H&M, the poster child for confusing fashion—is it sustainable and responsible or not?—is poised to boost the quality and ethics of Ethiopia’s textile industry.

Along with Swedfund, a development financial institution, H&M wants to improve the social and environmental standards in Ethiopia’s nascent textile industry after a visit to the region earlier this year highlighted the country’s needs and viable offerings. Beginning this fall, H&M will start purchasing textiles from companies Swedfund is investing in. Swedfund has invested in more than 230 companies with a focus on responsible fiscal and environmental values, the institution claims.

“Swedfund will provide local market expertise and will invest in Ethiopian suppliers,” reports the Guardian. “This cooperation will also involve both parties setting standards for sustainable production and monitoring indicators such as water use and wages.”

“We see the cooperation as an opportunity to get involved in Ethiopia’s growing textile industry at an early stage and to contribute to more jobs. We have for many years worked in existing manufacturing countries to improve working conditions and the environment,” Karl-Johan Persson, CEO at H&M told the Guardian.

H&M’s interest may lie more in the fact that partnering with Ethiopia’s textile industry will cost the retailer less than purchasing from China, Cambodia, Bangladesh and other textile-producing countries. According to Thomas Ballweg, a procurement and technical consultant at GermanFashion, “On the one hand are the lower costs – much lower than in China – with 80 million people living there. And, it’s near the sea – and quick to get to Europe via the Suez Canal,” Ballweg told DW.

“Through this unique partnership with H&M, our goal is to contribute to developing the textile industry in Ethiopia, thus creating jobs with good working conditions that lift people out of poverty, especially women” Anna Ryott, managing director at Swedfund told the Guardian.

But will the move bring responsible textile manufacturing to the African nation or open the door to more sweatshop conditions and environmental hazards?

Responsible textile manufacturing is a necessary component to an ethical fashion industry, but the best step forward may be in reduced clothing manufacturing efforts in the first place—and a more focused effort in recycling, upcylcing and the creation of longer-wear products that decrease the need for new textiles altogether.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image: gunman47

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Several large companies are bringing clothing production back to the USA, lowering unemployment rates and increasing our competitive ability. But at what cost?

Over the last year, several U.S. based companies have announced that they are bringing production back to American soil. These companies include Apple, Caterpillar, Ford Motor, General Electric and Whirlpool. Among apparel manufacturers, the likes of Karen Kane, hoodie producer American Giant, Keen Footwear, Brooks Brothers, Abercrombie, Opening Ceremony, Levi’s and even Walmart are ‘inshoring’ production to meet the ‘Made in USA’ apparel standard.

In the 1940s this country made 40 percent of the planet’s goods, but since then our manufacturing activity has shrunk to a minute 18 percent. The reason, although not one to be proud of, is the simple fact that labor and other resources became exponentially cheaper in other nations and were more “available” for use. Our material culture has become increasingly dependent on the manipulation of these resources no matter what the cost, mostly due to perceived obsolescence. While a most lucrative business for some of our nation’s richest has become the full exploitation of other countries’ resources and people, too many citizens of this nation wallow in the depressed towns that have been bereaved of the once heavily invested domestic industries. So why have these large companies decided to bring back manufacturing now?

Four main reasons:

1. Labor, transportation, and industrial-land costs are rising in China, one of our largest import countries. Wages are rising at a rate of 15 to 20 percent per year, while wages are stagnant in the U.S.

2. Local manufacturing allows for lower transportation costs and shorter turn-around times, allowing companies to respond to changing consumer demands much quicker. It also allows companies to produce smaller runs of items, cutting back on over-production, as well as increasing efficiency and thus lowering costs.

3. The USA is experiencing an energy boom – unfortunately it is in the name of natural gas. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, North America produces more natural gas than any other continent, and is projected to become the world’s largest petroleum and natural gas exporter by 2020.

4. The move is a very political one, and especially tied to the recent elections and insourcing campaigns to decrease unemployment rates and serve a population that is placing more value on U.S. manufactured items.

When Ralph Lauren manufactured the 2012 U.S. Olympic uniforms in China, the label receiving endless amounts of criticism. Since that faux pas, it seems that more attention has been put on apparel manufactured in the U.S. Although domestic apparel manufacturing is still 40 percent more expensive than in China, the factors mentioned above are contributing to a shift, with orders rising by 30 percent from 2010 for several homeland factories. Demand may also have some effect on the shift, as a study from the American Research Group shows that in 2012, 75 percent of Americans were willing to pay more for U.S. made goods, up from the 50 percent in 2010. Consumers, especially in the late twenties/early thirties age bracket, are turning to U.S. made clothing, causing the trend to have taken off for those with an interest in fashion and a disposable income.

Outsourcing of apparel manufacturing was at its peak in 2010, when China made 40 percent of the clothing bought in the U.S. Since then, labor costs in China have been growing rapidly, but so has (rather ironically) Chinese consumer interest in U.S. made clothing. Manufacturing technologies that have not been previously available in the U.S. are also being implemented in our factories, such as the superwashing of wool. French textile processor Chargeurs opened a superwashing facility in South Carolina in the late 2000’s, surprisingly at the behest of the U.S. military. It seems that synthetics weren’t the choice material for soldiers, as their plastic qualities would cause the materials to melt onto their skin from the heat of explosives. In fact, the Kissell Amendment of 2009 requires all military apparel to be made in the USA.

But what about the labor force here? Are there really enough educated and skilled workers to put a highly functioning apparel production industry in place? Currently, no. Young people with the opportunity have sought careers in more lucrative industries, and our education systems do not cater to skilled craft instruction. This can hopefully shift, and will bring with it an appreciation for the crafts among younger generations.

