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  • Ethical shopping in London

  • By Rebecca Taylor. Additional research Hannah Kane

    Posted: Tue Apr 10 2007

  • Major fashion chains are only interested in profit, right? Increasingly, clothing-industry heavyweights are claiming to reduce carbon emissions, banning harmful chemicals, ethically trading goods and ensuring factory workers are treated fairly. But are the corporations' claims bona fide? Time Out sorts the saints from the sinners

    Ethical shopping in London

    Ethics on the line: the high street's cleanest and greenest


  • At the launch of its Fairtrade initiative last year, Topshop filled its entire Oxford Circus flagship store’s window display with models wearing Fairtrade dresses; Marks and Spencer’s ‘Look Behind the Label’ campaign is plugged on billboards and TV; and barely a day goes by without another high-street fashion chain announcing its latest organic babywear initiative. For years, campaigners have been pushing fashion stores to ensure that they adopt policies on the environment, animal rights and workers’ rights in their company code of conduct. Now the stores are finally realising that ethical shopping can mean big business. Feature continues

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    But behind the glossy ads and high-profile launches, how ethical is your favourite high-street shop? We compared the biggest high-street chains on five key criteria to see who deserves applause and who must try harder.'

    1 Ethical trading and employee welfare

    2 Fairtrade

    3 Organic cotton

    4 Chemicals

    5 The environment

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3 comments

  1. Posted by Sarah on 12 Jan 2009 14:45

    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!

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  2. Posted by Rebecca on 12 May 2008 10:02

    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.

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  3. Posted by Rissy on 13 Apr 2007 11:05

    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

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