The Observer Ethical Awards, in association with Ecover, are seeking out the initiatives, campaign and people that promote living and acting sustainability. Held annually the awards draw attention to those businesses and projects that make ethical living accessible while also highlighting the younger members in our society determined to make the world a better place for theirs and future generations. There are up to 10 award categories that celebrate all areas of sustainable living including retailer, travel, arts and culture and campaigner to name a few. (For the full list of the award categories visit The Guardian website). There are two categories that particularly caught my attention: Ecover Young Green Champion and the Well Dressed Award.
Ecover Young Green Champion Under 18’s have brilliant ethical ideas and this award is their chance to let everyone know about them. Previous winning ideas have include Fact Fashion that provoke thought through informative slogans on clothing, Savvy BOB Box promotes indigenous wildlife and the entrepreneurial The Recyclists have created a business by recycling for others on their bikes. Ethical and sustainable living is creeping into the curriculum more and more making children very aware of the pressures on our planet. Are you, your children or your pupils engaged in such an ethical project? The awards are offering youngsters a chance of winning £6000 to help fund their project. Not only will the award honour the Young Green Champion, but teachers, parents or Youth Group Leaders also have the chance to be recognised. By offering encouragement and support to their Champions to enter, the nominator could win a three night stay in The Coppice Woodland in Hertfordshire. Kids have fantastic imaginations making their ideas original and we should encourage them as much as possible. This award is certainly one to watch. I am slightly gutted I never got a chance to enter when I was a youngster. Well Dressed Teaming up with the FruGal Challenge this award is looking for someone who lives and breaths sustainable fashion and style. Sustainable fashion can be identified in many ways. Be you a vintage queen, a frequent swisher, an ethical label seeker, a home-made goddess, a made-do-and-mend fairy or a hand-me-down hunter you have the ability to put your ethics before you style yet still turn out the belle of the ball. Good on you.
Simply submit a picture in your favourite outfit along with the story behind it. You could officially be crowned the belle of the ball. Get involved Feeling inspired? The deadline for the Young Green Champion Award is 22 March so get your socks on kids and adults get your encouragement on!
For a splash of inspiration I leave you with the young winners from 2012 while I have a rummage through my wardrobe for my best sustainable outfit.
P.S. Tim Burgess is on the judging panel this year. How cool is that?
I wandered into my manager's office this afternoon to provide some important supplier communication, when my eyes fell up the 6-8 copies of To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing out the World? stacked on her desk. The book, written by The Observer columnist Lucy Siegle, has been on my 'to read' list since its publication last year (I have revisiting my love of literature since completing my MA).
I spurted out my (what I now considered, irrelevant) supplier info and quickly enquired about the tower of books. 'Are you a fast reader?' was her response. Keen to impress, I replied 'I can be, can I read it?'
I walked away from her office with a fresh copy and a skip in my step: free reading. Dickens is now on hold, I'll let you know how I get on.
I’ve been waiting patiently since reading Lucy Siegle’s article in Sunday’s Observer for today. At last it is here: H&M have launched their 'Conscious' collection today, along with their Sustainability Report. I must admit I feel much the same as Siegle (‘Full marks for ambition. But do I buy H&M as an ethical paragon? Not quite yet.) upon reading the article so am happy to investigate. The website welcomes you with beautiful garments and models (if not a little proud with hand on hip and head held high) shot in a make shift jungle; I'm sure to emphasise the new collection’s natural and sustainable credentials. From what I can see the prints on the garments are of plant-life, again I assume to further emphasise this point.
The website identifies the use of the following fabrics: organic cotton, recycled polyester, recycled polyamide, recycled plastic, organic linen, recycled cotton, recycled wool, Tencel® lyocell and organic hemp. All fabrics are described, followed by a list of benefits of use (except hemp, which is a surprise: it’s the fastest growing and most sustainable of them all) as well as links to GOTS and Global Recycling Standards. It’s a shame that H&M have forgotten about the possible energy saving benefits during the use/laundering phase here. Benefits highlighted tend to lean towards production only.
