FASHION and LANDFILL

The leading Israeli fashion company, comme il faut, never ceases to astound with the use of contrasts and creative initiatives, combining fashion with all sorts of subjects that one would not normally associate with an industry notorious for skewing our perceptions of beauty and for driving frenzied consumerism in the name of keeping up with the trends. comme il faut is no stranger to provocation. Usually, this is directed at raising awareness of difficult issues in our society, social or environmental, as part of the company's deeply embedded values and social responsibility. This was recognised by Ethisphere who counted comme il faut as one of the world's most ethical companies this year.

Over the years, through its fashion campaigns,  the company has addressed head-on many feminist issues, blowing away myths that prevail in our society and denigrate the position of women, such as how women eat, how women dress, the "invisible"work that women do in the home and more. Way back in 2004, the company made BBC and CNN headlines when it staged a photo shoot at the controversial Israel-Palestine separation wall in an attempt to raise awareness of this painful issue. In 2009, the company ran a campaign supporting women who are trapped in prostitution, requesting customers to bring in old bras for use in an artistic exhibition, whilst making a contribution to support rehabilitated prostitutes make a new life for themselves.

Environment-wise, the company is slow-fashion to the core, low-carbon and an ultra-recycler, and almost nothing is not reused in comme il faut. Even the carry-bags for customer purchases are rejected bags from a cement company that would otherwise go to landfill.

But what prompted this post is the new collection fashion show which was held last week on the site of Tel Aviv's massive eye-sore landfill dump which has now been converted into an Industrial Recycling park. The choice of this site was no coincidence, of course, attempting to drive home once again the role of responsible fashion in our society, and the need for eco-consciousness. The contrast of beautiful designs against the backdrop of the biggest dump in the Israeli metropolis was something that no-one could miss comtemplating upon!

Some photos:

Kudos to this wonderful company who never fails to embrace responsible and sustainable practices as part of its core brand.

(Disclosure: :) We consult to comme il faut, have witten their first CSR report, ethics code and more,  and have been involved in the ideas behind many of the Company's social campaigns over the last few years. We introduced comme il faut to the Tel Aviv dump! and we are glad (and proud) that the event was a resounding, and not too smelly,  succcess!)


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz/en  (BeyondBusiness,  CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Thank you, H&M!

How do you learn ? You make mistakes. This is the lesson Swedish global fashion retailer H&M learnt this last week in New York, when an insightful and bold young lady Cynthia Magnus, a name H&M wont forget for a long time, found discarded bags of unwanted clothes outside H&M's store on 34th Street, New York. Clothes in the bags had been intentionally damaged to prevent re-use - gloves, socks, jackets, shirts - clothes which needy families could derive great benefit from. The story was first  reported by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times on Jan 5th, and did not omit to make reference to H&M's statements of commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility. Within hours, cyberspace was buzzing with anger, indignation, scorn, incredulity, cries for boycott, accusations of irresponsibility, analyses, commentaries, tweets and diggs and facebook posts. By Jan 6, Twitter was the number 2 trending topic. And H&M published their response.

A search for "H&M destroying clothes" on Google now brings up over 70,000 references. Actually, bags of discarded Walmart clothes were found too but H&M have born the brunt of the outrage.  All major news publishers took up this story. And it seems like everyone had something to say. Here are some more mentions from a variety of sources. 

Jan 6, a blog post from DemocraticUnderground.com ... followed by several responses
Jan 6, from NowPublic.com - on the full story
Jan 6, from Jim Dwyer again on the NYT blog - with a follow up and H&M response
Jan7, from the Huffinton Post - with pages and pages of reactions
Jan 7, from the Telegraph.co.uk - on the "storm of protest"
Jan 7, a blog post by WalletPop - retweeted 121 times
Jan 8, from the Mother Nature Network - on H&M's declared intention to donate clothes in future
Jan 9, post from the Party for Socialism and Liberalism - called "capitalism values profits not people's needs"  
Jan 10, from Shine on Yahoo - a summary and review of the story
and, funnily enough, a great analysis from the insightful Maya Forstater on how H&M should have responded popped up on my Tweetdeck screen as I write this very post.

