by Francesca Rulli

Child exploitation, starvation wages, the denial of human rights… The social issues related to global fashion production are well-known. And yet, too little is being done to resolve these issues at their roots.
That’s not all. Today, we are witnessing troubling environmental phenomena. Let’s look at some of these together to understand why they are an indication that a radical change is urgent especially at the cultural level.

The Atacama desert and its “dunes”

In November 2021, Al Jazeera published Chile’s desert dumping ground for fast fashion leftovers, denouncing the “dunes” of clothing found in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Yes, clothing!
Every year, 59 thousand tons of clothes arrive at the port of Iquique, a city in northern Chile. Some clothes are sold to traders in the capital city Santiago, 1800 km to the South, while many others are smuggled to other Latin American countries. The rest – around 39 thousand tons – are dumped in the desert. Why do they end up in no man’s land? Because no one is willing to pay to take them away.

Africa’s polluted rivers

The pollution of Africa’s waterways is a major and well-documented environmental issue. In August 2021, the charity organization Water Witness International published its report How fair is fashion’s water footprint investigating these problems.
Lesotho’s rivers, for example, are highly polluted with the blue dye used for denim. In Tanzania, water samples collected inside a textile factory indicated a pH of 12, the equivalent of common bleach. And if we consider the fact that this water is used by local communities for food, field irrigation, and hygiene, it’s easy to imagine the kind of damages caused to humans and to the environment.

Amazon deforestation

To understand the fashion industry’s links with deforestation, we need to go to South America, and in particular the Amazon.
According to Stand.earth’s report Nowhere to hide: how the fashion industry is linked to Amazon rainforest destruction, there is a close relationship between the two. A great number of big fashion companies purchase leather from producers and tanneries that are devastating the planet’s lungs. This invasion into the Amazon by the cattle industry is driven by intensive farming practices and the high demand for leather goods, which according to the International Council of Tanners (ICT), is growing.

Beyond the visible

Ecowatch’s article Fast Fashion 101: Everything you need to know demonstrates the disastrous effects of the fashion industry has on our planet that may not be visible to the naked eye. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the sector is responsible for 10% of global CO2 emissions. A significant portion of these emissions are caused by the long journeys clothes currently take from the areas in which they are produced to those where they are sold and eventually disposed.

One issue mostly related to fast fashion is the dying process for cheap fashion products. The toxic mix of chemical substances that is widely used in these processes is, yet again, dispersed into the surrounding environment.

Textile waste: a look at the numbers

According to an article published a couple years ago, textile waste increased by 811% between 1960 and 2015, growing from 1.7 to 16 million tons.
In their 2017 report A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation revealed that the average amount of times that a clothing item was worn before being thrown away has decreased by 36% in the last 15 years. The glaring consequence of this tendency is the exponential increase in waste.

McKinsey’s Style that’s sustainable: a new fast-fashion formula found that clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, with a 60% increase in the number of clothing products acquired per capita. With the speeding up of production cycles and the creation of ever new designs, consumers have infinite possibilities to renew their wardrobe. According to some estimates, cheap fashion appears to be the culprit of much of this wear-and-discard phenomenon as their products are trashed after a maximum of 7-8 uses.

Consumer behaviour

Why people conveniently ‘forget’ that child labor made their jeans is a fascinating article by MarketWatch on the selective memory of consumers who learn of the not-so-sustainable origin of the specific item in which they are interested. According to a Ohio State University study, humans activate two mechanisms when presented with emotionally difficult ethical information. On the one hand, there is a tendency to completely forget the issue. On the other, people erroneously remember these unethical aspects as good and morally right.
And then there’s social media pressure and the continuous onslaught of the latest celebrity trends. The constant bombardment of stimuli on the Internet accelerates the fast fashion cycle, making us feel forever behind and obligated to catch up with the latest trends.

A 2017 survey showed how 41% of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 felt the need to wear different clothes every time they left their home. Why? Because every outfit is scrupulously documented on social media and so wearing a piece of clothing more than once is out of the question. Arguable, of course, but these are the real feelings that young people live with.

Turning the tide

If this is really how people behave, and if it truly is the case that even if we are aware of certain issues, we are incoherent in our purchasing choices, then the current responses are insufficient.
I have recently published a book entitled Fashionisti consapevoli. Vademecum della moda sostenibile (Flaccovio Editore), where I try to organize some of my reflections on these questions for a wide audience. If I have managed to bring even one person over to the cause, this effort will have been worthwhile. The data and evidence that is compiled in this book, part of which you find here, are horrifying, unequivocal, and “scream” the urgency of turning the tide! It is a pity that, at the end of the day, we are continuing to do as we have always done.

