The Grand Prix of Fast Fashion: Human Rights and the Environment
The fast fashion industry is churning out new garms for us to look good and keep up with the micro-seasons. But when workers in Pakistan are paid being less than £47 per month, is it really worth it?
The fast fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global emissions. Illustration by Nathalie Dickson.
These days, fashion doesn’t crawl along at the pace of a snail; it doesn’t stay static for long. Trends come and go, influencers take on what’s ‘in’, only to reject them when the media determines the pieces ‘out of style’. The fast fashion industry has become a race-car, lapping its contenders, big-name brands all competing with each other to churn out the most affordable pieces before the rest. Zara topped the tables in 2019 by selling almost 3 billion units of clothing, but the ferocity of competition is noted as H&M came a close second with 2.2 billion items sold. In the grand prix of clothing, the prize is a happy customer, a customer who loads their shopping basket (either virtual, or online) with goods they simply have to have. A customer who doesn’t know that the garments they cradle in their hands are made from the blood, sweat and tears of underrepresented men, women and children, who are exploited. This is the reality of fast fashion.
We hear the term “fast fashion” thrown around nowadays, paraded on social media and used as a motive to switch to more ethically, environmentally and socially-conscious shopping. The rapid, mass production of clothes by brands such as Shein, Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing, as well as others, may seem like a positive on the surface. But what you don’t see, are the ducks’ legs paddling furiously beneath the surface - the onslaught of environmental, social and racial damage caused by our societal demand. The issues associated with this mass-market supply chain, with brands like Shein boasting in their advertisements ‘1000s of new items released everyday’, are boundless. Statistics show that the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of carbon emissions globally, a statistic we would be foolish to ignore. 10% may seem like an insignificant amount, but the reality of the gases being pumped into our ozone layer, the clogging up of our atmosphere and the heat of the Sun radiating back to Earth’s surface, is frightening beyond measure. Further research by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in 2019, states that textile production contributes to climate change - the gradual warming of our planet - more than international aviation and shipping combined. Quite simply, our fashion choices are killing the planet. And it’s not difficult to see why.
Brands can mirror street style and fashion trends as they appear, due to the approximate 52 ‘micro-seasons’ of fashion in one year. There is constant demand, supply and purchasing, all of which contribute to a never-ending production of new items and garments. Countries where our clothes are made often dump the toxic wastewater left over from the water baths used to make, dye and finish clothes, into rivers. Lead, mercury, arsenic, among other chemicals, contaminate and pollute rivers all over the planet, eventually spreading to the seas and leaving devastation behind as aquatic and marine organisms struggle to adapt to the overload of chemicals in their environment. According to Sustain Your Style, an independent platform that aims to understand the pitfalls of fast fashion and source sustainable clothing options, 1.5 trillion litres of water are used every year in the fashion industry without “compromising [our] look”, while a reported 750 million people worldwide do not have access to clean, safe, drinking water.
Source: Unsplash by Becca McHaffie.
It isn’t just water that fast fashion exploits, hoards, pollutes and renders toxic. Fossil fuels like oil are used in obscene amounts to make the fabrics that eventually become our blouses, our skirts, our trousers. Forbes reported that nearly 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make the polyester fibres we need globally, while the clothes made from the fibres may then take up to 200 years to decompose. Oil drilling and extraction often cause irreversible damage to wildlife populations and ecosystems; the associated infrastructure and human activity disrupt their breeding, nesting and migration. Spills of oil that leak into our vast oceans and stain the surface in a glossy puddle are responsible for causing the deaths of millions of seabirds, fish and marine mammals. The news that makes headlines, of the colossal spills the media reports, certainly do not cover the whole story. We are exposed to the short-term, immediate damage, but the long-lasting environmental impacts trail deep beneath the surface of what we know.
