustrating," he says. "Because you're not on a level playing field. No matter how hard we try to achieve efficiencies . . . you're still going to be in a place where you're commercially in no-man's-land."

I took Cheema four dresses with "made in the UK" labels - the two that cost £6 and £7 from Boohoo, one for £12.99 from TK Maxx and a New Look one for £15.99 - and asked him to cost them. He and a colleague spread them out on a table, rubbing their fingers over the seams, drawing an outline of each and filling out a costing sheet.

Retailers do not disclose their "buying-in margins", which can vary based on business model, but Cheema says retailers typically charge customers three times what they paid to suppliers. A competitive price to make these dresses would thus be just £2 and £2.33 for the Boohoo dresses, £4.33 for the TK Maxx dress and £5.33 for the New Look.

Cheema and his colleague say that Basic Premier would have to charge Boohoo £6.45 to make the dress it is selling for £6, and £5.65 for the £7 one. They would charge £8.22 for the TK Maxx dress and £5.65 for the New Look one. They said the Boohoo and TK Maxx dresses were out of reach even if they made zero margin themselves.

I gave the costings to Boohoo, which said the dresses had been made by Leicester suppliers but did "not reflect the norm for our business" because they were from a core collection "where we take a view on the cost price and absorb margin loss in order to offer the products at the best price possible". TK Maxx said it was "committed to operating our business with high standards of ethics" in its vendor code of conduct, which requires its "vendors" and subcontractors to follow all laws and regulations.

According to Cheema, retailers banging the drum about the importance of ethical production in Leicester have not followed through. "[We thought] we'll pass the audits and we'll get orders from all these retailers, [but] we reached that goal years ago and there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. " Basic Premier does get orders - on one of my visits the workers were making tops for Sainsbury's - but far fewer than it expected and with no ongoing commitment.

Meanwhile, Cheema says, many competitors carry on breaking the law. "It has got worse. Because nothing has happened, people have physically seen [they] can get away with it." He and his wife have decided to cut the factory in half to reduce overheads. "It's a bit scary. Us, the workforce . . . have got so much to lose."

Santoshan Sangha says his factory committed to Fast Forward for three years, lost £100,000 and went out of business. He says the retailers gave him no commitment in return. "They said, 'OK, we want to work with you,' give you a couple of orders, then go back to Turkey or wherever, and six or eight months later they return when the pound's in their favour and expect to find you're still here."

Other manufacturers have taken note. Fast Forward was "made by retailers, for retailers" with "nothing for manufacturers", says Khilji. David Camp, its founder, responded that it was an "effective" way for manufacturers to "demonstrate they were compliant with the law.

Cheema thinks there is a two-pronged solution: first, retailers should put their money where their mouths are, committing to sourcing a percentage from the good factories. "What's a couple of thousand garments a week from two or three retailers? These companies sell hundreds of thousands of garments a week." Second, the government should enforce the law. "[Leicester's] got its own rules, its own laws, its own ways of doing things," he says. "We've lost faith in the government stepping in." Workers seem to feel the same way. "The government knows what's happening in Leicester," says a friend of Doshi's, who did not want to be named, "and that's it. They don't do anything."

The enforcement agencies can hardly claim to be unaware of what is happening. Representatives from UK Visas and Immigration, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority all attended a meeting hosted by Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby last October, where the problems were discussed in detail. But a comb through freedom-of-information requests, MPs questions and public records does not reveal a state that has done much to sort this out.

Over the five years to 2016-17, HM Revenue & Customs, which has recently had its enforcement budget doubled, has identified about £33m of arrears for almost 232,000 people who have been paid under minimum wage nationwide. Of that total, it found underpayment in just 19 employers in the textile sector, owing £44,371 to 83 workers. A government spokesperson said: "Short-changing workers is a red line for this government and employers who cross it will have to pay back every penny and could face fines of up to twice the wages owed."

HSE, meanwhile, was told by the government in 2011 to cut the number of proactive workplace inspections it makes by one-third. In 2012, Chris Grayling, then employment minister, said: "If we try to legislate out all risk, we will lose jobs to other places." For textiles manufacturing, the enforcement approach has been "principally reactive". There were 187 inspections of garment and textile factories last year, an increase on 103 inspections five years ago. But there were 136 workplace injuries reported in the sector last year - reportable injuries are those that necessitate more than a week off work or involve damage such as amputations, the crushing of internal organs or burns covering more than 10 per cent of the body. HSE investigated just five.

