In The Green Room for October.

What a month it has been! Feels like a rollercoaster of bad news in terms of ethical manufacturing. But when bad practices bubble to the surface there are people in the background working to make positive changes. Maybe this is the start of social and environmentally sustainable production. We are ever hopeful!

Firstly, we have found a new podcast that’s worth a listen; Loose Threads (which is available on all good podcast providers and also through the website www.manufacturedpodcast.com) they talk to garment producers from around the world to dispel some of the myths. The one released this week talks about why factories subcontract, and it’s an essential listen for anyone who works in production.

Image: unsplash/Ingrid Martinussen

Starting with the news that has shocked me the most this week; the Better Cotton Initiative has been found to use forced labour in some of its farms in Xinjiang. While little response has been given at the time of writing this, they did say that mitigating risks within the supply chain was not what they were designed to do. Much to the surprise of every single one of their customers I should imagine. Full article on this can be found at www.apparelinsider.com.

BCI have said there are significant challenges around pivoting it’s operations, perhaps it’s time for the BCI to wind up shop, and instead concentrate on supporting smaller initiatives around the world with regenerative cotton farming. While organic cotton is infinitely better than standard cotton (although only when not using forced labour), it is still taking from the Earth rather than giving to it.

Image: twitter/andrewTsaks

Following in the same vein as the BCI story, the mainstream press has picked up on a Mango supplier firing a number of its workforce for demanding clean drinking water. To bring a bit of context to this story, this happened back in June and in the last 2 years the same supplier has fired staff for joining unions, demanding overtime be paid and becoming pregnant. Luckily a large number of grassroots organisations are picking this up and shouting loudly, this particular story has be championed by the Clean Clothes Campaign East Asia (www.cleanclothes-ea.org) who are working very hard to bring the working conditions of those who make our clothes to the forefront of the conversation.

To bring a bit of good news to the bleakness mentioned so far, Infinite Fibres and Renew:cell are moving to the next stage of testing large scale manufacturing for their chemical recycling initiative in conjunction with H&M and a number of viscose suppliers. So far they have managed to extract elastane out of the yarns (because you can’t do anything with elastane unfortunately) before using the left over, waste chemicals from viscose production to turn it into a liquid which can then be made into a fibre. Trials so far have been successful on cotton and poly/cotton blends, although the more times a fibre a recycled the more virgin fibre is needed to be added to ensure yarn stability. While it’s not ready for complete synthetic recycling as yet, this is huge progress.

To finish us off, if you have 6 minutes to spare I recommend checking out the video from Mosevic Eyewear, based in Cornwall they make sunglasses out of old jeans and the process is just amazing. Upcycling at its best!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1suJEz90SXU

Who really knows how to source something anyway?

If you work in sportswear, chances are you have heard of Eusebio Sporting Goods. They were basically the first sportswear manufacture to be based in Bangladesh at a time they only seemed to export cottons, and are now known around the world. As the name would suggest, they are not Bangladeshi, but Chinese.

Today they push the boundaries of what is possible in sportswear by investing in new technologies, such as chemical recycling for blended fibres; which is now possible through their vertical operation.

But this isn’t a sales pitch for them.

I came across them again as they were listed on a website as a partner of a Swiss chemical recycling machinery provider and I remembered meeting Eusebio when I was 11 or 12. My Dad had started working with him a year or 2 before after he came across his tiny stand at Ispo, to this day my Dad’s resounding takeaway from that first day was how clever Eusebio is. I remember doing my A-levels and Dad telling me about Eusebio’s plan for Bangladesh. I don’t think either of us thought that it would lead to him to become one of the largest suppliers globally.

That got me thinking about how we (and by we, I mean buyers, procurement managers, sourcing directors etc) source our products.

It’s changed a lot since 1996 when my Dad met Eusebio.

