Essay: Investigate The Ethicality of Fashion Companies in Green Branding

1.0 Introduction
Green branding is popular today due to the awareness of climate change, natural disasters, and growing population. Environmental degradation has emerged as a major social problem in society. What makes this problem occur? One of the major reasons is that society has moved from an agricultural way of life to an industrial society. To overcome the fact of growing populations, the rising of industrial appears to produce mass production. Industrialisation is no doubt with the development of society, but it can also be harmful to the environment. This is because of industrialisation created waste on a massive scale. (Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection, 2015).
Clothing is human essential. Clothing choices for many people are motivated by their need for identity and esteem, which relates to the fashion industry. The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world, just after the oil industry (Sustainyourstyle, 2018). Nearly all wear was hand-sewn for individuals, either home generation or on request from dressmakers and tailors before mid-nineteenth century, it began to wind up mass created by the beginning of the twentieth century because of the rising of new technologies, for example, the sewing machine, the improvement of the processing plant arrangement of generation and so on (Steele & Major, 2018). These progressions expanded the amount of pollution by the fashion industry in four areas such as the production of raw materials include basically fibres and textiles; the production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others; following by retail deal and also numerous type of advertising and promotion (Steel & Major, 2018).
In the latter part of the twentieth century, the consumer awareness of clothes’ potential second life starts to emerge (Gonzalez, 2015). People start to realise the impact of the fashion industry. Fortunately, there are some hardworking individuals, companies, and organisations try to minimise the damage of fashion to our environment throughout the entire lifecycle of textile production and use. “Fashion is a language which tells a story about the person who wears it” (Durcanin, 1999). When consumers realise the importance of our environment, they start to wear green on themselves to show that they are contributing to the environment. To fulfil the consumers’ demand, the fashion companies start to apply green branding to their fashion brands, in other word is sustainable fashion. Consequently, being green becomes a significant symbol for a brand position to represent a company is environmental, eco-friendly, energy efficient, organic and so on.
Somehow, there are many types of fashion companies. Fast-fashion which always been criticised in lacking of environmental and social responsibility start to apply green to fulfil consumers’ demand. High-end fashion which usually can be moderately or very expensive which possible to be green. However, how far can a fashion company brand themselves to green? What is an ethical fashion? Are they ethical enough? Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to investigate the ethicality of fashion companies using green branding by looking through some well-known fast-fashion which are H&M, Zara and high-end fashion such as Stella McCartney and Everlane.
2.0 How did awareness of ethical clothing came about?
2.1 Consideration of being ethical
As consumers had been educated through the movement of ethical fashion, people become more aware of the dangers of industrial chemicals in their clothing, of environmental damages from some mainstream industrial practices, and of the unsafe working conditions (Fashion Revolution, 2013). To fulfilled the demand of consumers, fashion industry has no choice to make changes on their productions. Figure 1 shows the statistic that brands respond to #whomademyclothes campaign.
Figure 1: Statistic of fashion brands respond to #whomademyclothes campaign, n.d.
Sustainable fashion ties into the ethical as they use environmentally sustainable fibres like bamboo, hemp and organic cotton. In production, natural dyes are used to replace chemicals and water consumption through the process is greatly monitored; workers are given safe, clean working environments and there is a real openness between consumer and company – from design to production, distribution and consumption (Moely, 2017). Beyond that, ethical fashion is a term of ethical fashion design, production, retail, and purchasing. It usually be judge in these few features such as fair trade, employing women or certain ethnic groups, made without animal components, without animal testing, fair wages paid, contributing to preserve traditions of an ethnic minority, revealing manufacturing locations and workforce policies, the product itself raises awareness or promotes an ideal or cause (Fashionhedge, 2017). In fact, these prove that ethical clothing is environmental, socially and economically responsible.