A spokesperson said the criteria for when HSE would investigate a reported injury included "prima facie evidence of a serious breach of the law", and that the agency still inspected businesses in "non-higher-risk" sectors if there was evidence of poor health-and-safety risk control.

As for Leicester council, it has held meetings and workshops but points out that central, not local, government has jurisdiction to enforce health and safety in factories and the minimum wage. However, it does have a responsibility to enforce building safety, and an FOI request shows the last time it inspected the Imperial Typewriter building was in 2004. The council says it has not received any complaints about the building since then. The Leicestershire fire and rescue service last inspected the building in February 2017 in response to "concern from fire service crew" and the outcome was deemed "satisfactory".

Last year, the government appointed Sir David Metcalf to a newly created post: director of labour market enforcement. He published his first strategy last week, devoting a page to Leicester's garment sector. "While some enforcement action has been undertaken in this sector and city over the last few years, this has clearly not had an effective impact on overall compliance," the report said.

We want to see UK manufacturing thrive, but it mustn't be based on a 19th-century model of exploitation and poor working conditions

Peter McAllister, executive director of the Ethical Trading Initiative

Metcalf recommended a pilot to test whether "joint working" between enforcement agencies, the council, industry bodies and suppliers "can help change the perceived culture of impunity". He said this should involve "highly visible targeting of non-compliant garment businesses in Leicester". Phil Coyne, the council's director of city development and neighbourhoods, said the problems "relating to ethical practice within the industry are an issue nationally, not just in Leicester". But he added the council wanted Leicester workers to be "properly paid, well trained, and work in safe environments", and was "very pleased" with the recommendation.

Metcalf tells me the UK government enforces labour law too lightly overall: "The amazing thing is how many firms comply, because you haven't got enough enforcement resources and the fines are too low." He says the average employer can expect an HMRC inspection once every 500 years, based on current statistics. He has recommended higher fines and new "joint responsibility" rules, where companies would be named if they failed to sort out non-compliance in their supply base.

The next step could be to impose "joint liability". For the British economy, already held back by poor productivity, it makes no sense to allow the good to be undercut by the bad, he adds. "It's those good firms being more productive which will boost our productivity, not the ones that are very labour-intensive and working fiddles on tax credits."

This is a moment of opportunity for Leicester. If retailers were able to truly collaborate with manufacturers, they could create decent jobs for a community that needs them while enjoying the benefits of sourcing close to home. But, if anything, they are splitting apart. Some factories are looking for other solutions entirely. Khilji has launched a website, mesheme.com, to help manufacturers sell direct to consumers. This way, he says, they will be able to make reasonable profits and pay their workers properly. Cheema is also planning to sell to smaller operations or direct to consumers.

Retailers are on different paths too. McAllister said the ETI would continue to work with brands and suppliers to tackle Leicester's problems, but added: "Unfortunately, many of the companies, especially some etailers, who source in larger volumes from Leicester, are not ETI member companies and have failed to engage with this process."

Boohoo declined to be interviewed but Horsfield's statement said the company was "delighted" to be supporting the "creation of employment opportunities in the UK". He said Boohoo recognised its "duty of care to all its stakeholders" and was "putting increasing effort and resource into leading the way in sustainable change for the industry". Boohoo's full-year results showed revenues almost doubled to more than £500m with pre-tax profit up 40 per cent to £43m. Co-founder Mahmud Kamani and his family have joined the ranks of UK billionaires, according to last week's Sunday Times Rich List.

In Leicester, life carries on. Doshi can't sew any more, as his eyes are bad with cataracts and his back hurts. He applied for jobs at Tesco and Asda but they said his English was too poor. He has been going to college at night to study English but he failed his exam and was told there was no more government money to take it again. He went to see a sandwich factory but it was "all day stand up, it's very fast, everything cold, cold".