Trade shows are still important to see physical products, but there’s a lot of skepticism stemming from the diminishing levels of trust we have within our own supply chain. Recently I learnt that 80% of new B2B relationships are now done through LinkedIn, which I can imagine will only increase now we are stuck at home.

photo: unsplash/Janko Ferlic

So what advise do we have for sourcing through all the noise?

Firstly, LinkedIn is your friend. Because a company is only as good as they people they hire and if they treat them well, they stay.

Secondly, import documents are a legal requirement around the world, there are plenty of websites that list import documents into the US (here in the UK you have to request them from HMRC and you have to meet the legal criteria before you receive them). This can help you verify your supply chain.

Google maps holds a wealth of information, on the area they are in, the size of the building as well as what other suppliers and fabric mills are around there.

It’s going to be interesting to see how sourcing, developing and manufacturing is going to work now we’re less likely to travel. We’re going to be learning in the open along with everyone else, so let us know how it’s going. We can all learn from each other.

What to do about a problem like Leicester?

Leicester has been in and out of the news a lot this year, repeatedly for human rights violations in the garment factories, but also for the continued spread of Covid-19 (did you know Leicester hasn’t actually come out of lockdown yet?!). And yet both of these facts are intrinsically linked.

So how do we solve a Victorian problem in our modern day society?

Image from storyofleicester.info

From the early 1900s to the end of the 20th Century, Leicester was a global powerhouse for apparel manufacture. But at the end of the 1980s and into the early 90s both the UK and foreign governments gave businesses incentives to move production to “cheaper’ countries, such as China, India and Korea. And we can’t look to address the imbalance of power in the UK apparel sector without first acknowledging how it came to be in the first place; that sourcing is political. How we vote effects how brands source, and unfortunately it’s not as simple as a Brexit vote, which may end up being the final nail in the coffin depending on a myriad of outcomes welded in the hands of Johnson and Gove.

The other way our government have shirked responsibility with this issue comes down to 2 other key factors; our immigration policy (which is only going to get harder for “unskilled” labour, driving up the instances of slave labour as businesses desperately need this labour to keep running, while also exploiting the fact that these workers risk being deported if they blow the whistle) and the austerity cuts we’ve seen since the Tory’s came to power, which has stripped organisations in Leicester with the power to investigate and fine corrupt businesses. Just off the cuff; the closure of many of HMRC’s localised offices has halted investigations into many of the Leicester factories who have been found to be paying less than minimum wage, as well as being run by shadow directors, banned from running companies mainly due to tax infringements (human rights violations don’t actually get you struck off as a director). But that does still weed out some shady folk.

Image: Unsplash/Janko Ferlic

The next problem we face in this pandemic of human rights abuses, is the shareholder first culture levied by big corporations. While all businesses need to make a profit in order to survive and our entire system needs to be backed up by tax paid on that profit. We are seeing businesses pushing higher profit targets onto buyers without investing in any training in order to ensure that human exploitation is not part of that profit making drive. 30 years ago that knowledge would have been there because of the time buyers spent on the factory floor, whereas nowadays they may visit once a year at best and in the future, who knows. And with large parts of their jobs being increasingly consumer focussed, without their employers support and training, it will be impossible to bring that back.

Image: Unsplash/elCarito

Finally, there is factory auditing. Over the years this has been continually commercialised, with auditing companies financially benefiting from finding problems in the first place. While you might not think that’s a bad thing, it erodes trust on the supplier’s behalf as they are essentially holding a company to ransom and the support given afterwards is lacking in any tangible actions. While much has been done to clean up this area of our sector, more needs to be done.

Ultimately to make a positive change, we need human centric policies set out by our government for the benefit of every working person, those who work with suppliers in the apparel industry need to have a host of resources they can call on to make good buying decisions and auditing companies need to be employed by the whole supply chain to ensure impartiality and effective criteria.

Sustainable News Roundup

The things we’ve loved, and not loved, from around the world in sustainable apparel this month.

Take a listen.

