Study shows consumers’ ‘urgent desire’ to know more about their clothes
21/11/2018
Fashion Revolution is a non-profit organisation that works for a more sustainable fashion industry, campaigning for reform, with a special focus on the need for greater transparency in the fashion supply chain. It has a presence in more than 100 countries around the world.
Headline findings of its new research are that consumers want brands and governments to take the lead in making sure clothes are made responsibly and sustainably. Consumers across the five largest EU markets (Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain) want to know more about the social and environmental impacts of garments when shopping for clothes, and, according to Fashion Revolution, they expect fashion brands and governments to be doing more to address these issues.
A majority of people think that fashion brands should work harder to reduce their own impact by addressing global poverty, climate change, environmental protection and gender inequality, all issues covered by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. According to the new study, environmental factors were considered the most important, with 85% of respondents listing climate change and 88% environmental protection at the top in order of importance.
Social issues were not far behind; 84% of people taking part in the study said they consider it important for fashion brands to address global poverty and 77% said gender inequality is important. On this last point, 72% of people said specifically that fashion brands should do more to improve the lives of women working in factories that make clothes, shoes or accessories,
In the study, 68% of respondents agreed that governments have a role to play in ensuring that clothing, including shoes and accessories, is sustainably produced. A majority also agreed that fashion brands should be required by law to respect the human rights of everybody involved in making their product (77%), to protect the environment at every stage of making their products (75%), to provide information about the social impacts of their business (68%), to provide information about the environmental impacts of their business (72%), and to say if they are paying the workers who make their products a fair, living wage (72%).
Commenting on the findings, Fashion Revolution policy director, Sarah Ditty, said: “The pace of change by the fashion industry simply isn’t fast enough, and we can see this reflected in consumer attitudes. People have an urgent, emotional desire to know more about how their clothes are made and they want governments to hold brands and retailers to account to ensure this happens.”
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