Although production is moving back to the USA, increasing employment opportunities, injecting the economy with more value and creating infrastructure for a country that is seemingly beginning to come apart at the seams, what does all of this mean in terms of the environment?  As mentioned before, a large factor in homeland production is the local availability of  domestic fuel, but one that will give energy guzzling industries such as chemical producers and steelmakers the perfect ‘patriotic’ excuse to produce and pollute more. Fracking involves pumping pressurized fluids through rock formations that are a mile or more under the ground, to extract oil and gas. These rock formations are often surrounded by pure, clean groundwater aquifers that can become badly contaminated with the heavy metals and toxic chemicals used in the process, as well as with the oil and gas itself.  As “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas”, like Nancy Lazer, co-head of New York-based International Strategy & Investment declares, the U.S. will no doubt see be a plethora of investors ready to drive this potentially polluting cause of fracking under blind pretenses such as job creation, economic stability and global energy dominance. It would seem this current petroleum energy investment, production and dependency cycle is one “made in the USA” equation we could do without.

Yet, energy obtained via fracking is in fact a choice many manufacturers are leaning toward, especially in the energy-dependent apparel industry. But what happened to the creation of jobs through green energy investments? Why don’t our nations top researchers embark on studies for the viability of nationwide green energy schemes that can be utilized by cities and industries alike? Why aren’t we more aware of the implications of a Made in the USA? Most importantly, why can’t so many of these large manufacturers, our government and the people of this nation work together to bring honest, responsibly functioning, environmentally sound and highly efficient production systems into existence?

Made in the USA is definitely a direction we should be heading in, but not at a great cost to the environment or the long-term stability of domestic industries. Isn’t now the time to demand and input systems and methods that will work realistically to create a different view of true homeland security in an environmentally and culturally egalitarian country?

Check in next week to hear more about clothing labels that are realizing this and carrying it out.

Image: USDAgov

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What you don’t know about your clothes will kill you, claims a new book.

It’s not enough to ensure your clothing is made by people being paid fair wages, is constructed of organic fibers sustainably harvested and is manufactured consciously. Killer Clothes, by Anna Maria and Brian Clement, explores topics related to documented studies regarding the toxic role of spandex, how petro-chemicals affect hormonal balances in women, and how the military is using service men and women as guinea pigs for garment testing.

Helpfully for such a heavy topic, the authors give readers the tools and resources to make more empowered clothing choices. Co-authors Dr. Brian Clement and Dr. Anna Maria Clement are Co-Directors of the internationally known Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida and have created wellness and disease prevention programs followed by more than 300,000 people. (They have authored a dozen previous books on natural health antidotes to illness and disease.)

We caught up with them recently to ask some questions about their book.

We think about where our clothes come from and who makes them but why don’t we consider how toxic they are? Why are we not worried enough?

Most people never consider that the clothes they adorn their bodies with are often made out of petro-chemicals. These man-made fibers notoriously spew out chemicals and fumes that inherently go through your skin and contaminate your bodies systems. There have been many well documented studies that highlight the disease-causing effects of these disastrous fashions. People think more about the way they look than their health and this is why this profoundly obvious issue is not front and center in the consciousness of the public.

It seems logical with the increase in spandex that there’s been an increase in obesity. You talk about how the increase in man-made clothing has coincided with fertility problems and cancer. Can you explain your thoughts on this?

The skyrocketing use of spandex may be like the historic question, what came first the chicken or the egg. These stretchable clothes allow for belly expansion. Does that not mean the garment industry is giving license to eat more? We also see a direct connection between tight under garments, most often made with oil fibers, and infertility. There have been several studies over the years that have revealed this serious concern. The tightness with males, pressures the testicles, reducing sperm counts. In addition with both female and males, the petro-chemical cloth mimics estrogen which is readily absorbed through the skin causing hormonal imbalances.

I found the quote referencing The Emperor’s New Clothes to be interesting. You explain how the Western fashion world sees the “Emperor” as “an economic altar on which our considerations of health and safety have largely been sacrificed.”  Are we that obedient?

After World War II, the rapidly expanding oil industry was not satisfied with the mass profits they made by producing fuel. This spawned a type of insanity where they convinced farmers to grow food with their chemicals (fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides), and in addition began weaving their chemistry into less expensive cloth. This created an economic alter that negated the precious question of whether or not this effected our overall health. This is not only obedience it is insane.

On your chapter called “We Are All Guinea Pigs,” you say the military has been knowingly using service men and women as guinea pigs for wider consumer applications for civilians. Have there been studies showing the effects on the service men and women from having toxic uniforms?

When one enlists in the service to protect their country, they unknowingly present their self as a research subject for a wide variety of military and civilian study. As you have read in our book Killer Clothes, the man-made fibers in hot desert conditions were literally igniting and burning soldiers. Rather than this being reported as a lead story in international news, it was buried and soldiers were told they could not wear these garments when off-duty.

What does the future of our clothing look like and how can we best make our voices audible enough for The Emperor?

If you are conscious enough to be concerned about our present state of affairs in the clothing industry, wait until infrared anti-odor socks are in your local shops or how about the nano clothing which places metallic in the man-made fiber. One must be astute or they can be fooled. Nano particles (The NY Times reported potential problems they may cause in the brain and other organs in the body), are actually being used to make the
wood fiber tencel clothing that is emerging as a new “Natural” fiber. How about the resist static fabric that literally can throw off neurological function in the body as well as the brain waves. The only term that can be rightfully used in describing these obvious missteps is a dangerous future for garments.

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