Minimum wage, living wage. Fair pay keeps being an issue in Europe & US. Whether illegal immigrants or recent graduates - increasingly even a humble life style is difficult to achieve.
Since the moment that Burma's opposition Leader, Aung San Suu Ky, was released from her decade of house arrest it was clear: Nothing would remain the same.
Sahel 2010 is a déjà-vu of the year 1984: Again a food crisis is just around the corner. Sebastião Salgado pictures show the horror of this reality - hauntingly beautiful.
'Clean clothes' is THE German eco fashion book, already published in 2009. It is pragmatic yet radical, with plenty of hands on tips and explanation you need to understand how and why to change your wardrobe.
Computer Science and Sustainability/ESG: these two areas of expertise combine increasingly well with every passing month and year. In fact, I am tempted to say that the two worlds of sustainability and digitalisation are surprisingly similar to one another. In a number of ways – not in all, of course! – they overlap more than they differ. And mutually benefit each other.
Both areas represent critical skill-sets for boards and senior executives in the current and upcoming decades. This is why I thought I’d take the time to reflect on the overlaps, the synergies, but no doubt also the differences.
The key words: systems thinking, automatisation, fraud prevention and authentication, business model distruption, usability, and the Just Transition.
The issue of wages in the fashion supply chain is a never ending story: the paid wages, the unpaid wages, those that suffice, or not, for a livelihood. tackles this issue in a very thorough, and at the same time visionary way by laying out a practical frame work for a Fair Wages
Part I of III. The jewelry industry is in many ways a messy one, marked by ecological degradation, disruption of social and economic order, child labour, even slavery and murder.
Sustainability practitioners tend grow a fairly thick skin over time with regards to how their work is valued. Chances are that if you move in a field of expertise that marginally relates to CSR that you'll a surprising selection of comments, that display a lack of recognition.
On November 8th, 8pm, UK's Channel4 emitted a documentary on sweatshop labour factories that work for fashion retailers such as TopShop and NewLook. What was it all about?
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.
Minimum wage, living wage. Many are the approaches to guarantee fair remuneration for work. In 2010, Bangladesh textile workers have been rioting for fair pay. What's it all about?
On February 9th 2011, the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation successfully launched the Fairtrade Gold Standard. The UK is the first market where FT gold is available.
Parents complain about the prices of school uniforms. Yet - are they also considering that too cheap a price may actually ... get them school uniforms for their children, made by children of that same age?
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
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.
The book explains key factors in doing successful business with the poor, profitably as well as with a positive social impact. Numerous case studies show the how-to.
"People respond to incentives". Book review of an excellent introduction to the mechanisms and macro-economics behind development and global aid giving.
Let’s put the conclusion at the beginning: This book is a must read, for those that intend to ‘go into luxury’, fashion, or any other creative industry. But also for all those that are of the opinion that the ‘Gig Economy’ only came into being with companies like Uber, AirBnb, Just Eat and the like. In fact, luxury – and linked to it – the creative arts have been pioneering the Gig Business Model for many decades already.
How expensive is fair labour really? This article summarises research data to answer these questions. In short: fair labour could be had for cheap.
The developments in the British Midlands of the industrial revolution have coined the textiles industry possibly like no other.
It was is this area that we find the roots to the modern textile industry, including case studies that (nearly) could be dated from our modern times. From archives and historical records the industrial revolution left behind in the area, we can gain many an insight that will trigger a simple ‘déjà-vu’ when taking note of news about textile factories from the Far East that with regularity hit our headlines.
