The Fast Fashion Industry: What happened in Haiti?
Since the mid-2000s, fast fashion industries have boomed. Tons of clothes move restlessly into the market corresponding to ever-changing consumer taste. We are consuming 400% more than the amount we consumed just two decades ago. Under the disguise of the democratization of fashion, we produce more clothes, buy more clothes, but at the cost of receiving lower clothing quality.
The companies compete with each other, squeezing down the cost, and rapidly responding to costumer’s ever-changing tastes. We, as consumers, focus more on the price: should I spend a few more dollars to get that “buy three get two free” even if I don't need the clothes? Often times, the prices and luxury of purchasing new clothes blind consumers from the harsh reality of the production process that clothing companies undertake. The implications of cheap labor and the aversive environmental impacts that drive mass production and consumption do not reach the ears of consumers. Consequently, the vicious cycle of overproduction, mass consumption, and exploitation of cheap labor and the environment continue without being questioned.
In the fast fashion industry, the companies squeeze the marginal costs of the factors of production such as labor. The production process is outsourced to countries with cheap labor, where people are exploited to work long hours while receiving depressing wages. Each year, in the 250,000 factories across the world, there are 40 million people from developing countries sewing 1.5 billion garments. Taking Bangladesh as an example, workers received a minimum wage of $95/month in 2018. Aside from receiving abusively low wages, these workers were subject to immense risk deriving from disturbing working conditions such as bad hygiene, air quality, and unstable infrastructure. The negligence of companies to provide a safe working environment has caused thousands of casualties across the globe. For example, in 2013 Bangladesh, the Savar building collapsed led to the death of 1,134 employees. This type of evidence proofs the lack of standard working conditions provided to workers and questions the ethics of the clothing industry.
Another underestimated and overlooked factor consists of waste treatment. The overproduction of the clothes catalyzes the growth of fast-fashion industries, thus, resulting in destructive environmental pollution such as wasted textile. The fast fashion brands use marketing strategies such as creative contents via social media and sales promotion to stimulate consumer demand, boosting net sales. H&M, for example, has constantly increased its net sales from 151,149 in 2014 to 210,400 in 2018. As a result of mass consumption, our wardrobes are now crammed with clothes far beyond the amount we truly demand. We throw the clothes away or donate them to charities. Ironically, in reality, only 0.1% of them recycled–– a majority of them flow into the secondhand market in developing countries. As a result, the influx of clothing leads to a detrimental effect on countries like Haiti.
Both the human right and environmental issues take the focus back to the higher managers of the industries. A sustainable business should take the integrity of all levels of employees into account, no matter if the employees are in the central corporations or in the garment industry. Both individual and institutional structure should be considered. The individuals in the fast fashion industry must become moral actors, taking both social and ecological criteria into account apart from the revenues. It is not hard to imagine that one day, the loop of the fast fashion supply chain will break constant improvements are not implemented.
A good add on to the article: The true cost of fast fashion | The Economist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLfNUD0-8ts
Edited by: Naomi Santiago
Sources:
https://about.hm.com/en/investors/five-year-summary.html
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html
https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/environmental-impact/
https://truecostmovie.com/interview-livia-firth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse
https://fashionunited.com/news/business/bangladesh-raises-minimum-wage-for-garment-workers/2018091423452
http://www.humanosphere.org/basics/2013/07/are-second-hand-clothes-actually-a-problem-in-haiti/