We must act on two fronts. First, we need to ensure that increasing numbers of people ask themselves the right questions before buying clothes. Second, companies must work together to develop ways to fully inform the consumer. This means equipping consumers with simple tools to understand the difference between a product that is truly sustainable, which means produced by a sustainable brand with a sustainable supply chain, and a product that is made in violation with ethical standards, as well as social and environmental responsibility.
There are many projects in motion that work on these fronts, among which the 4sustainability system which I discuss in the book. The biggest challenge, however, is upstream, and involves slow cultural shifts, changes in our ways of thinking, and a break with the logics of production and consumption… This will take time, but we know the path.

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How can training support brands and supply chains in implementing a system for the elimination of toxic and harmful chemicals in production? What are, in this sense, the feedback from brands and supply chains?

This has been discussed on September 7^th at the ZDHC Progressing to Zero – Going beyond the foundations of Sustainable Chemical Management event. More specifically, the occasion is the panel moderated by Mariella Noto, Senior Implementation Manager of ZDHC, in which Fabiana Morandi, Environmental Sustainability Supervisor of Benetton Group, and Francesca Rulli, CEO of Process Factory and creator of the 4sustainability framework, have set out, respectively, the positions of the brands and those of a service provider that has always been accompanying the fashion supply chain in the implementation of concrete sustainability projects.

The 4s Chem system

“With our 4s Chem protocol, we’ve been supporting for years brands and supply chains in implementing the ZDHC roadmap,” said Rulli. “Training is a key driver to accompany companies on this jouney naturally aimed to excellence, it is the first step to create knowledge and culture, to encourage collaboration among different functions, to support companies in improving processes.

I’m referring to a set of activities – projects and continuous training – which allow to measure results and progress, improving the transparency of the entire value chain. All corporate responsibilities are involved to obtain increasingly qualifying performance: from product development to purchasing, to supplier and stock management … With 4s Chem – and its total alignment with ZDHC – we want to differentiate ourselves from one-off solutions that don’t make it possible to grow over time“.

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Advantages are also evident for brands and companies in the fashion sector, for which tracing internal processes, monitoring suppliers and involving them in the business model transformation towards sustainability can prove to be crucial.
Choosing traceability, for a brand, means being able to verify the compliance of each stage of production with national regulations and international standards; it means improving one’s reputation, strengthening relations with stakeholders and being more reliable; it means efficiently managing suppliers and reducing the impact of risks from the complexity, fragmentation and dislocation of the production chain.

The barriers to transparency

An implicit element of traceability is transparency, i.e. the choice of making the information on the product and processes available to all the above actors, taking care that they are clear, accessible, understandable and comparable.
The challenge is demanding for several reasons. The first, which we’ve already introduced, consists in the widespread and growing fragmentation and complexity of the production system, made up of plants and operators located in various parts of the world and therefore subject to different rules and standards at regional, national and international level.

Another problem is represented by technological barriers and mainly affects the links in the supply chain that operate in less advanced countries. But the technology necessary for the collection and exchange of data and information costs money, even where it is accessible, even for those who can afford it on paper.
Last, but not least, is the issue of privacy and data security, especially those which are subject to intellectual property protection due their business strategic value.

Fashion Revolution’s votes to brands

What is the state of the art? How do fashion companies behave in terms of transparency and traceability? Every year, Fashion Revolution rates the brands’ efforts in this regard.
The Fashion Transparency Index, in particular, measures them on five dimensions (Policy & Commitments, Governance, Tracciabilità, Audit, Spotlight) and weighs the results to get a total score. Well, this score saw an increase of two percentage points in 2020 compared to the previous year, from 21% to 23%.

The traceability rating

As regards traceability, more specifically, the average score was only 16%, compared to a 52% recorded in terms of company policies and commitments. Read together, the two percentages suggest the existence of a still too marked gap between results and good intentions.
On its own, the low percentage on traceability can be explained by the fact that less than half of the 250 brands interviewed disclose information on companies in their supply chain. Only 40% publish Tier 1 supplier lists and even fewer – just 24% – declare which and how many processing plants include wet processing factories. Only 7% appoint raw material suppliers.

The rating for environmental performance

And now we come to the environment chapter of the Fashion Revolution report. 78% of the brands interviewed publish their own sustainability policies on the use of energy resources and the CO₂ emission reduction. However, only 16% give specific information on greenhouse gas emissions produced along the supply chain.

The same trend is also for the water resource management: 52% of brands highlight their policies for a more informed use of water, which in 42% of cases would also be extended to their suppliers. Only 31%, however, calculate the water impact of their plants and just 14% publish the water footprint annually, also considering the wet processing parts of their supply chain.

