From 18-24 April, Fashion Revolution are bringing people from all over the world together to use the power of fashion to change the story for the people who make the world’s clothes and accessories. Encouraging people to ask the question #WhoMadeMyClothes?
We caught up with the Ethical Consumer, who are working with Fashion Revolution to look at what brands are doing to make their supply chain more transparent. The Ethical Consumer Transparency Index looks at brands social and environmental standards and the quality of information they share with consumers.
Are brands getting better at telling customers about who made their clothes?
“An increasing number of brands are beginning to disclose the factories which manufacture their garments – the Cut Make Trim facilities (CMT), as they’re known. We found a small number of brands making this list publicly-available on their websites. We call this CMT stage the ‘first tier’ of the supply chain. But, the supply chain for a piece of clothing is incredibly long and involves multiple actors.
So we want to see brands looking further and deeper into their supply chain. Some brands are beginning to work on this – Adidas and H&M have begun publishing lists of some of their second-tier suppliers. A few other brands told us they are starting to track their suppliers from the second tier and below, but are yet to publish a list of their names and addresses.”
“The Transparency Index shows that while some brands we surveyed are making more progress than others, not one of them can fully answer the question #WhoMadeMyClothes. We want to see much more transparency around the second, third, fourth tiers of the supply chain.” View the full supply chain here.
Have there been any interesting brand supply chain campaigns this year?
“There have been many positive projects. However, they all have one thing in common – they focus on one specific issue or section of the supply chain. None of the brands achieved our top ratings in all categories. We’d like to see brands taking a more joined-up strategy to work on creating transparency throughout their supply chain.”
Levi Strauss & Co achieved the top score in the index. The company has set itself the goal to increase the percentage of its own products made with Water<Less techniques to 80% by 2020. A second positive example is H&M, the fashion brand has mapped 99% of it’s production volume, publicly publishes 95% of its first tier CMT list and 35% of its fabric and yarn suppliers.
What do you think of this year’s Fashion Revolution campaign?
“We hope that the campaign will draw public attention to how clothes are made and what companies can and should be doing to tackle the problems inherent in large-scale clothing manufacture. It’s a great way to encourage consumers to ask their own questions of brands.
The Transparency Index supports this activity by providing a benchmark for current best practice in supply chain transparency and also makes our expectations of brands clear.”
Do you think that there is growing pressure on brands to work on their supply chain?
“Yes, there is. The Fashion Revolution team is making great strides in raising consumer awareness. Plus legislation is now beginning to come into effect that forces brands to disclose their policies and the actions they’re taking to prevent things like forced labour in their supply chains. New legislation includes the Modern Slavery Act in the UK and the new EU garment initiative that launches next week to ‘step up the activities of all actors’ in responsible management of the supply chain.
This is a start, but its going to take a concerted effort from all kinds of stakeholders to really get the industry to open up and make a commitment to genuine supply chain transparency.
This is why it’s especially important for consumers to join in with the Fashion Revolution campaign in any way they can. It sends a clear message to brands that their customers want to know how and where their clothes were made.”
Here at Greenhouse we are asking the #WhoMadeMyClothes question to the brands that we are wearing today. Follow our post to see if they respond, and tweet @Greenhouse_PR with your fashion selfies.
We currently work with CottonConnect, who know that creating sustainable a supply chain is a tough job. CottonConnect helps brands and retailers achieve their sustainability targets by providing a unique solution from farm to consumer. They are the leading provider of sustainable supply chain services and aim to transform the world’s cotton for good.
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