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Indian consumers are getting more sustainability conscious

27
Apr '18

No Nasties founder Apurva Kothari

Indian consumers are getting more conscious in terms of awareness and lifestyle changes, and the trend is very positive, according to Apurva Kothari, founder of No Nasties, the first fashion brand in India to make 100 per cent organic and 100 per cent Fairtrade clothing. Indian citizens are ethically-minded and socially-conscious on the whole.

“There are definitely other countries that have become extremely aware of the social and environmental impact of our lifestyle choices, but most of them are wealthy nations not dealing with as much strife as we do, and I think that has an impact on the consciousness too given there is more mind-space to think about these issues,” said Kothari in a conversation with Subir Ghosh.

According to Kothari, the fashion industry has the attention of the world—"from runway ramps to glossy magazines to every movie and tv show influencing what we wear.” This kind of “power” should be used with great “responsibility”.

The main challenge in the apparel/fashion sector is green-washing. “As the market size for sustainable clothing grows, bigger brands ?are entering it with their own spin of sustainability and really diluting the values while pumping in their marketing dollars to make it sound sustainable. There’s a lot of noise in the space and it’s going to be increasingly difficult for consumers to know the good from the bad,” said Kothari.

At the government level, he suggests that it can make an even-playing field for farmers by offering the same (if not higher) subsidies to organic farming as it does for chemical/conventional farming. It can also make it mandatory to indicate GMO content in food and clothes. It can even make it mandatory for companies to share their supply chain information. Going further, it can ask companies to follow a triple bottom-line, incorporating social and environmental performance along with financial performance. (RKS)

Click here to read the complete interview

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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