2.2 How environmental protection contributes to ethics?
How can a fashion companies contribute to environmental protection? “When you think about one garment, how it’s got to be on your back, it’s gone through so many different suppliers and production processes” (Taylor, 2018). Taylor speaks no doubt that there are many steps and process before clothes produced. Materials are one of the elements that need to be considered. For instance, cotton is the main material to produce clothes and it is the most pesticide-intensive crop in the world (Greenchoices.org, 2018). Herbicides, the chemical defoliants that need for mechanical cotton harvesting and harm on the environment and human health (Greenchoices.org, 2018). Moreover, these chemicals will stay in the fabric after finishing and released during the lifetime of the garments (Greenchoices.org, 2018). It is clear that how these materials will destroy our environment. By using eco-friendly fabrics and components can reduce the environmental impact such as hemp, linen, bamboo and ramie are made from fibres that do not require any pesticides or chemicals to grow. (Telio.com, 2018).
Instead of using eco-friendly materials, fashion companies can recycle clothes. For instance, the fast-fashion industry has always been criticised in lacking environmental and social responsibility as it focuses on speed and low costs to deliver frequent new collections inspired by celebrity styles. Textile waste becomes an unintended effect of fast fashion, as people do not keep the clothes when they buy more (Perry, 2017). Thus, some fashion companies start to launch recycling campaign because many people do not realise the huge negative impact that fabric and excessive clothing purchases make on the environment. In fact, there are few ways to recycled the clothes and textiles. When a clothes reach the end of its life cycle, it can be donated or sold to another person at a discount price. For example, there are some popular websites that people used to resell their stuff such as e-Bay, Carousel, TaoBao and Shopee. Clothing and textiles can be collected, baled and recycled back into raw materials (Figure 2) to make into new apparel or non-apparel products (Harmony, 2018).
During the manufacturing processes, getting from fibre to cloth need to process from bleaching, dyeing and finishing which uses yet more energy, water and causes yet more pollution. The fashion industry is a massive consumer and polluter of our fresh water; and one of the biggest culprits is cotton (Noble, 2017). An ethical fashion company has the responsibility to minimise water usage and reduce water pollution when manufacturing the clothes. Refer to Noble (2017), a purveyor of vintage and ethical fashion estimated that around 20% of industrial water pollution in the world comes from the treatment and dyeing of textiles, and for turning raw materials into textiles require around 8,000 artificial chemicals. These numbers prove that the impact of manufacturing harms the environment. By solving this problem, companies such as H&M and Zara producing certified organic cotton’s clothing to reduce the water impact as they are grown without using synthetic pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers (Noble, 2018), in another meaning, not contribute to water pollution.
Figure 2: Relooping fashion (Circular Economy of Textile Project, 2016.
2.3 How social justice contributes to ethics?
Besides, social justice is one of the considerations to be an ethical fashion. “Animal abuse within the fashion industry comes in two parts: one part tortures the animal directly by objectifying it for its fur, its skin, or its hide, while the other part harms animals by polluting their habitat and disrupting their food chains” (Stinson, 2016). For example, animals including rabbits, goats, foxes, crocodiles, alpacas, and even dogs and cats are coveted by the fashion industry. Their fur and skins are used to make a variety of luxurious clothing. The reason why they are considered luxury because it is handcrafted and require the skills of trained artisans who understand the qualities of fur and the special techniques of creating patterns, blocking and sewing fur. For instance, it usually appeared in luxury or high-end fashion brands as they cost expensive (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Animal’s skin used in clothing, 2018.
“Some scientists believe that business practices that involve the animals’ right will have to change because corporate social responsibility will become more important in the future” (Svareniece, 2018). It will have to include an ethical concern that has to be given to animals. This statement had been agreed by an US-based animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), that well-known for its anti-fur protests, which mentioned that “2018 is the year that everyone is saying goodbye to fur” (The Sun Daily, 2018). This shows that society realised the importance of corporate social responsibility and start to emerge in the daily essentials.
Moreover, an ethical fashion includes defending fair wages, working conditions and workers’ rights. However, who does not love bargain? Many fashion companies manufacture their clothing in sweatshops such as Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico, China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh (Daly, 2014). These sweatshops appear to provide economic opportunities to millions of women (Figure 4) who would have very few other options to escape extreme poor condition and this become a benefit for those companies to spend less on manufacturing. For instance, there are quite a lot garment workers did not receive fair living wages in most international fast fashion companies which means that hundreds and thousands of garment workers, most of them are women that living below the poor condition. In addition to this point, there is news revealed that people start to pay attention to the human right as thousands of Bangladesh garment’s workers protested to request $100 per month minimum wages and causing about 50 people were injured in clashes (Birsel, 2013). The monthly minimum wage in Bangladesh is $38 which is only half of the Cambodian garment workers earned (Birsel, 2013). In brief, these should be concerned and avoid to reach an ethical fashion as corporate social responsibility become more important.