We’re really enjoying The Spirit of Design podcasts from Sustainability 5.0. We particularly recommend the episode with Holly McQuillan about Zero Waste Fashion Design in which she talks about her experience making, or rather not making, a zero waste pair of tights for a sports brand.

ON Running making shoes you don’t own.

The new Cyclon shoe due out next Autumn is a shoe you won’t ever actually own. And it’s undyed so no nasty chemicals which is great! However, the details are still sketchy as the fibre composition of the upper hasn’t been finalised yet (it’s currently 50% castor beans and 50% unspecified, although they have said they hope to make it 70-80% castor bean by the time of launch). What we’ve gleaned so far is, ON will continue to repair and reuse uppers from the shoes and potentially change out parts of the sole as and when required. Personally, too little information has been given for us to say whether this is going to be a product we love. No details have been given about the soles and how they will be recycled and replaced. But we are looking forward to hearing more as their developers work through the challenges. What we do love is that you pay a monthly subscription and ON will replace the shoe twice a year. So you never actually own it and the lifecycle is the responsibility of the brand. This way of ownership is very much part of the future of apparel, but how people will react to that model when shoes are such a vital part, and the most expensive part, of any runners kit. Would probably have been easier to start with clothes, but we really admire their determination.

Kiss the Ground.

If you haven’t heard of this; it’s Netflix’s new climate change documentary, and it’s completely eye opening and wonderfully written. It’s a simple solution to reverse the effect of climate change within our lifetimes and there are things we can all do to achieve it. At 1.5hrs its a bit long, but it’s quite easy to dip in and out of. The only crucial thing missing is, obviously, David Attenborough.

Nike’s sustainability efforts make us want to hitch a ride to another planet.

Nike was out in force last week talking about their new sustainability efforts, such as partnering with UPS to use bio jet fuel for the shipments they send by air. This will reduce the carbon footprint of these air drops by 80%. However, effective planning would reduce that by 100% because they wouldn't need to send by air in the first place. And in the near future they plan on replacing their plastic bags with paper. They had obviously run out of things to say by that point.

However, they are also launching a new running shoe that is made from 100% recycled materials. This is a huge step forward for Nike, however, unlike ON, they won’t be taking responsibility for the product’s end of life.

The US makes apparel sourcing political (but not really).

The US House of Representatives passed a bill to ban the apparel imports from Xinjiang, China under the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act. One fifth of the world’s organic cotton comes from Xinjiang, and while anything to stop the forced labour of ethnic minorities in China is a good thing, this bill does not go far enough in that it only specifies apparel. Fibres, yarns and fabrics that are sent to other parts of China to be made into apparel are not applied. Ultimately there are more holes in this bill than a mesh base layer.

Synthetic microfibres make landfall.

New study released this month shows there are now more microfibres in our soil than there is in the oceans. While in many ways this was expected following on from the University of San Fransisco study about microfibres in waste water and the study from the University of Catania in Italy about micro plastics being found in fruit and veg. With a continued increase of synthetic fabrics being used this does make for concerning reading. But it’s given us a goal to work to and that’s always something!

Finisterre are on track to launch their recycled wetsuit.

Made from recycled tyres and made in the UK, these wetsuits will undoubtedly have a much lower carbon footprint than anything else on the market. And we are pumped! Also watch this space for their Re-Loved platform. As if we couldn’t love these guys enough already!

Changing our ranging process accelerates our impact.

This week I was asked; ”where do we need to come in to the range process in order to make the biggest impact?” And the answer is; From the very beginning.

Historically, that’s a big ask for a brand, wanting to come in at the planning stage rather than being briefed when the range has been signed off to sampling.

Manufacturing is such an essential part of the brand product process that waiting until after your product has been designed to bring in that expertise limits your capacity to make lasting change. It also effects a brand’s ability to move towards a lower waste economy. It is estimated that between 15-25% of fabric is left on the cutting room floor, that’s 15-25% of your fabric cost! As well as 15-25% of emissions!

