Cheap fashion is exploitation - Ethical Clothing Australia

Operating overseas, particularly in developing countries without enforceable fair labour laws is a risky business. Doing it cheap now can mean that you may end up paying the price later on.

Practice what you preach - Aligning CSR values with how you operate

A typical response from retailers who source from overseas is that we ensure our suppliers operate responsibly and within the law. They will often refer to a code of practice that guarantees that workers pay and conditions are respected. However if look closely at some of the companies caught up in the tragedy in Bangladesh tragedy,they were signed up to some of the world’s most respected ethical supply chain codes of practice.

So what went wrong? The simple answer is that they were undermining their own public commitment to the ethical treatment of garment workers by pursuing aggressive purchasing practices that forced their suppliers to cut costs and ultimately the health and safety of garment workers.

The reality is that when a garment producer in a country like Bangladesh is under pressure to process a large and urgent order from their buyer it’soften the ethical code that is abandoned to fulfill the demands of the foreign retailer.

The pressure from foreign retailers to reduce costs and turnaround times just leads to further exploitation as garment workers are forced to work even longer hours or work is simply sub contracted out to factories where often conditions are even worse. Retailers are unaware of where there clothes are being produced and under what conditions. Workers are unable to raise the alarm as trade unions are often suppressed.

The answer is simple and that is practice what you preach. You make sure the way you run your business from design throughout the manufacturing process reinforces your values.

ECA – Creating an ethical path forward

For those designers and retailers who chose to make locally Ethical Clothing Australia (ECA) can assist them to become accredited, ensuring ethical treatment of workers throughout their supply chain.

The accreditation process is built around the mapping of a business’s supply chain. This enables a thorough compliance audit to be undertaken, as it’s often at the end of these supply chains that vulnerable homeworkers are found.

ECA has been very successful in building the number of accredited local brands. Indeed ECA has doubled the number of accredited brands over the past two years. Currently there are more than 80 businesses now accredited from emerging young designers such as So Stella, Spunky Bruiser, Urbanearthwear to well-known brands such as Cue, Jets, Akubra, Nobody, Carla Zampatti and Yakka.