H&M has actually come a long way in CSR. They have produced an annual CSR report since 2002, the last one being published in April 2009 covering 2008's activities. I actually reviewed this last report on CorporateRegister.com . All H&M's reports are downloadable from their website, as is their Code of Conduct in 25 languages and a range of other responsibility related materials.  The Company has made significant progress in developing sustainability strategy and was one of the first to speak out against Uzbekistan's forced labor and child labor in the cotton picking fields (though I must say that their position is a little ambivalent - "avoid Uzbekistan cotton in their products" rather than definitively banning it. The CSR Manager of H&M, Ingrid Shullstrom, maintains a blog on the H&M CSR home page. As chance would have it, she writes on 29th December, just a few days before H&M hit the headlines, that she will not be posting during January and February 2010 due to extended leave and "should something exceptional happen in the field of CSR during my absence, one of my colleagues might post an update in this column". What impeccable timing. So far, colleagues havent posted an update, but the headline "H&M donates clothes to charity" does appear in bold on the same page. Coincidental, or similar impeccable timing? 

Anyway, I wanted to draw attention to a few things:

Folks, it can happen to the best of us... embedding CSR in all levels of the business is a fantastic challenge (see former post about Deutsche Telekom) , and with the best will in the world, someone goofs. No excuse. You have to embed harder. H&M have learnt THIS lesson, now, I bet. 

In one of the articles I read on the subject, H&M is now rapidly scrambling to update all their policies and procedures relating to discarding and donation of old clothes. I suspect, so are all of the the retailers that have heard this story. Better late than never, right?

And of course, the power of the social media, and especially Twitter, to act as a catalyst for such a story. This vindicates my previous comment that Twitter has done more for CSR than some of the great thought leaders. Just by getting it out there, just by providing a platform for so many people to have their say, no corporation in today's world can expect to get away without responsibility, accountability and transparency. Either you proactively manage it, or, as H&M found out in this instance, it manages you. When you are on extended leave.


Should heads roll at H&M? No
Should we believe that H&M are an irresponsible retailer ? No
Should we boycott H&M ? No
Should we be outraged at this incident of destruction? Yes
Should we accept H&M's apology and give them time-out to revise their practices ? Yes
Should we be keep a close eye on H&M in the future ? Yes
Should we expect to see this incident reported in H&M's next CSR report for 2009, due out in a few months? YES

And as with everything, good emerges from bad. I suspect that every single fashion retailer will have learnt from this incident, and H&M top of the list. 

So thank you H&M, for your mistake , we have all learnt something. And I suspect that the world will be a (slightly) better place as a result.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm based in Israel. Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en  

Ethical Fashion - Who cares ?

Today I lectured to 4th and final year Design students at the Fashion Design faculty of the prestigious Shenkar Design College in Tel Aviv. My objective was to create awareness of the important impact of fashion designers on social responsibility and sustainability, and to encourage these young budding designers to exercise social and environmental responsibility as they start to practise their new profession. Some of these students will be individualists, creating and selling their own innovative designs. Many will go on to work as designers in Companies who retail their fashion in Israel and perhaps world-wide. Some may even become world famous designers to the celebs, attaining a position of influence far greater than a modest, well, sort of modest, consultant like myself can do.  This was the only exposure of students to sustainability thinking as part of their four year course, something I am hoping will change as the importance of fashion design with a sustainability mindset becomes more compelling. My presentation, entitled Ethical Fashion, Who cares? I regret, is only in Hebrew at present, so I will take you through a  brief summary of my key points here:  

The fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, employing over a million people and touching the llives of each and everyone of us on the planet, at all stages and phases of our development. Who cares about sustainability, CSR and ethics in the fashion industry?  No-one declares that they want to destroy the planet's natural resources, wear sweatshop shirts at the expense of the most basic human rights of children in the Far East, or make the hole in the ozone layer bigger. No-one says they want to impoverish communities through exploitation or perpetuate a fast fashion consumer culture which results in tons of unwanted clothes sent to landfill each day. So maybe everyone cares. But caring is not enough. We  know that people care only when we see them take action in line with what they care about. In the fashion industry, we can start with three core groups who influence fashion, and ask ourselves what they really care about:

• Designers - to what extent do ethical, social and environmental considerations form an early part of the design phase?
• Retailers - to what extent do similar considerations dictate retail policies and practices ?
• Consumers - to what extent do consumers vote with their feet, or more accurately, their purchasing choices?

There are many positive examples in all three categories of fashion industry stakeholders such as these, though, overall, the fashion industry is still a perpetuation of unsustainability, especially in Israel where 90% of fashion is imported and little is disclosed about supply chain processes by almost all the leading retailers.

The result of everything that designers and retailers do ends up somewhere as a consumer choice. So I then took the students through a brief review of the things that impact consumer choice, beyond the pure design elements of a specific garment. I focused on three broad areas: 

• Materials - fabrics, yarns, adhesives, dyes, and all forms of accessories - what environmentally friendly and ethically favourable choices are available to the fashion designer ?
• Production processess and supply chain - sourcing, outsourcing, transportation, sales, fair trade - what influence does the designer have on manufacturing complexity and waste levels, for example ?
• Garment care - what the consumer does after purchasing a garment, which makes up a significant element of the garment's total life-cycle impact, often greater than the impact of producing the garment.

I then  I ran through a reasonably exhaustive list of issues for consideration by designers including  fabric traceability, organics, garment life-cycle, labelling,  issues related to body image, use of pesticides, models and modelling practices, technology developments which facilitate use of environmentally friendlier fabrics such as hemp, and more.

Finally I looked at the question of transparency and yes, you guessed it, my favourite subject, reporting, and talked about the leading reporters in the fashion industry, including the only private fashion house in Israel to have produced a CSR report, my client, comme il faut.  I mentioned the Global Compact, and our efforts to drive the Israeli fashion industry to accept and promote the UNGC Principles, though only the comme il faut Company has done so to date, and one more en route, whose first Communication on Progress we are currently working on.

To sum up,  I stitched it all together (don't you just love puns?) and suggested that if they care, they should take responsibility, as designers, and consider social and environmental issues at the start of the design process. Perhaps if I ever become a celeb, one of them might design an eco-celeb-outfit for me. Chunky Monkey colours, please.

I also referred those who are keen to learn more to my list of wonderful books, all of which I have read, enjoyed , learnt from and been inspired by, on the subject of ethical and sustainable fashion, textiles and apparel. Here's my list, in no particular order, they are all great!:

• Eco-chic: The Fashion Paradox, by Sandy Black
• Sustainable Fashion and Textiles : Design Journeys , by Kate Fletcher
• The China Price: The True Cost of Competitive Advantage, by Alexandra Harney
• Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade, by Pietra Rivoli
• Social Responsibility in the Global Apparel Industry by Dickson, Loker and Eckman
• Eco Chic: How to be ethical and easy on the eye, by Matilda Lee

I waited as some rushed to copy down the titles. Good sign!

Later, as I pondered over  questions the students asked, and the real impact of their work, I tried to recall  to what extent designers are given air-time in CSR reports. I recalled the wonderful 2005-2006 report by Gap Inc where they state : In our business, everything begins with design.And later in the report, there is a quote from the Director of Textile Development:

Quick look at one more: Next plc, whose 2009 report I just came accross a day or so ago. It's an interesting report, doesn't really touch on the role of the designer, thoough there is evidence that designers are bound by social and environmental commitments such as the development of traceable sustainable cotton products and more.

I hope that this new generation of designers will be a generation of sustainable designers. And I hope that consumers will both demand and applaud this direction. That is, if anyone cares.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en