Femnet e.V.

Despite publicised worker-welfare violations, many fashion retailers continue to post record sales and profits, indicating that consumer concern does not always translate at the cash register. Research has shown that worker welfare is a less salient area of concern for fashion consumers, and the aim of this research is to investigate the reasons why this may be the case.

Due to the exploratory nature of the research, a qualitative methodology was deemed the most appropriate. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with Australian fast-fashion consumers to investigate the underlying reasons worker-welfare violations are less likely to elicit pro-social consumer behavioural change and are a less salient area of concern.

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The study documents women garment workers’ experiences of genderbased violence and harassment (GBVH) in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic in Asian production countries. It elaborates “economic harm” as a form of GBVH, underscoring how the business models of global apparel brand and their actions during the pandemic-induced recession exacerbated women worker’s vulnerability to violence both inside the factories and in their homes, families, and communities, leading the feminisation of the COVID-19 crisis.

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In the garment and textile industry, circularity is rapidly gaining momentum given its environmental benefits, commercial promise, and rising consumer interest. Clothing resale, for example, is expected to grow 11 times faster than traditional retail by 2025.

The industry, which employs an estimated 60-70 million people in its value chain, must now grapple with the following questions: how will circular fashion impact job opportunities and job quality? And how can we ensure that the transition to a circular fashion system is just, fair, and inclusive?

The KWIL team investigated the job impacts of a shift to circularity, using foresight methodologies to account for macro forces reshaping the industry, such as automation and climate disruption. The research focused on the US, Europe, and India and included the following workstreams: Primary and Secondary Research, Economic Modelling and Scenario Planning.

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Audit deception is a serious impediment to identifying and remedying human rights abuses in global supply chains. This report compiles evidence from Transparentem’s past investigations of efforts to conceal labor rights violations from social auditors in the apparel industry in India, Malaysia, and Myanmar, as well as research from peer organizations and academics, which indicate that audit deception is a pervasive problem in apparel supply chains.

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Using life cycle assessment, the study compares the global warming potential (GWP) of five ownership and end-of-life scenarios for creating and using a pair of jeans. The scenarios are as follows: (a) BASE, i.e. basic use with waste disposal; (b) REDUCE, i.e. extended use; (c) REUSE, i.e. reselling; (d) RECYCLE, i.e. industrial processing into new raw materials; and (e) SHARE, i.e. a rental service. Our results show that the lowest global warming impacts are achieved in the REDUCE scenario, and the second lowest are achieved in the REUSE scenario. The RECYCLE scenario leads to relatively high overall emissions because the replaced emissions from cotton production are relatively low. The use of rental services is likely to increase customers’ mobility, and if that happens in a large scale, then the SHARE scenario has the highest GWP. It was found that many new CE innovations come with a high rebound risk, and existing practices carry similar, yet smaller risks.

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