The findings show SHEIN’s careless attitude towards the environmental and human health risks associated with the use of hazardous chemicals.

Strict concentration limits are set for products sold in Europe in accordance with the regulation on dangerous chemicals, known as REACH, present as additives or contaminants in fabrics for clothing, accessories and shoes. The EU regulation places the responsibility for providing information on the hazards of the chemicals used on producers of chemicals and manufacturers of products containing the substances. All companies (both manufacturers and brands) must therefore be fully aware of the chemical substances used by their suppliers and take responsibility for eliminating their use, their presence in products, their impacts and any discharges, including those into water.
The REACH Regulation is based on the principle that it is the responsibility for manufacturers, importers and downstream users to ensure that they manufacture, place on the market or use only such substances that do not adversely affect human health or the environment.

It has emerged that SHEIN is breaking hard-won EU environmental regulations on chemicals and risking the health of consumers and the workers at the suppliers that make the products.

Of the 47 products purchased, 7 contained dangerous chemical substances in excess of the limits set by EU regulations, i.e. 15% of the items analysed.

Very high levels of phthalates were found in 5 boots or shoes (FT-17, FT-27, FT-15, FT-35, FT-42) at above 100,000 mg/kg (100%), compared to the requirement in the EU’s REACH regulation of <1,000 mg/kg. The highest level of phthalates was found in some black snow boots (FT-27) bought in Switzerland, at 685,000 mg/kg of DEHP (680%).

The release of nickel above the EU REACH requirements of <0.5 μg/m2/week was found in a pair of red stiletto boots (FT-22) bought in Spain, at 1.5 μg/m2/ week. Also in a suedette moto jacket bought in Spain a quantity of 0.7 μg/m2/week of nickel was found, apparently breaching the REACH requirements for the release of nickel (<0.5 μg/ m2/week). However, there is a margin of uncertainty in the testing.

A total of 15 of the products contain hazardous chemicals at levels of concern (32%).

At least one hazardous chemical was quanti- fied in 45 of the 47 products, although most were at relatively lower levels.

The concern is not only that SHEIN products with illegal levels of hazardous chemicals are being widely sold in Europe, contravening EU regulations, with potential impacts on consumers. It also suggests that SHEIN has little oversight of hazardous chemical management within its supply chain.

“It’s the workers in SHEIN’s suppliers, the people in surrounding communities and the environment in China that bear the brunt of SHEIN’s hazardous chemical addiction”, explained Viola Wohlgemuth, Toxics and Circular economy Campaigner with Greenpeace Germany. “At its core, the linear business model of fast fashion is totally incompatible with a climate-friendly future – but the emergence of ultra fast fashion is further accelerating the climate and environmental catastrophe and must be stopped in its tracks through binding legislation. Alternatives to buying new must become the new norm.”

We also talked about Shein in these articles:

L’indagine Channel 4 dentro le fabbriche di Shein;

Le false dichiarazioni di Shein sulle fabbriche;

Patagonia vs Fast Fashion: leader a confronto.

Source: Greenpeace Germania

But who pays the price for us?

One of the problems of fast fashion, which we have written about many times, is that in most cases the low price is the result of a lack of recognition of a fair wage and appropriate working conditions for people involved in the production of the garments. For this reason, consumers are increasingly asking for more transparency on the production chain.

Shein offers tens of thousands of styles, about 1,000 are added every day.

An even faster production pace: “ultra-fast-fashion”, as it is more correct to call it, comparing it with other fast fashion brands such as Missguided and Fashion Nova, which release around 1,000 new styles a week.

Shein is able to reach millions of young shoppers directly through social media without a physical retail space, relying on search traffic and customer data to foreshadow trends. “I don’t even know what it is,” says a TikTok user voice showing a pink rabbit toy bought on Shein. On social media, the fast fashion brand is sometimes the object of ridicule, selling items without a clear thought.

Referred to as China’s most mysterious billionaire company (it refuses to publicise its investors), Shein has not disclosed the information on working conditions along its supply chain required by law in the UK.

Without evidence to the contrary, it is difficult to believe their claim to “make social responsibility a priority”. Considering for example that in Shenzhen, China, where the original factory is located, there are harsh working conditions and virtually no protection for the working class. Or considering how difficult it is to believe that there is a feasible way to produce at such a fast pace without adopting unethical work practices.

The Fashion Transparency Index, compiled by Fashion Revolution activists, gave Shein an overall score of 1 in 100 in a report compiled earlier this year. On traceability, one of the key metrics in the Index, Shein has a score of 0.