Finally, the week before we met, a friend told him about a new garment factory that could give him a packing job. He went to the interview and asked about pay. The boss told him they would see how fast he could work. Maximum? £4.50 an hour. And if he was slow? £3.50.
Sarah O'Connor is an FT investigations correspondent sarah.oconnor@ft.com Follow @FTMag on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first. Subscribe to FT Life on YouTube for the latest FT Weekend videos
Letter in response to this article:
Deeper fears in exposure of exploitative practises / From John Morrison, Chief Executive, Institute for Human Rights and Business, London N1

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Dark factories: labour exploitation in Britain's garment industry

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When Hassan Doshi moved from India to Leicester in 1982, he had good reason to feel optimistic. He had landed in a place that was hungry for sewing skills, a city of factories whose motto was "Leicester clothes the world". He arrived on a Friday and started work on Monday.

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London - The rise of the fast fashion model is said to have transformed the fashion industry and the way we perceive and consumer fashion. Amancio Ortega, otherwise known as the man behind the runaway fashion success retail story Zara, is said to have been the one to bring the business model into mainstream fashion, which has since been picked up by a number of fast fashion players, ranging from H&M to Forever 21 and Primark. The fast fashion business model was originally developed to rapidly respond to latest trends and deliver them to consumers in store within a matter of weeks.

But a new generation of young fashion retailers has seen the emergence of an ever faster model, turning fast fashion into 'ultrafast fashion.' These fashion retailers, which include the likes of Asos, Boohoo and Missguided, are said to have the shortest and leanest supply chain cycles. Their rapid turnover of new products sees them featuring new items every one to two weeks, tapping directly into consumers' growing demand for immediacy. In turn is said to drive their swift sales growth and success and sees them leaving fashion retailers like Zara and H&M in the dust, according to a new report from Fung Global Retail & Technology.

These fashion retailers have been able to tightly streamline their supply chains and move production closer to their key markets, making it easier for them to speed up their design and manufacturing process. In part, this is due to the digital revolution, which makes it easier for designers to find and share inspiration and designs with manufacturers. According to the report, Boohoo, Asos and Missguided are able to produce fashion products in as little to one to four weeks, in comparison to the five weeks it takes Zara and H&M on average to create new products and the six to nine-month cycle most traditional fashion retailers follow.

Ultrafast fashion retailers are able to avoid traditional retailers issues such as product shortages and excessive inventory by basing large quantities of production closer to their headquarters and main customer markets. This way they are able to balance undersupply and markdowns. Ultrafast fashion retailers make designs in small batches to test demand and if items prove to be successful, they can quickly be reproduced. This is why smaller utlrafast fashion retailers like Missguided have become so popular. Launching 1,000 new products each month, Missguided updates its site once a day with new stock. If a popular fashion trend does arise, then the fashion retailer aims to have it available for sale in under a week.

Photo: Asos, Facebook

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Boohoo, Asos & Missguided pave the way for 'Ultrafast Fashion'

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London - The rise of the fast fashion model is said to have transformed the fashion industry and the way we perceive and consumer fashion. Amancio Ortega, otherwise known as the man behind the runaway fashion success retail story Zara, is said

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UK manufacturing has lost 600,000 jobs in a decade, says union

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Every region has been hit, says GMB - with London, Scotland and north-west worst affected

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Only information regarding where else they source from

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An undercover investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches claims workers at factories that supplied some of the UK's most popular fashion brands were paid less than the national minimum wage.

The documentary, which is to be broadcast on Monday at 8pm, alleges workers were, in some instances, paid £3-£3.50 per hour at three Leicester-based factories: Fashion Square, United Creations, and a third that has not been named.

It raises fresh concerns about the human cost and working conditions involved in delivering cheap fashion online and on the high street.

An undercover reporter who got a job at Fashion Square putting bar codes and labels on clothes for supply to River Island said he was told by a manager at the factory that he would not be paid the minimum wage.

Since October 2016, the minimum wage for an 18-year-old is £5.55, rising to £6.95 for those over 21 and £7.20 for over-25s.

"You won't get that here. That's what I'm telling you," the programme will show the manager saying. "We don't get paid much for our clothes, and we need to compete with China and Bangladesh. They can get it cheap there. How will they get it made cheaper here? If we pay everyone £10 or £6 then we will make a loss."

The reporter also went undercover at an unnamed factory making jumpers destined to be sold at New Look for £3.50 per hour. Dispatches claims the factory was subcontracted by TS Knitwear, an official supplier of New Look.

The third factory, United Creations, is said to have paid the reporter £3.25 per hour. His tasks included packaging a jacket for Boohoo and applying zips to Missguided dresses, the film is expected to show.

