New Look

New Look have beaten me to the punch with punny titles! 'A New Look at our ethics' is a subheading to their ethical brochure (click here to read), which is worth a mosey over. New Look are a member of the ETI (ethical trading institute) and state their objective is to 'be fair and ethical in the way we trade: to our customers, suppliers and the people who make our products'. The brochure is a fairly encouraging read, New Look state how many countries they manufacture goods in, how many factories they use, and in what countries the main production is in. The issues found from audits are published, including what improvements have been made, and how they are tackling the tougher issues that have not shown so much improvement. It's great to see a retailer publishing this kind of information, however i still had some questions, particularly over how their audit process was carried out, and if they encourage trade unions to be set up in factories they use.

 New look state that they carried out 16 audits working with Impactt, backed up by 184 standard audits. They explained this by saying that the 184 standard audits are the regular type of audits carried out by large commercial audit companies, but that New Look were 'sceptical of the ability of bulk auditing using large commercial audit companies to diagnose problems and tackle the root causes of problems in factories'. So they then carry out other audits (16  in this case) with Impactt and local partners to that carry out the same process, but focus on the views of the workers. They say this gives them a great understanding of what the issues are for the workers themselves, they talk to workers at homes and outside the factory to limit the risk of the worker feeling intimidated to answer honestly in the factory, and in China have used ex-workers to carry out the interviews. 

 However the brochure also stated that New Look use 1016 factories, and the audits have covered about 10% of these. New Look say that all factories must sign up to their code of conduct, and that their is infrastructure set up for New Look sites to share audit reports with New Look.

 It seems as though New Look is doing some good stuff with audits, they appear to be being honest about problems they find, and their methods do appear to be having improvements. However the fact that only 10% of factories are audited is a concern, and is an area I'd hope to see New Look expand on in the future.

 The brochure was quiet on the area of trade unions. Trade unions help to give power to the workers, and give them a voice to talk about their problems. New Look recognised that penetration of trade unions in the garment industry was low, but said that they have actively supported factories that do have trade unions, and encouraging factories to join up to programmes such as Better Factories Cambodia (programme of the International Labour Organization). 

 For factories that do not have trade union, New Look say they prioritise the rollout of their worker committee model, but admit this is not ideal. I'm still trying to find out exactly what this means!  However it is part of the 'Benefits for Business and Workers' project that other retailers such as Arcadia, Marks and Spencers, Mothercare, Tesco and Sainsburys have joined. BBW will roll out the methodology to 110 factories supplying retailer participants in India and Bangladesh, reaching an estimated 83,000 workers by February 2013.

So New Look do appear to be making steps in the right direction, which is great to see! Looks like i'm going to have to do some more reading up on Impactt, and the 'Benefits for Business and Workers' project however!

The 'Next' best thing?

Long time, no blog! In fact, no blog for the entire month of December, the Christmas effect! Despite my belief that new year resolutions don't actually work, I've set myself one - To sit down at least once a week and write a blog, email a shop, or read articles about clothes production. Let's hope I can prove myself wrong!



So on to the next shop I've been emailing, Next. Every year they publish their 'Corporate Responsibility Report', which makes for a fairly encouraging read. It talks about the importance of ethical trading, the minimum requirements their factories must have, the fact that auditing is done by Next themselves and not a third party, and the progress they are currently making. Next say they are working on understanding 'country specific issues' suppliers are facing, and working to help develop local communities, and workers conditions. They have launched 'project autopilot', which they hope will deliver sustainable work place improvements, and eventually replace the need to audit factories. The idea behind the project being increased responsibility to the employers and employees of the factories, with improved communication channels.

'A supportive and committed management is vital to the potential success and long term sustainability of this project, and this has been a key factor in the selection of the suppliers we want to partner with in this programme.' (Next Corporate Responsibility Report 2011).