Not only lack of transparency:

until recently, the company falsely claimed on its website that the conditions in the factories it uses were certified by international bodies for labor standards (source: Reuters). In a statement on the site (noted by Reuters on July 26), Shein said the factories were “certified” by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and that Shein was “proudly complying with rigorous fair labor standards set by international organizations such as SA8000”.

SA8000 is a management systems standard based on international human rights principles outlined by the International Labor Organization and the United Nations, measuring companies’ performance in eight areas including child labor, forced labor and health and safety.

ISO is a global organization that develops commercial, industrial and technical standards. Companies pay certification bodies to implement and verify these standards at their organizations. The ISO only sets standards and does not carry out the certifications themselves.

“Shein doesn’t work with very large factories but [with] small and medium-sized workshops that collect orders every day,” according to Matthew Brennan, a Chinese writer and technology analyst based in Beijing. “It’s very similar to an Uber system, where new orders arrive on factory owners’ phones. It’s very poor, but efficient.”

In the social responsibility section of their site, Shein states that they never used child or forced labor, but doesn’t provide complete information on the supply chain. British law requires companies of certain sizes to link similar statements on the site to detailed explanations of the measures taken along the supply chain to avoid modern slavery.

What’s worse than lack of transparency? A false statement. While awaiting updates from Shein, we reflect on all the other more or less ethical aspects of a business model far away from a slow and conscious fashion.

Sources: Reuters; Vox; The Mycenaean; SupChina. Photo: Shein’s website.

Now however, we at Dress Ecode have decided to dig further into this practice and sat down with Ariele Elia, Assistant Director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law and author of Fashion’s Destruction of Unsold Goods: Responsible Solutions for an Environmentally Conscious Future (link to Ariele’s research here), to discuss this practice and highlight possible multi-disciplinary solutions that could be implemented to reduce this practice and hopefully eliminate it once and for all.

Hello Ariele, first and foremost, how did you initially come to know about this issue?

“It all started when I was a student in the fashion law programme at Fordham law. We were in our Ethics, Sustainability and Development Course, and at the very beginning of one of our classes our professor had showed an article about H&M burning their unsold goods. And I, very ignorantly, raise my hand I said, ‘Of course they’re doing that, that doesn’t surprise me at all’ and he encouraged me to dig deeper and find a solution that would actually take my argument much further and I wouldn’t just be a person complaining. So, it motivated me to try to pose a solution and to try to figure it out and that ended up being the topic for my capstone in my last year. What really stuck with me is that my professor, an expert in ethics and sustainability, said that, at the core of people don’t necessarily want to do wrong. So you have to figure out what is wrong in their business structure and the pressures that is pushing them to do that.
It’s a very complex problem and that was something that I notice; it’s not black and white, it’s not clear cut, and it’s not just intellectual property or over production but it gets into so many different issues and I think that the solutions for it will not be black and white, and it’s going to vary country by country.

Starting with how people even view fashion in France, as how they view it is vastly different in Italy or how they view it especially in the US with respect to the design process, with respect to sales for example. In France there’s designated and sanctioned Holidays of when you can have sales, in the US every day is a sale which is another big issue”.

What have been the main facts that caught your attention while researching? 

“I think probably just how widespread it was. I think people think it’s an H&M problem but it’s actually not, it’s a luxury brand problem, it’s a Nike problem, and I think for a lot of it it’s just traditional business practises that have gone on forever. If you have a sample and it doesn’t go into production, well… you don’t want somebody taking that sample out of the trash and then selling it, so you’re going to slash it. I think before sustainability wasn’t as much of a concern, but now the industry has grown so much. I think that’s where it’s interesting to see that the market has evolved but the sustainability practises haven’t evolved.

To me what’s shocking is looking at Burberry and them realising that with Brexit and the pandemic, all of a sudden, with the fluctuation in currency not as many of the Chinese consumers are going to the UK so as Burberry’s biggest client was China, if they’re not purchasing, all of a sudden, they have a tons of trench coats left over and that was something I don’t think anybody expected as a consequence of Brexit. Now they are dealing with a lot of tariff issues; there was an article recently discussing if you were let’s say a London-based company and somebody buys an eCommerce item, it doesn’t fit and they send it back, the tariffs and the taxes of getting it back into London for the company it’s actually more expensive with the tariffs to bring it back in then just to burn it”.

Where do you think the responsibility falls upon? As you also wrote in your paper there has to be a rethinking from the designer to the supply chain, and from the production to create a model that also fits demand and supply in a better way and with better predictions. I think every company is trying to get better goals and a larger market share by increasing demand. So, yes, there has to be responsibility there, but I think that’s a bit of a utopian conversation sometimes because at the end of the day these people get paid to produce and to create more.