All three factories denied to Dispatches that they paid less than the minimum wage.

The brands involved said they took the allegations seriously. Boohoo said in a statement it has "demanding" policies in place for suppliers and will now do "regular unannounced audits".

A spokesperson said they were unaware United Creations was carrying out work for the company and that representatives from Boohoo visited the factory as soon as they were alerted to "assist them in [raising] the standard of their safety procedures and ensuring that they pay at least the minimum wage".

Missguided said it takes the allegations "very seriously and [demands] the highest standards of safety, working conditions and pay from all of our suppliers and subcontractors".

"We are committed to achieving the standards set by the Ethical Trading Initiative and conduct regular audits and spot-checks of our supply chain," the company said. "We have begun an internal investigation ... we will also ensure these matters are addressed urgently by the supplier in the best interests of the workers."

New Look said it had terminated its contract with TS Knitwear and that the company had subcontracted its order without consent. "We have terminated our relationship with TS Knitwear with immediate effect ... and will be working closely with the business to support all its workers who will be affected," a spokesperson said.

TS Knitwear said it has "clear ethical guidelines" and that due to "an unusually large volume" of orders it had outsourced some production but was "dismayed" to learn about the findings of the investigation.

River Island said Fashion Square had been removed from its approved factory list in February 2016 and said suppliers were told not to use the company. "Sub-contracting without River Island's approval is a serious breach of our terms and conditions," a spokesperson said.

BuzzFeed News has attempted to contact Fashion Square for comment.

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Suppliers To River Island, New Look, Boohoo, And Missguided Paid Staff "£3 An Hour"

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An undercover investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches claims workers at factories that supplied some of the UK's most popular fashion brands were paid less than the national minimum wage. The documentary, which is to be broadcast on Monday at 8pm, alleges workers were, in some instances, paid £3-£3.50 per hour at three Leicester-based factories: Fashion Square, United Creations, and a third that has not been named.

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Missguided one of the worst companies to pay min wage to any of their workers in other countries - and in UK.

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Not-for-profit organisationLabour Behind the Label, which campaigns for workers' rights in the clothing industry, surveyed 32 leading fashion brands, including Arcadia, Asos, Boohoo, Inditex, New Look, Next, Marks & Spencer and Primark (full list below).

Apart from luxury Italian house Gucci, owned by Kering Group, every brand received the lowest possible grade - E - which means they can't show any evidence of a living wage being paid to any workers in their supply chain.

Gucci received a C, signifying that 25% or more of its workers earn a living wage.

An Asos spokesperson told Drapers: "There is no 'silver bullet' to solving these challenges, and we know there's a lot that needs to be done.

"We can't achieve this alone, so our ambition is to find long-term solutions to address the key human rights challenges in the garment supply chain through meaningful collaboration.

"To that end, we believe that Act [the industry initiative on living wages in the garment sector] is the most credible initiative with a genuine chance of increasing garment workers' wages and improving working conditions in a way that is scalable, sustainable and enforceable."

A spokesperson from M&S added: "W e believe it's vital that our clothes are ethically sourced and we have a very clear set of global sourcing principles that are a condition of working with us.

"We're committed to working in collaboration with our suppliers, and other retailers and organisations to improve workers' conditions, support processes to establish fair wages and ensure mature industrial relations in the garment industry."

Labour Behind the Label's Tailored Wages UK 2019: The state of pay in the global garment industry report sought to reveal the progress that leading clothing brands have made towards implementing a living wage for the workers producing their clothes.

Author Anna Bryher said: "Five years on from our previous survey on this topic, no brand was able to show any progress towards a living wage being paid. Poverty in the garment industry isn't improving, it's getting worse. This situation is urgent.

"Our message to the brands is that human rights can't wait and workers making the clothes sold on our high street must be paid enough to live with dignity."

Figures show that minimum wages in Bangladesh are less than a quarter of a living wage, and only a sixth of the amount needed to live on in Romania.
The brands surveyed include:

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Fashion brands fail to pay supply chain workers living wage

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Not-for-profit organisationLabour Behind the Label, which campaigns for workers' rights in the clothing industry, surveyed 32 leading fashion brands, including Arcadia, Asos, Boohoo, Inditex, New Look, Next, Marks & Spencer and Primark (full list below).

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In house designs, UK based.