Figure 4: Women in the sewing division of Cambodian factory, 2018.
3.0 Case studies on fast-fashion companies
Fast-fashion has always been criticised for lacking environmental and social responsibility as they usually focus on speed and low costs to deliver frequent new collections inspired by celebrity styles. H&M and Zara are the well-known brands in the fast-fashion category. Both of them constantly renewing their product range with fashion-led styles, attracting media and driving customers to visit their stores on a frequent basis. As what had mentioned, the corporate responsibility becomes more important, consumers are getting more concern about the green topic, fast-fashion companies start to contribute into green fashion. H&M company launched conscious exclusive collection and also “Close the Loop” event as a contribution to the environment (H&M Group, 2018). So does Zara which also launched a new collection “Join Life” that designed for women more focus on sustainability (Mackenzie, 2018). Thus, it is worth to analyse these fast-fashion companies to be ethical through environmentally and socially.
3.1 Case study 1: H&M
3.1.1 Environmental Responsibility
H&M, the Swedish fashion giants becomes accessible fashion brand to those who want to be stylish, but cannot afford the sums presented by designer labels (H&M Group, 2018). Anna Gedda, the Head of Sustainability in H&M mentioned, “A company of our size and scale has a responsibility as well as a great opportunity to lead the change towards a more sustainable fashion and design industry” (H&M Group, 2018) which shows that H&M starts to involve sustainable practice in their business. It aims to use 100% fully recycled or other sustainably sourced materials by 2030 (H&M Group, 2018). For example, H&M launch the Conscious Exclusive collection with high-end environmentally friendly pieces to move towards a sustainable future (H&M Group, 2018). Based on the official website, H&M’s 2017 sustainability report (Figure 5) shows the goal and changes from 2014 to 2017 (H&M Group 2017). According to the table, the result shows H&M constantly increasing the percentage using sustainable materials, facilities with water-efficient types of equipment and renewable electricity. Based on these, H&M is an environmentally aware company as it starts to increase the amount of environmental-friendly materials in its product line every year.
Figure 5: 100% Circular & Renewable: KPIs and goals, 2017.
Besides, H&M keep promoting in recycle clothing with the slogan of “Drop off clothes and textiles from ANY brand, in ANY condition” (H&M Group, 2018). H&M is the first branch placed garment-collecting boxes in all the stores around the world (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Garment Collecting Box in H&M, Singapore, 2017.
All the clothing that been collected will be shipped to I:CO, a global textile recycling company (I:CO, 2018). For promoting purpose, H&M filmed a video about Close the Loop Campaign through social media (Figure 7, 8 and 9). The campaign raises awareness of the importance of garment recycling.
Figure 7: Video promoting H&M Close the Loop Campaign, 2017.
Figure 8: Video promoting H&M Close the Loop Campaign, 2017.
Figure 9: Video promoting H&M Close the Loop Campaign, 2017.
This video filmed the journey of the unwanted garments after collected in store. It illustrates the lifespan of a garment can increase and keep in the loop as long as it could be. They even keep repeating the tagline “Bring it on” verbally to encourage the customers to join. To make the campaign more successful to attract people, H&M even rewarded their customers with 15% discount vouchers.
In brief, we can see that H&M is contributing to the environment in launching the sustainable clothing line. In terms of being ethical, the 3R’s in recycling, H&M only meets the recycle. For example, the video just demonstrates the garments that gathered are sent to be reused and reproduce to other countries, rather than diminishing the garments of clothing and reuse which not meet the criteria of ethical.