“When I had originally started my research and then wrote the paper my thought processes shifted a little bit and I think a lot of other people’s initially thought it would be great for people to consult with fashion brands and find a way on how we reduce their waste. But for all the brands that are not sustainable and that have no intention of being sustainable those are the ones that I think we need to look at. What is the solution for that? And while I like to think that many brands will come around or do something I don’t think it’s going to be enough and it’s not going to be fast enough, so I do think that legislation is necessary alongside education and implementation… For example, there’s laws in New York right now where if 10% of your waste is textile, then it must be recycled. Well, there’s no enforcement. The infrastructure behind it needed for this type of implementation isn’t there, so it’s kind of a law that is not enforced. I think that while there has to be legislation, there has to be integration but then there also has to be education. Because if you’re going to sit there and all of a sudden create a lot taxes, then these fashion brands are not going to have an investment and try to find a solution. They’re just going to be annoyed and they’ll find a loophole that works around it.

[…] iI we could say “hey we’d like to bring in a sustainability consultant, let’s look at what is your design process”. When I was working with fashion design students at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), I was really pushing the 3D design. So that when they’re working with their manufacturers, they’re not necessarily physically sampling but first they are digitally sampling and that reduces the waste and also reduces the carbon footprint. And then when you’re in that final phase then, by all means, you do a physical fitting but at least it starts to reduce the waste there.

Then if we look at overstock for example, what do we do with this overstock? I think it’s harder for a luxury brand as obviously you can’t donate it and give it away. if you could have some artisans to redesign all of this extra items and convert a bag into something else and so on, I think that would be a nice solution but it has to come also with an economic benefit as I think the main reason as to why brands don’t go into this, is because it involves a lot of added costs. We need to find a way for them to have economic benefit but to do so then it’s really going to be hard to implement in on a large scale.

We have to figure out how much waste is there within traditional fashion brands when they’re producing, identify those, and then identify what can we pull back on, how can we reduce it and then we need some business and data scientists to show them how much they would be saving. If there could be one case study with one fashion brand who’s onboard, I think a lot more people will say “Excellent let me do it as well”.

What, in your opinion, could be the solution from a consumer standpoint?

“I think that it is still very confusing for the consumer what exactly is sustainable. What aspect of it is. Because it’s such a muddled term now. Is it the packaging sustainable? Is it the human actually creating it? Is it the fabric? I think for the consumer it is important to educate themselves because the consumers are the ones who’s going to force the brands to be more sustainable.

Some other responsibilities are: One, just stop buying as much! If people want to be more sustainable in regard to fashion, then stop buying as much and really consider what you’re buying. Do you do you need it? Is it an emotional impulse? Does it fit you? Stop buying things that you think you’re going to fit you in five years they’re probably not going to. Elizabeth Klein had some wonderful guidelines on clear purchasing and looking at things in your closet. Take inventory; do you have all black? Notice, if you buy everything black don’t buy anything colourful, maybe. Do you wear button up pattern shirts? If so, don’t wear something that is plain. And don’t think that because you’re donating it, you’re doing something good. There are so many scholars who said that in developing countries, especially in Africa and in India, they don’t need any more clothes. They have clothes for like the great great great great grandchildren. People don’t realise that these donations are hurting those developing nations because you have incredible designers now, they can’t develop because no one’s going to buy their items”.

In terms of alternative solutions, in your paper you’ve mentioned Artificial Intelligence. Could you please expand on that?

“One of the things with fashion is that it is so unpredictable. Who knew that there was going to be a pandemic and people are going to stop buying suits and things like that, but where is predictable is Instagram. I was just monitoring a conversation with the CEO of Modern Mirror whose company takes a 3D scan of your body and it will show you brands that will fit you so that it can also reduce the returns. It can also reduce what people are purchasing and then, with all that data is helping the brands. I think with that it will help a lot and actually seeing what we need to produce and what do we not need to produce.  I think that there’s somewhere to draw a line have the physical and the digital and marry them together.

I would say that the biggest takeaway from all my research over the years about technology and fashion is that it has to be seamless. Even if you are a fashionista you don’t want to know about the algorithms, you just want things to work”.

How widespread is the practice of burning unsold clothing? 