Understanding the type of product from the offset, being a split short or a 2in1, means that we can help you assess your sustainable apparel goals and provide your designers and developers with the information they need to make products that achieve the desired sell through and reduce the impact we have on the environment.

We can also advise what resources are going to be needed to achieve those goals. Our resources are not infinite and changes will need to happen in order to keep our systems in equilibrium. Rather than looking at it from a demand perspective, we can take a holistic view around what is achievable. I can practically see all merchandisers recoil at the paragraph! But we can drive up demand for full price products, rather than driving a bottom out price point through sales.

Brands will still require profitability, not only to continue, but also to do good. It’s no longer enough to simply give money to other organisations in the hope that they will be able to do the work for you. Such as investing in the ETI but not implementing changes within your own organisations. We can still be profitable, sustainable businesses.

The future is there for all of us, through collaboration and common goals. The future is a bright green!

Where do we begin with sustainability?

How can we start being more sustainable?

In little incremental steps.

It can be difficult to know where to start when you make the decision to make buying practices more ethical. Whether it’s business led or buyer led. But even as individuals it’s a lot easier than you might think to make choices that ensure sustainable apparel. And I’m here to tell you how!

First, build your framework.

I would advise choosing 4 of the UN’s sustainable development goals as your pillars. There are 17 of them, and while some can be interlinked quite easily, some are tricker. The link to the goals is at the bottom of this post.

Choose 4 that resonate most with you and your team. It can be really easy to choose the most popular, or what you think will be the easiest to apply. But this is the surest way to fail. The goals are very broad so it’s easy to apply even in the smallest of ways, and you’re collaborating to bring in greater sustainability which ever ones you choose.

If you’re unsure about how to build framework around the 4 goals, head over to our Instagram this week where we’ll be talking about applying each of the 17 goals both professionally and personally (it’s a bit much to do it here as there is so many of them!).

Once you have your 4 goals, your framework gets built every time you go back and assess whether those decisions you are making sit within one, or all, of those goals. It can also help with sourcing decisions and communicating your ethics with your customers, but we’ll talk more about that next time.

Having a viewpoint on sustainability and making it personable to you will drive up customer engagement so it’s worth doing. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we need to take care of each other and our home. Let’s not forget those lessons.

Link to the UN development goals: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

Click the camera icon below to head over to our Instagram, we’d love you to join us over there!

Why hello there!

Thanks for dropping by to see what The Good Factory is all about, hopefully you’ll have been given a little snapshot that we are a completely new supply chain and we’ve set that up in order to drive forward social and environmental sustainability in sportswear manufacture. We’re always keen to have a chat so don’t be shy to drop us a message, even if it’s just to ask us what our favourite brand currently is, or if we’ve found anything new. We love a chat about all things sustainable and apparel led!

The idea behind us also doing a blog is to keep you up to date with all the little tips and tricks we’ve picked up along the way, as well as some really interesting content from inspiring people we’ve worked with over the years (and there are many!). As creatives we really love visuals and pretty pictures so do follow us on Insta for more regular and condensed information.

We’re here, occupying this space in sustainable manufacturing, because we know it’s not as hard as it’s been commercialised to be. Sustainability doesn’t have to cost the Earth if you’re clever with your targets. Small steps make a giant leap after all. And we also understand that education at consumer levels has also been made complicated, which can hinder engagement. Again, we’re here to help with that! You don’t simply buy a product from us, you enter into a relationship where your sales, your consumers and your product mean as much to us as it does to you. We’re about new ways of working.

So a bit about me as the founder of The Good Factory, I’m Sam and I am a 3rd generation of garment maker. My earliest memory is running around a factory (which was long before any health and safety laws materialised, and I won’t tell you the age I started working in my Uncle’s knitwear factory!), so I have loads of experience working in all types of apparel. Since I started my career in apparel I’ve mainly worked in sportswear and bespoke uniforms, and its this experience that has helped me curate our innovative product lifecycle which increases a product lifespan by 50 years!

If you’ve gotten this far, please do send me an email, I want to hear about you too!