What is ethical clothing?

Ethical means many different things to many different people and therefore the answer depends on what you mean by ethical. For some people it means that the product is environmentally friendly or made from organic or recycled materials. For others it means clothes made by artisans or small producers. Other people may understand it to mean buying second-hand or locally sourced goods. All of these are important issues. 

Fashioning an Ethical Industry focuses on working conditions within the mainstream fashion industry and for us a company needs to ensure workers throughout their supply chain can exercise their internationally-agreed labour rights before they can be called ethical.  These internationally agreed labour rights include employment is freely chosen, payment of a living wage, secure employment, safe and healthy conditions, working hours are not excessive, no sexual harassment, discrimination or verbal and/or physical abuse and most importantly are able to speak out and defend and improve their own labour rights through freedom of association to join a trade union and bargain collectively.

 

Back to Set 3: sourcing ethical clothes and suppliers.