However, the Sustainability Report highlights the use phase, of which they do indicate the high energy consumption during laundering, within it’s map of a product’s lifecycle (pages 6-7). They have reluctantly left out the ‘Disposal’ stage disguising this within the use phase:
We are working to influence how our customers care for their H&M purchases and to promote the recycling of used garments (page 7)
The report is rather long (and so it should be, there’s a lot to cover: hitting 87 pages), so I have only briefly scanned it so far. The bulk of the report briefly highlights H&M’s ‘Conscious Actions’, which are many (and so there should….). They are clearly taking this move towards sustainable and ethical fashion much more seriously that what I originally expected. Below I have listed Actions that particularly caught my eye:
Use only sustainable cotton Develop sustainability index labels for products European standard for environmental product labelling Introduce climate smart washing and care instructions (If anyone knows me, this really excites me – however I was disappointed that they only recommend reducing to 40 degrees.) Sustainability training for designers and buyers Supplier sustainability performance index Integrate sustainability criteria into our order systems Promote energy efficiency in our supply chain Help to lead industry to zero discharge of hazardous chemicals Ban fluorocarbons / Toluene
There is a wealth of information in the report as well as the website, there’s even a page on quality tests (nice to see us tech’s aren’t going unnoticed). However, I do feel this quality page to be a slight oxymoron, does anyone else consider H&M quality to be very poor?
I must say my viewpoint has changed towards H&M becoming the new home of ethical fashion, well at least slightly. They do appear to have covered a large perspective of the supply chain, but are they trying to take on too much at once? Their actions are briefly covered in simple paragraphs. The proof is in the pudding, or organic cotton dress, perhaps the recycled poly dress, but more likely in customer reaction. Is she/he (yes there is menswear) buying it? Let’s wait and see their reaction.
An article by Lucy Siegle in today’s Observer Why fast fashion is slow death for the planet explores the problems of fast fashion: overflowing wardrobes, reduced league times, overworked and underpaid factory workers, stellar fiscal achievements and the fashion consumers lust for more fore less and disregard. I make a point of mentioning this article as there was a particular reference I had not come across before:
Perhaps that mindset explains why a fashion industry commentator watched in horror as she saw one satisfied customer emerge from Primark's flagship Oxford Circus store with six or seven brown paper bags full of clothes. It was raining heavily, and as the young woman proceeded down Oxford Street one of them broke around the handles and folded cotton flopped on to the pavement. Naturally the journalist expected the girl to bend down and collect the clothes, but no. She just walked on. Fashion was apparently so expendable it had turned into litter.
Source www.dedicatedfolloweroffashion.com
On my many trips via Oxford Circus to university or even through Coventry city town centre (my home town with the largest Primark store in the UK when it was built in around 2008) I see a countless number of women, both young and old, carrying at least two large brown paper bags. My reaction is always the same: being overcome with shivers. I feel the same when entering a Primark store, yet combined with a glazed sense of attending a farm or cattle market; clothes strewn across their displays taking the form of a laundry pile, miserable staff shuffling about not even attempting to clean up, escalators that herd you around the store in order to get up or down and customers trailblazing around grabbing, dropping and eventually chucking in those oversized baskets that resemble buckets. On top of this the queues are horrendous, almost robotic and airport like. I repeat the same question to myself when leaving; ‘Do people enjoy this?’ Perhaps this experience is ultimately part of the fashion procedure for many, likened to the frustrating process of separating egg whites in order to produce the ultimate meringue.
Source themorganmclearyblog.wordpress.com
After reading the above paragraph that shiver again possessed my body, however much deeper: I felt sad. A newly brought fashion piece means so little to its owner they are willing to dispose of it before even consuming it. It begs the question: ‘has fashion or clothing in general become superficial?’
Lets not kid ourselves, the fashion industry has always been a little shallow quick to snipe an others in out of date wears, but it always seem to connect to us emotionally. Perhaps with reference to the girl mentioned above we no longer desire or need this emotional connection.
Many sustainable fashion writers and designers discuss the need to maintain and encourage this emotional connection. But are we missing the point before us, perhaps people want fashion that they can consume without a care? Perhaps designers and writers should explore sustainable methods of creating clothing to allow for this change in the consumer.
What are you views? Are both areas of research viable?