The devastation that fast-fashion causes to the environment, is only the tip of the iceberg. Fashion Checker reported that 93% of the brands they surveyed don’t pay their workers a living wage. The clothes that we buy for what we believe are quality prices, are built on the backs of trodden down Black, Brown and Indigenous people in marginalised workplaces, people who are denied fair wages and worker’s rights. Fashion Revolution is a company which has visions of a global fashion industry prioritising the environment and the livelihoods, safety, and fair treatment of garment workers above all else. In their Fashion Transparency Report (2020), they reviewed 250 of the world’s fashion brands on how well they disclose their supply chains, conditions and human rights of workers, and their environmental footprint. It is important to note, however, that transparency does not automatically equal sustainability. But when brands disclose how they operate, how they source materials, and how they treat their workers, they are less likely to be accused of greenwashing, and furthermore, we can hold them accountable, and pressure them for change.
Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing scored 0% for traceability in this most recent report, with Boohoo scoring particularly low in their disclosures, or lack thereof, of human rights issues. This is a pertinent issue from last year. Investigations by The Guardian, documented in an article published in December 2020, highlight the appalling treatment of Pakistani workers who earn often as little as 29p an hour. Dresses are sold on Boohoo’s website, on sale for as little as £6.20, and you may marvel at these cheap prices and wonder how the company can afford to sell clothes in this way. It becomes increasingly clear why, as The Guardian article reveals that workers from two factories in Faisalabad, are paid 10,000PKR each month, instead of the minimum wage for unskilled labour of 17,500PKR. This equates to being paid £47 every month. On average, British families spend £586 per week, according to Nimble Fins, UK financial advisers. Despite this extreme exploitation, garment workers, often Black, Brown and Indigneous people, rely on these dangerous, unsanitary working conditions and 24-hour shifts as their only source of income. It is just another form of environmental racism towards BIPOC, in which companies prey on in order to supply the Western world with goods.
Boohoo suspended supplier JD Fashion Ltd and the factory AH Fashion from the supply chain,after The Guardian’s expose.They later claimed that a third-party audit at AH Fashion in early November found the factory to have no problems. Clearly, the industry runs rife with more transparency issues between companies and auditors, as the auditors claim to have been told by the owner of the factory that it had been closed throughout November, yet workers have disputed this as they reported working at the factory recently. Garments purchased by The Guardian for £30 were traced to AH Fashion, due to the labels and fabrics on the garment being matched to those seen in footage taken at the factory. Squalid conditions provided by factories and intermediary companies supplying Boohoo,are said to have left one worker without running water for multiple days at a time. Both factories involved in this investigation, AH Fashion and Madina Gloves, deny all claims made by workers.
“Boohoo will not tolerate any instance of mistreatment or underpayment of garment workers”, the company said under the pressure of these claims. But this is not the first time that Boohoo has faced claims of worker exploitation. 18 factories in Leicester, UK, were discovered to have poor working conditions and Boohoo had failed to prove they were paying minimum wage to their workers, months before the latest controversy. Audits made by third-parties have evidence of workers in parts of this particular supply chain being paid as little as £3-4 per hour. The unacceptable treatment of workers, many of whom are part of marginalised groups, is a clear example of the exploitation of usually, women and children. Speakers at a virtual panel organised by Shado Magazine, ‘Broken Links in the Supply Chain’, summarised the travesties of this industry perfectly. Ayesha Barenblat, of Remake, a watchdog organisation dedicated to independently ranking the transparency of fashion brands, said “Supply chains are not broken. They are working how they are supposed to, as the fashion industry is built on the exploitation of mainly Black and Brown women.” Further discussion led to the conclusion that this imbalance of power between companies like Boohoo, and their underrepresented workers, is rooted in a history of colonialism.
It is a stark and grave reminder to consumers everywhere, that though their clothes may be cheap, someone, somewhere, in the world, will pay a very high price. Purchasing from transparent and ethical brands where possible, and utilising second-hand supplies of clothing is all too important as we try to generate ‘slow-fashion’.
Maddie Stannard
Maddie is a full-time student, soon headed to university to study Zoology, with a passion for writing, photography and a budding interest in science communications. Her current projects involve working on a blog series ‘Conservation Careers’, interviewing inspiring people in the conservation sector about their careers and lifestyle, documenting this on her personal blog ‘Maddie Stannard Wild’. When not reading, writing or watching too much Downton Abbey, Maddie loves getting out and taking photographs of the wildlife she encounters.