As for the waste generated during the production phases, the feedback is disheartening: only 4% – 11 out of 250 brands – disclosed the data and only 3% the volumes of products deliberately destroyed.

From a social standpoint, only 6% of brands declare a supplier payment policy within 60 days. 11% say they guarantee labor costs without price renegotiation and 23% a living wage for supply chain workers.

The Planet Tracker survey

Another recent report is that of the non-profit financial think tank Planet Tracker, which offers some good food for thought on the subject.
The study focuses on the water risk which companies in the fashion supply chain are exposed to  – those with wet processing, in particular – and on how this risk impacts on investors. The most interesting part, in our opinion, is that which concerns the brands, the initiatives they should undertake for a more sustainable management of water resources, which means more oriented to traceability.

Planet Tracker’s report is a real call to action towards brands, which have the economic and communicative power to push the business model transformation towards sustainability.
Brands, you can read, should extend supply chain information beyond Tier 1 suppliers, so that investors, financiers and customers can understand the true scale of the environmental costs and risks associated with manufacturing.
They should take greater responsibility for suppliers, through consistent purchasing behavior and a risk-based due diligence approach throughout the supply chain.
Finally, they should devote part of their substantial financial resources to support supplier investments in new equipment and innovative techniques. At the same retail prices, a 0.5% reduction in the brands’ net operating margin (EBIT) would allow for approximately USD 220 million to be recovered for the supply chain.

What to do: the experts’ voice

The numbers – and the numbers’ interpretations – show a pretty clear picture. First of all, it is evident that we cannot speak of true traceability if we stop at the first link in the supply chain. “We can read the data provided by Fashion Revolution and Planet Tracker, among others, as a good start – says Francesca Rulli, CEO and Founder of Process Factory / 4sustainability® – but there is still a long way to go. Traceability, which is a pillar of sustainability, implies the involvement of the production chain in its whole, through know-how, methodologies and supporting tools.

Available options are still few … This is why we decided to include in our sustainability roadmap an initiative designed specifically for monitoring suppliers and collecting the key information for their evaluation. This initiative is called Trace 4sustainability® and consists of a protocol to measure suppliers level by level and select those with the lowest environmental and social impact. The ultimate goal is to build a rewarding system that distributes the value on the most deserving supply chains, thus communicating to the market the transparency of each choice”.

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SCHEDULED SESSIONS

Waiting for the 2021 complete calendar, there’re three courses already scheduled: in February, the basic course Chemical Management in the Textile Industry, for the first time in English; always in February, the basic course Chemical Management in the Textile Industry, in Italian; in March, always in Italian, the advanced course Top 10 Issues of Chemical Management.

The formula for the three new dates is the one already tested in 2020: unique online sessions spread over three consecutive days, with modules of 2 and a half hours each to make attendance more comfortable and optimize the distance learning experience.

Webinar Chemical Management in the Textile Industry (English)
8-9-10 February 2020

The course is structured to meet the specific features of the Italian supply chain and provides basic knowledge on MRSL and chemical risk assessment, process mapping and communication between the different links in the supply chain, chemical inventory, environmental impact mitigation measures, role of the chemical manager, etc.

Webinar Chemical Management in the Textile Industry (Italian)
23-24-25 February 2020

Same program and purpose of the January session, but in Italian.

Webinar Top 10 Issues of Chemical Management (Italian)
16-17-18 March 2020

The goal of the webinar is to identify possible critical issues in implementing a chemical management system, to define the most suitable solutions to overcome the operational challenges within the organization, to qualify the company management system of chemicals in production.

HOW TO REGISTER?

All the Process Factory branded course provide for a limited number of attendees to offer an optimal training experience. To register for the pre-scheduled sessions, you need to:

1. register on the ZDHC Academy Platform by selecting the course of your interest
2. fill in the form of the chosen session available online in the ZDHC Courses section of the 4sustainability website

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In recent years, this phenomenon has literally exploded, also due to the interest of the market in “objects” that are perceived as credibility passports and indicators of good reputation. In short, a competitive advantage.

The journey to achieve this advantage is by no means trivial, not only because it implies the adoption of behaviors consistent with given environmental, social and economic standards, but because the difficulty for businesses already begins upstream – that is to say understanding which tool, in the jungle of the existing ones, is the most coherent with their own needs.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT ROADS AND WHY TAKE ONE RATHER THAN ANOTHER?

The answer to this question is closely related to the goals that the company establishes for itself as priorities, therefore the first step is to link the tools to the goals in order to choose consciously, act accordingly and prevent any risk of greenwashing.

