The Higg Index is an apparel and footwear industry self-assessment standard for assessing environmental and social sustainability throughout the supply chain.
The Higg Index 1.0 was released on June 26, 2012.
During the former Soviet Union, Ukraine developed as one of the largest centres of textile industry, representing approximately 50% of the entire SU's textile industry. And even after the SU fell to pieces, the Ukraine for quite some time remained with its manufacturing power. So, what is the status quo today?
What do we know about how garment cost is broken down across the supply chain? This is the first of the two questions for which the most insightful research with fairly hard data has been published by Prof. Doug Miller from Northumbria University in Newcastle.
Already early last year the Swedish Fast Fashion retailer H&M announced the placement of test orders for garments from Ethiopian and Kenyan suppliers. And they're not even the first ones: Retailers such as Tesco and Walmart seem to have gone down that lane already some time ago.
As part of a workshop given at the Textile Exchange 2013 conference, we ran a small survey among workshop participants in order to find out more about their perception of and experience with Scenario Planning. Here the survey results.
At Shirahime, we have worked quite extensively over the last few months on the development of fashion industry scenarios beyond the 2020 time frame, going as far as 2045.
We mentioned for example Shell as one that used this approach to suit their own goals.
Siemens' 'Future Life' video, as presented the The Crystal in London.
A much more interesting approach, and very insightful in terms of methodology, but also how tangible the results are presented, is Siemens’ work on Future Cities
Supply chains, as a discipline of expertise, have come out of the hiding and recognise their role in reducing corporate risk. This is notably and specifically the case in fashion and textiles. At the same time, 'design' - not just in the creation room, but in all facets where it impacts the making, delivery and use of a product or service, is increasingly recognised as relevant.
Mid last year, an interesting campaign piece was delivered to my mailbox: London based Offset Warehouse launched a capsule collection of T-shirts retailing at £4.99 (app. Euro 6, plus P&P). Now, the point is, that even if these T-shirt were sold through a major retailer, they would hardly have retailed at more than £10 - and this at a vastly superior quality then is often case.
The wages discussion is far from over. Not 'just' when it comes to the slightly out-of-range bonuses some people in the finance industry, together with a number of high-level executives of other industries, earn. But rather globally, even in 'developed' Western markets. This applies to 'fair wages' for physically handicapped people e.g. the blind, and crosses over to living and minimum wage discussions in the countries such as the UK, the US, or Spain (white collar precariate). The fashion industry would have a lot to tell also in this context.
Traceability can be implemented at three different levels of stringency. Which level is implemented typically depends on the exact needs (technical, quality), legal and customer requirements – and last but not least also on the budget available.
The RAGS Challenge Fund ran from 2010 to 2013, and was funded by UK aid from the Department for International Development (DFID).
“Working Together for a Responsible Ready-Made Garment Sector” is the final report of the RAGS Challenge Fund. The report is intended to be a vehicle for sharing the lessons learned during the life of RAGS for a number of audiences, such as government entities, NGOs, trade union
n early April this year we released a report that consolidated 60 studies, from the time period 2005 to early 2013, on the behaviour, attitudes, shopping criteria of the ‘better consumer’. Over the summer, two of the source reports used for our evaluation have been updated, expanded and released in their 2013 edition with further relevant details.
On November 12 and 13, 2013 the yearly Textile Exchange conference took place in Istanbul, Turkey.
I was invited to run a workshop on Scenario Work as one of the 'Strategy' break out session on the first day. The workshop was fully booked with 25 highly interested and active participants. In 90 challenging minutes they experienced a compressed version of a Scenario Planning workshop.
Launched at the end of 2006, the Global Social Compliance Programme is a business-driven programme, and aims for continuous improvement of working and environmental conditions in global supply chains.
For retail, Brazil is the ‘next hot’ place to go to.
For a variety of reasons: For one, the country’s economy has been for a long time up and raising. Brazil is one of the 4 BRIC countries – the 4 most dominant raising economies, and ranks forth among them. Its retail sector is expected to boom tremendously over the next few years owing largely to the two major global sport events – the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Rio 2016 Summer Olympics that will take place in the country.
Detox has been a repeat topic on this blog. Most recently after my visit in May to Performance Days, but also previously.
While slowly but surely more and more brands (17 at the time of writing) – and retailers – have signed a Detox Solution Commitment with Greenpeace, and hence work in some way or other with ZHDC (Road map to Zero), a key threshold was passed event most recently: With the Italian fabric mill Canepa, the first manufacturer has taken the pledge.
n this post, I’ll be looking at the CSC Responsible Source standard, which aims very clearly at the issue of (un)ethical, (in)transparent supply chains. The standard exists for 2 very specific area of expertise: precious gems and metals; and man-made fibres and textiles.
The fashion industry, nearly like no other, has gone through dramatic changes in the last 20, 30 years. Indeed it finds itself in the present at a crossroad. Resource scarcity is triggering shifts in business models and supply-chains; waste is the new resource; customers are the sales channel of the future; and legislation is becoming ever more stringent. The fact though is: if looking back at predictions of the 1950 and 1960, or even earlier (physical artefacts not considered), the reality we live in compares best to the predictions that were considered ‘totally crazy’ in their time.
On September 12 to 14, I attended the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN) yearly conference in Lille, France. The theme of this year’s edition was ‘License to Operate’.
I and my colleague Ilaria Pasquinelli, both presented a research paper, focused on sustainability and value generation in the fashion industry, and the status quo of knowledge on sustainable consumption habits respectively.
I had the chance to speak at the Green Business conference last week in Istanbul about future market scenarios for the fashion industry. The conference is an event of the Sustainability Academy in Turkey.
Key highlights from the event
