5 The environment
Clothing commonly travels thousands of miles before reaching its destination, racking up CO2 emissions in the process. Then there’s packaging, plastic bags and energy costs involved once the clothes are in store, plus landfill space and pollution once you throw your clothes out. Clothing made from synthetic fabrics will not decompose in a landfill, while any chemicals used as part of the garment process can leach into surrounding soil.
Best: Marks & Spencer
Hard to verify as most stores could not give us comparable breakdowns of CO2 targets or cuts, but Marks & Spencer should receive a gold star for effort. In a pioneering move, it recently unveiled an ambitious, £200 million ‘eco-plan’ to become carbon neutral over the next five years. If it succeeds, M&S will become the first to counteract its entire carbon emissions. New Look also fairs well – using green (renewable) energy for all stores and head office, which produces 30 per cent less CO2 than brown (non-renewable) energy.
Feature continues
Worst: supermarkets
Most stores hype up their green credentials, while at the same time pushing ahead with plans for rapid expansion. Friends of the Earth (FoE) provided us with a case study for Tesco – it could apply to any of the stores, but Tesco is also the fastest-growing supermarket in the UK. Tesco says that it aims to halve its energy use by 2010 (in 2005/6, it emitted 1.75 million tonnes of carbon dioxide), but according to FoE: ‘Tesco is misleading with claims it would halve energy use by 2010. FoE has calculated that energy-use resulting from Tesco’s expansion is likely to outweigh its proposed energy-saving measures.’
Tesco, however, established a £100 million fund for environmentally sustainable energy and says: ‘Average energy consumption per store will continue to fall through a combination of smarter working practices and improvements in technology. Not only that, we will continue to introduce renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power to reduce our dependence on conventional power.’
For more infomation and practical advice ETI
The goal of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) is to ensure that the working conditions of workers producing for the UK market meet or exceed international labour standards.
www.ethicaltrade.org
Labour Behind the Label
LBL campaign for better working conditions for garment workers. www.labourbehindthelabel.org
3 comments
I totally agree. There are some really good fairtrade websites out there that should be getting the publicity not the big stores who seem to be just greenwashing. www.boudalu.com and www.fairandfabulous.co.uk are good examples of boutiques selling fair trade products that are original. Boudalu is not for profit. I doubt Philip Green is giving his profits back to the people in developing countries who are harvesting the cotton and sewing the clothes for Topshop!
I would like to see more ethical and fair trade companies promoting their products. They need big magazines and newspapers behind them to get exposure!!! The number of wonderful gorgeous fair trade gifts that I have bought online and the poor companies are so small they get next to no recognition. For example, www.bobelle.co.uk, www.fairtradeboutique and www.ethicsgirls.co.uk are all fantastic sites that really care. They just need that bit of exposure in magazines or newspapers to get their name out to the masses!! Topshop, M&S, Hennes etc do not need such huge publicity and they also just have one item that is fair trade/ethical. What about all their other items?! Let's support the local and small businesses who work hard and deserve our money and custom.
For more info on cotton and the human rights and environmental abuses that are linked to its production check out the Cotton Campaign being run by EJF - you can take online actions to high street retailers and ask them to sort it out! www.ejfoundation.org