EU strategy on sustainable and circular textiles According to the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan and the 2021 update of the Industrial Strategy for Europe, textiles are a key product value chain that urgently needs to move to sustainability and circularity in production, consumption and business models, with a high potential for this. The objective of this strategy for sustainable and circular textiles is to create a coherent framework and vision for change in the textile sector. Mehr Details
Human Rights and Corporate Due Diligence On 11 June 2021, the German Bundestag adopted a Supply Chain Act, which imposes due diligence obligations on German companies when dealing with foreign trading partners. The law focuses on possible human rights violations or the violation of workers' rights by direct suppliers established abroad. This opinion discusses outstanding issues concerning the application of the standards shared in Germany or the EU, but not shared in all countries with which trade relations exist. Mehr Details
Minimum subsistence On this website, the figures for living wages in the Asian production countries of the textile and clothing industry are published annually. Mehr Details
Poisoned gifts. From donation to garbage dump: How textile waste is exported to East Africa disguised as second-hand clothing Nowhere is the failure of the linear business model of the fast fashion industry more apparent than in the countries where many of these cheap garments end up after their short lives: They are burned on open fires or land on huge garbage dumps, along rivers from where they are washed into the sea, with serious consequences for humans and the environment. This briefing shows the role of imported old clothes, so-called ‘Mitumba’, in East Africa and how many of them are of such poor quality that they end up directly in the garbage dump. Mehr Details
Certified - and then all is well? An update Also in the cotton season 21/22, the working conditions on conventional and fair trade farms did not differ significantly. The interviews in the 202/21 season had shown that the majority of cotton pickers worked as day labourers and usually did not receive the statutory minimum wages. Respondents also reported child labour in the fields. Last season, SÜDWIND and the CLRA started a new survey. Mehr Details