I still had a few questions about how their auditing process actually worked, what effects 'Project Autopilot' would actually have on workers wages, and just how far Next was willing to go to improve conditions for their workers. Usually when i send these emails i get either ignored, very short replies that don't mean anything, or just copied and pasted pre-written waffle. I couldn't believe it when I saw the length of the reply I received back from Next's 'Code of Practice Manager'.
I was told that Next audit factories every 6 months to 2 years, and that if a complaint is made about that factory they revisit the factory and offer support to bring the factory up to at least the minimum standards, and that they only disengage with suppliers if all avenues for achieving change have been explored.
They say 'Project Autopilot' will help achieve living wages for workers, but that the success of living wage campaigns is also dependent on governments, NGO's (Non-governmental Organisations) and trade unions. Referring to the problem that simply paying a factory more does not guarantee that the workers will actually see that money!
Although Next do not have any fair trade products they said they do support the principle (paying a fair price for a product) and want their brand to be a 'force for good'. They also pointed to work they do such as 'Soul of Africa' where they support women affected by HIV/AIDS to help them develop sewing and business skills.

I replied again asking questions such as how is Next supporting the groups they mentioned who are influential in the success of a living wage, and why they are not more public about things such as 'Project Autopilot'.
The reply I received to this was much more brief, offering me a phone conversation, or a face to face meeting where we could discuss things further! So i should be off to London before too long to meet Next's 'Code of Practice Manager' (lets hope its not some big conspiracy to knock me off!)

So while i may not be shopping at Republic anymore, I did venture in to the ever so slightly scary world of the Next January sale...I bought a hat!

Where can i buy fair?

Hello again!

As well as looking at high street retailers, the blog is also going to focus on where fair trade clothes are available, both online and in store. Lets start with a few online ones!

Spunky

Spunky is a site that specialise in t-shirts and hoodys, with some pretty cool designs from various different designers. Every product they make now is fair trade and uses organic cotton, what more could you want!

The sale section is well worth a look too, with old designs being sold off cheap. Some of the sale items may not be fair trade, but as all future products made by Spunky will be fair trade, your money is still going to a fair trade company!



People Tree

Best known for the work that Emma Watson has done with them, people tree is probably in the higher end of fashion (that's me trying to say its often a bit pricey!). However all there clothes are fair trade, and the goody bags may well be worth a look. £35 for an assortment of 4 items that are guaranteed to have a value of over £100. What you get is random and it is non-refundable, so it's a bit of a lucky dip, but you can send the whole lot back for an exchange if its not to your liking.Bibico

This one for the ladies, not my strongest area of expertise (ladies clothes that is, not ladies……ok probably ladies as well…). Apparently they have some nice dresses? All i know is that it's fair trade, so i like it!

There's more ethical clothes shops to come, and Next are the, well, next shop to be featured in a blog so keep coming back! But for now, go forth and shop ethically blogies (is that a word…?!)!

What's in a name?

Hello blog readers!

Lets get this properly started! Republic have been the lucky recipients of my first set of emails. Well, actually, to be completely honest I emailed them back in January as i first started to get the idea for this (and the blog only took 10 months to follow!). Those of you that know me will know that i'm not the biggest fan of shopping, i'll wear clothes until they are literally falling apart, i recently had to stop wearing a pair of shorts when the 5th hole emerged in them, they've still not quite made it to the bin yet…

I do, however, have a brilliant technique for shopping, you motivate yourself for one day per year, and you complete all your shopping in this one day! This one day came last January, and so i made plans to hit Southampton hard! However I couldn't forget the story of Shima I mentioned in the blog last time, and the knowledge that that was just one persons story, but there were many many more! I knew i'd probably regret what i was about to start, but i headed over to the internet, googled my favourite shops, and started to read their 'ethical policies', and started to question the retailers on what they've written. I was about to base the blog on these early emails and then expand on them with other shops, but I've decided to re-email places again, in the hope that they have more to tell from the last 10 months!

Before i get into what sort of replies i got, I feel I should say that i never expected shops to really tell me open answers about all their practices, but I think that something in how they answer these questions will shed some light on how important these issues are to them, and how hard their working to improve their practices.