“It’s hard because it’s kind of like uncovering counterfeits. It’s this weird black market that no fashion brand wants to talk about, no one wants to be accused of it, so it’s hard to actually find the data of who’s doing this, why are they doing that. That’s why I feel like it’s a bit hard to find the solution. It almost has to be undercover. Like, this is a problem, here’s your solution. No names, just implement the solution. I think it’s going to be very hard to talk to a luxury brand and shame them publicly as there will be less likely to actually implement it because it’s an ego thing, it’s a reputational thing. There’s a very fine line between legislation and implementation of not bullying those brands but saying “we want to help and show the economic benefits to it beyond saving the environment”. I feel like there has to be a very delicate balance between implementing law and enforcing it.

It’s also important to have cooperation between countries too, because obviously I think a lot of brands, especially the fast and the big brands don’t even know exactly where all their supply chain comes from.
We want transparent supply chains. It’s one of those things that we all want, but I don’t think we’re ever going to achieve it, to be honest. I think we can get close to it but first you have to have the consumer on board with actually paying what the garments are supposed to be.

A lot of that manufacturing where you think it’s being produced in this factory in China it’s actually being produced by a third party of a third party of a third party and so that’s where we actually can’t fully track it.

I think that through education and through blockchain maybe people can understand the supply chain […] but most people don’t even want to think about that, or they don’t know about that”.

What could be a solution to find enough funding to tackle this issue?

“I mean what I think would be incredible is that Amazon is starting to, once again, dive into the fashion market as they are desperate to be the fashion empire. I don’t think that they will channel in the luxury brands but if we look at where can Amazon help is the logistics and infrastructure. So, if they want to take their surplus money and figure out a way to have take-back programmes, they could help the fashion industry automate, for example, the stripping of the buttons or the breakdown of fibres. If they can do things like that and help out brands with the logistical side that would be excellent, that would be a great solution. They could become sustainable as they know how “to do”, but they don’t know “how to make something look sexy and marketable”, that’s what the luxury brands do. If they take their data, if they take their logistics and shipping and collaborate with fashion brands on a sustainable level that could be a bold solution”.

Riccardo Zazzini

Photos: Nick de Partee; Duy Hoang; Marcus Loke; The Creative Exchange; Ryoji Hayasaka; Caleb Lucas.

Non si può affermare che l’industria della moda sia la seconda più inquinante del mondo.
Si può però dire che, osservando alcuni dati che la caratterizzano, sia una delle più inquinanti.
Abbiamo preparato una sintesi di alcuni degli impatti di questo settore.

Vuoi contribuire concretamente con una piccola azione a diminuire l’impatto ambientale? Scopri qui cosa possiamo fare insieme
https://dress-ecode.com/…/insieme-possiamo-risparmiare-360…/

English – Fashion: don’t say it is the second most polluting industry!

It cannot be said that the fashion industry is the second most polluting in the world. However, it can be said that, observing some of the data that characterize it, it is one of the most polluting. We have prepared a summary of some of the impacts of this sector.

Want to contribute concretely with a small action to decrease the environmental impact? Find out here what we can do together:

https://dress-ecode.com/…/insieme-possiamo-risparmiare-360…/

#SFSambassador

Un team di ricercatori dell’Università di Washington a St. Louis ha presentato uno studio sull’ingiustizia ambientale e sociale della fast fashion.

Il modello di business della “moda veloce” è ormai ampiamente adottato a livello globale. “Veloce” perché rapidamente arrivano dal design alla vendita indumenti che rispondono alla costante richiesta di stili sempre più diversi in breve tempo. La catena di fornitura è internazionale, spostando altrove la produzione di fibre, la creazione di tessuti e l’assemblaggio di capi di abbigliamento in aree con manodopera a costo inferiore. La moda fast è prontamente disponibile e conveniente.

Se da una parte ha consentito la democratizzazione della moda, permettendo a tutte le classi di consumatori di indossare gli ultimi trend, dall’altra le esternalità negative della fast fashion hanno creato un caso di ingiustizia ambientale e sociale a livello globale: la nostra ossessione per gli abiti a poco prezzo ha un costo significativo pagato da altre persone e dall’ambiente. I costi consistono in “tutte le perdite dirette e indirette subite da terze persone o dalla popolazione in generale a seguito di attività economiche incontrollate, ossia danni:

• all’ambiente 
• alla salute umana
• ai diritti umani”.

I primi due derivanti dalla filiera produttiva, inclusa la tintura, e dallo smaltimento dei rifiuti tessili. Gli ultimi collegati invece a condizioni dei lavoratori, tutele relative alla sicurezza, salari minimi, discriminazioni e sfruttamento minorile.