“Spot initiatives or the green collections that wink at the consumer are welcome, but it is not on this kind of projects that the sustainability of a business can be measured“, explains Francesca Rulli, Founder and CEO of Process Factory / 4sustainability® . “There is no sustainable product, more generally, without a sustainable company: it is the conversion of strategies and processes that generates sustainable products and not the opposite”.

COMPANY CERTIFICATIONS AND ATTESTATIONS

The commitment should therefore apply to both fronts: on the one hand, the implementation of a management and reporting system based on respect for ethics and the environment, on the other, product certification.

Company certifications are based on recognized standards, are issued by accredited bodies and have as their object the management system for which the company wants to offer a guarantee to the market. We cite as examples the ISO 9001 for Quality, the ISO 14001 for the Environment, the ISO 50001 for Energy, the SA 8000 for Social Responsibility.

Company attestations are voluntary statements or statements validated by third parties on sustainability performance identified by the company as priorities for communication purposes and generally built on the basis of standards. The corporate attestation par excellence is the Sustainability Report, which Process Factory produces for instance with reference to the international standard GRI (Global Reporting Initiative).

PRODUCT LABELS, CERTIFICATIONS AND ATTESTATIONS

Let’s start with the labels’ puzzle. Everything we produce, in every phase of its life cycle, contributes to environmental damage to various degree. The Integrated Product Policy (IPP) adopted in 2008 by the European Community aims to reduce just this impact.

Given the multiplicity and heterogeneous nature of the players involved in production, the IPP developed a set of voluntary and mandatory tools that can be used to achieve the goals of environmental reduction and improvement. Environmental Labels as defined by the UNI EN ISO 14020 standard, which specifies the characteristics and requirements necessary to obtain them, are one of these tools.

Environmental labels can be divided into three main categories, each with its own pluses and criticalities.

TYPE 1: UNI EN ISO 14024:2018

Eco Label, Der Blaue Engel, White Swan, Green Seal USA, Eco-Mark Japan are some known examples and belong to the Environmental Labeling for Performance Purpose category. They accompany the product and guarantee compliance with certain threshold limits established by the brand management, providing for verification by third parties. They aim to communicate to the consumer the respect for environmental performance in an absolute way.
In a broad sense, we can also include in this family the certifications / labels related to the raw materials used and the manufacturing processes adopted, including the GOTS and OCS organic certifications, the GRS and RCS recycled product certifications, the FSC certification for the forest protection, the RWS and RMS certifications for sustainable farming.

TYPE 2: UNI EN ISO 14021:2016

An example is the Mobius Cycle used in the recycled content symbol and in the symbol stating recyclability. Defined as Self-Declared Environmental Assertions, they are included in the category of Labels with an Informational Purpose. These labels are produced independently by manufacturers, importers or distributors without the need for third-party certifications. They aim to communicate to consumers the environmental improvement of products.

TYPE 3: UNI EN ISO 14025:2010

JEMAI (Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry) and ECO LEAF belong to this category, as well as the certifications / labels of EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) and PEF (Product Environmental Footprint) type. They are all included in the Environmental Product Declarations for the purpose of Full Evaluation. They show quantitative environmental information on the product life cycle, to allow comparisons between products with the same function calculated through the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). methodology. They’re subject to independent control and can be compared with official reference standards.

Finally, product attestations are voluntary statements or statements validated by third parties highlighting the sustainability content of a product.

ETHICAL CLAIMS

An ethical claim is a slogan adopted by companies to emphasize the characteristics of sustainability – environmental but also social and economic – of their products or initiatives. Producers, importers, distributors can use it without limitations neither territorial nor of application, because in addition to products and services, the ethical claim can also refer to the company to communicate its inclusiveness or non-use of child labor.

Zero kilometer, Cruel free, Handmade, 100% green are some very common examples. It is a pity that these statements are often inaccurate or deceptive: in short, a conscious or not exercise of greenwashing.

In order to reduce these risks, the specific international standard ISO / TS 17033 has been published, which defines principles and rules for clearer, more transparent and verifiable labels. This means that certain messages will no longer be allowed from now on, unless accompanied by evidence of their truthfulness.

“Keeping up to date on existing opportunities and the latest news is not easy even for those who, like us, have been dealing with sustainability”, says Rulli. “There’s no better initiative than the others in terms of effectiveness and transparency, but it’s clear that harmonization and simplification should be our major targets: there’s no clarity in the chaos, while few shared tools would have the advantage of favoring the conversion of many companies thanks to the adoption of the same standard with a greater number of requirements”.

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