Only two brands, H&M and Boohoo, attended, and Mr Dunn praised them for “having the courage to stand up and sit in front of the committee”.
Wednesday’s meeting was part of a series marking the end of the current Parliament’s term (Parliament changes every five years after a general election). Given the evidence submitted, committee staff will compile a draft report for committee members to discuss, which could result in a public report of further policy recommendations and/or a letter to heads of state. Below is a summary of what was discussed:
Fast fashion is in trouble
Both H&M and Boohoo were in attendance, with committee members questioning both companies about their business practices. H&M’s head of communications, Marcus Hartmann, and Boohoo’s outgoing director of responsible sourcing, group product operations and wholesale, Andrew Reaney, appeared on the panel, along with Joe Metcalfe, founder and CEO of Thrift+, and Lorna Fallon, trading director at Oxfam.
While H&M has no suppliers in the UK, Boohoo has more than 40 and has been investigated in recent years for alleged worker exploitation in the UK city of Leicester. Claudia Webb, MP for Leicester East, spent her allotted time questioning Boohoo. She told Vogue Business that the problems in Boohoo’s supply chain are a “global issue” and that “hundreds of millions of people around the world work in making clothes, where unsafe conditions, low wages and abuse are rife.” “The solution is a statutory clothing regulator and government enforcement to ensure goods are ethically produced and only imported if they can be proven.”
With limited time, witnesses and a lack of investigators with industry expertise, the meeting only scratched the surface of the fashion industry’s sustainability efforts. For example, brand representatives pointed to the use of Better Cotton and recycled polyester (“post-consumer,” according to Boohoo’s Reaney) as evidence of a shift to more sustainable materials, but they weren’t pressed on Better Cotton’s flaws or the fact that recycled polyester is actually plastic bottles. Manufacturers and workers were also not heard at all, says TransformTrade’s Marsh. “The committee failed to dig deep into the impacts of an industry that is inextricably linked to the environment on people.”
“Brands don’t own most of the factories, so we wanted to hear more about second- and third-tier responsibility,” added Tamara Cynsick, executive director of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Ethics and Sustainability in the Fashion and Beauty Industry and founder and CEO of the think tank Fashion Roundtable. “This is not a default issue, it’s a core issue.”
Waste management is a priority
Panels at both conferences discussed waste and proposed a range of solutions, from taxes on new products for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and ecodesign principles to improve recyclability, to further investment in recycling infrastructure, a hot topic in recent months.