Posso comprare più vestiti a meno, ma sono le persone che lavorano o vivono nelle vicinanze di impianti di produzione tessile a pagarne il prezzo: un onere sproporzionato di rischi per la salute.

Inoltre, l’aumento dei modelli di consumo ha creato milioni di tonnellate di rifiuti tessili in discariche e in contesti non regolamentati. Chi subisce maggiormente le conseguenze? Le persone che vivono nei paesi a reddito medio-basso, perché gran parte di questi rifiuti finisce nei mercati dell’abbigliamento di seconda mano. Questi paesi a medio-basso reddito spesso mancano dei supporti e delle risorse necessarie per sviluppare e far rispettare le salvaguardie ambientali e occupazionali per proteggere la salute umana.

A livello globale, ogni anno vengono acquistati 80 miliardi di nuovi capi di abbigliamento, che si traducono in 1.200 miliardi di dollari l’anno per l’industria della moda mondiale. La maggior parte di questi prodotti è assemblata in Cina e in Bangladesh. Gli oneri sociali e ambientali della produzione e dello smaltimento di massa dei paesi ad alto reddito sono spostati dall’industria tessile e dell’abbigliamento alle comunità con scarse risorse nei paesi a medio-basso reddito.

Lo studio vuole discutere del ruolo dell’industria, dei responsabili delle politiche, dei consumatori e degli scienziati nel promuovere la produzione sostenibile e il consumo etico in modo equo.

Noi consumatori abbiamo “un ruolo da svolgere nel sostenere le aziende e le pratiche che riducono al minimo il loro impatto negativo sull’uomo e sull’ambiente. Mentre le certificazioni cercano di elevare gli standard del settore, i consumatori devono essere consapevoli del greenwashing e devono essere critici nel valutare quali aziende effettivamente assicurano un livello elevato di standard rispetto a quelli che fanno affermazioni ampie e radicali sulle loro pratiche sociali e sostenibili”.

Il modello della fast fashion si basa sull’idea di “più a meno” (more for less), ma il vecchio adagio “meno è più” (less is more) deve essere adottato dai consumatori se si vogliono affrontare questioni di giustizia ambientale nel settore della moda.

English: Environmental and social injustice: who pays the cost of our opportunity to buy more clothes at low prices

A team of researchers at the University of Washington in St. Louis has just presented a study on the environmental and social injustice of fast fashion.

The business model of the fast fashion is now widely adopted globally. “Fast” because quickly come from design to sale garments that respond to the constant demand for increasingly different styles in a short time. The supply chain is international, moving elsewhere the production of fibers, the creation of fabrics and the assembly of clothing in areas with lower labor costs. Fast fashion is readily available and convenient.

If on the one hand it has allowed the democratization of fashion, so that wearing the latest trends is affordable for all classes of consumers , on the other, the negative externalities of fast fashion have created a case of environmental and social injustice on a global level: our obsession with cheap clothes have a significant cost paid by other people and the environment.

The costs consist of “all direct and indirect losses suffered by third parties or the general population as a result of uncontrolled economic activities, ie damages:

• to the environment
• to the human health
• to the human rights“.

The first two deriving from the production chain, including dyeing, and from the disposal of textile waste. The latter are linked to workers’ conditions, safeguards, minimum wages, discrimination and child exploitation.

I can buy more clothes for less, but it is people who work or live near textile production plants to pay the price: a disproportionate burden of health risks.

Furthermore, the rise of consumption patterns have created millions of tons of textile waste in landfills and in unregulated contexts. Who suffers the consequences most? People living in low/middle-income countries because much of this waste ends up in second-hand clothing markets. These low/middle-income countries often lack the necessary supports and resources to develop and enforce environmental and occupational safeguards to protect human health.

Globally, 80 billion pieces of new clothing are purchased each year, translating to $1.2 trillion annually for the global fashion industry. The majority of these products are assembled in China and Bangladesh. The social and environmental costs of mass production and disposal of high-income countries have shifted from the textile and clothing industries to communities with scarce resources in low/middle-income countries.

The study aims to discuss the role of industry, policymakers, consumers, and scientists in promoting sustainable production and ethical consumption in an equitable manner.

We consumers have a “role to play in supporting companies and practices that minimize their negative impact on humans and the environment. While certifications attempt to raise industry standards, consumers must be aware of greenwashing and be critical in assessing which companies actually ensure a high level of standards versus those that make broad, sweeping claims about their social and sustainable practices”.

The fast fashion model thrives on the idea of more for less, but the age-old adage “less in more” must be adopted by consumers if environmental justice issues in the fashion industry are to be addressed.