The ethical policy on Republic's website is pretty brief, and so there were a few things i hoped they could expand on for me. One of my issues was with the fact that Republic state factories they use pay workers at least the minimum wage, or a wage that meets the local industry standards, whichever is higher. The problem is, often the minimum wage is actually not set at a place that allows workers to meet basic needs, such as food, healthcare, education and accommodation. And a wage set at 'local industry standards' is a very vague term, which again does not guarantee workers can meet basic needs. Republic claim also to meet all applicable laws in the countries they have factories, but again meeting the laws of these countries does not guarantee workers good conditions. They do however help countries attract big business' to open factories in their country!
Republic is also not part of the ETI (Ethical Trading Institute - I'll look at this another time), they claim that there code of conduct is based on the ETI however. The ETI have their own set of policies that retailers that are members must abide by, such as workers being paid a living wage, a wage set above the minimum wage that is designed to allow workers to cover their basic needs.
I questioned republic on these issues, as well as asking how many factories they use pay workers over the minimum wage, how do republic decide what factories to use, how often the factories are visited and inspected by republic, what countries they have factories in, and why they were not a member of the ETI.

What did they say?
- They are confident they can support their aims without joining the ETI. Although gave no reason why they would/have not joined them.
- They said they have long standing relationships with their 'third party suppliers' and maintain 'regular' contact with them. Without specifying what regular meant.

However the most worrying thing for me was this;

'While we would discuss working practises we appreciate that our expertise is in retailing and not manufacture and would not be able to answer your specific questions.'

If, as the supplier, you don't know the answer to these questions than something is going wrong somewhere! I don't want to buy from a company that don't know enough about where their products came from.

Sorry to go down this age-old christian route of using dictionary definitions of words, but the fact that the shop chose the name Republic intrigued me.

'Republic - a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.'

Ironic how the power in a republic rests in the body of citizens, and yet Republic seem to be unable to answer specific questions about their workers, or even seem to see it as that much of a priority.

A few more emails have been sent, but the only additional piece of information i got from them was that one of their shirts is made in China…..great!

Hello!

Hello world of blogging!

I guess i should start by introducing myself… My name's James, i'm 20 (all too soon to become 21) and i'm a student. Oh yeah, and i love Jesus.

Other the past couple of years I've become increasingly uncomfortable about the injustices in the world (well doesn't that sound very Miss World!). Why should people across the world be forced to take jobs for payment below what they can actually live off, in appalling working conditions, giving up any opportunities to enter education, just so that i can have that morning cuppa and that hoody I want? My reaction a couple of years ago would have been 'well of course i don't want to do that, but that doesn't actually happen right…' wrong!

Last year i read a book called 'Lift the label' written by Esther Stansfield and David Westlake (or as he's known by my friends, the vom man!). It literally (well ok not actually literally….) blew my mind! One of the stories that most stuck with me was that of Shima. Forced to leave school at 14 because her family could not afford to support her education, she found work in a clothes factory. The fans to cool the workers are broken, the rubbish piles up on the window ledges, there is no fire equipment. Her job is stitch buttons on to jeans and jackets, and many of the clothes she helps make end up in UK stores. After three years at the factory, working 8am to 8/9pm, 6 days a week, she earns a grand total of £4.40 a week. Half the amount she would need just to afford basic essentials such as nutritious food and adequate healthcare and accommodation. After work she returns to her slum in Dhaka in a dangerous area, and sleeps until time for work the next day. The slums have no proper toilet facility, piles of rubbish and open sewers stagnate close to where children play. In a single month, thirty-one female garment workers were raped as they walked from their factory shifts to their home in the slums.

Since then I've tried to think more about my decisions, and realise that my actions are important. Ok, so I'm not naive enough to think change can come over night by us all buying fair trade coffee, there are other complex issues here. But for me its about two things, firstly what do i feel comfortable with? I want to make informed decisions on where i shop, and decide if it's somewhere i want to be supporting or not. Secondly, i believe in a powerful god, who loves justice! I do believe changing my lifestyle can start to change the lives of some of the poorest around the world for the better.

This blog will follow my journey as I ask shops about how there products are made, find out where i can get fair trade items, and further explore the issues that keep so many in the world in poverty.

Lets get started!