3.1.2 Social Responsibility
Not forget to figure out how H&M contribute to social, which equally important with the environmental responsibility in being ethical fashion. Although H&M wants to turn over their image of fast-fashion from being destroyed environment, they still have a long way to go. One of it is protecting the workers’ right of their suppliers. According to the researchers, Hodal (2018) from The Guardian, one of the female tailor from H&M supplier factory in Bangladesh told her that due to the reason of not meeting the quotas of production, the factory beats her as a punishment. H&M replied for this issue after being published and emphasise that all form of these abuses are against what they stand for and promised will follow up of each factory that they are working with (Hodal, 2018). H&M did promise to take attention on their suppliers about the issue of abuse. In brief, H&M paid hard works in environmentally responsibility, but does not meet the requirement of being ethical in social responsibility as the issue of abuse happens from its tied-up factory.
Figure 10: Bangladeshi workers at a garment factory of H&M, 2018.
3.2 Case study 2: Zara
3.2.1 Environmental Responsibility
After the launching of H&M’s Conscious Collection 2011 which made with organic cotton, tencel and recycled polyester as materials. Similarly, Zara launches “Join Life” campaign in 2015 which produced sustainable clothes with the slogan of “designed for a woman who looks into a sustainable future” (Fernandez, 2016). The materials aim to reduce the environmental impact, such as organic cotton or recycled wool (Fernandex, 2016). According to Inditex, the parents company of Zara stated that the garments earn a “Join Life” label (Figure 11) when meeting these internal qualifications, such as Better Cotton Initiative approved cotton, organic cotton, Tencel, recycled cotton, cotton, recycled polyester and recycled polyamide as primary fabrics; the manufacturing process (Green to Wear) must reach a grade A or B in Inditex’s environmental sustainability standard (Fernandez, 2016).
Figure 11: Requirements to earn Join Life label, 2016.
Figure 12 is one of the clothes made by recycled polyester produced by recycled plastic which consume less damage to the environment. Celebrity is used to attract customers on buying clothing made from recycled materials. Zara educates customers by explaining the sources and effects besides the clothing. In addition, Zara also encourages customers to bring back the old clothes for recycling with hashtag #joinlife for this movement. Based on these actions, Zara seems to do better than H&M in the aspect of environmental as its recycling event did not use vouchers to attract customers which seduce customers to waste more.
Figure 12: Clothes produced by recycled materials from Zara, n.d.
3.2.2 Social Responsibility
Zara is well-managed with the workers’ condition controlled. One of the missions in Join Life campaign is about workers’ human right. In this point, Inditex signed a public-private agreement with International Labour Organisations (ILO) aimed at fostering respect for fundamental labour principles and rights within the cotton sector (Zara, n.d.). Zara mentioned it only work with the suppliers that comply with its stringency levels, they have a system that allows them to know where and how all the product being processed (Zara, n.d.). According to Inditex’s website, the suppliers required to follow the Code of Conduct applies the highest standards for the protection of human rights, international of human rights, health and safety, and environmental aspects (Inditex, n.d.). They ensure their workers work in a clean and safe environment, also provide training and awareness for them (Figure 13 and 14). There are 95% of Zara’s purchases were made from top-scoring suppliers in 2017 (Inditex Annual Report, 2017). In short, as Inditex, so concern on all sources of suppliers, Zara also managed to produce clothing which fits the ethical’s consideration that manages to be an ethical green brand.
Figure 13: Workers’ working environment of Inditex, 2017.
Figure 14: Workers’ working environment of Inditex, 2017.
4.0 Case studies on high-end fashion companies
High-end fashion usually follows sustainability in their workspace and makes their customers feel transparency on each step of their works, Stella McCartney and Everlane are the examples. Literally, luxury brands always expensive due to its materials and productions. Other than fast-fashion, luxury consumers also look for social responsibility before making a purchase. According to the statement mentioned in Chapter 2 about consumers had been educated for ethical fashion, they become more concern of what they had bought. Fashion companies include luxury brand had no choice to follow this trend to maintain their customers. For instance, Stella McCartney in her brand’s philosophy, with no animals-free policy becomes the front of fashion-forward and environmentally-sound style. Everlane, which claims to be “radical transparency” and transparent pricing” by showing all the process of manufacturing and production through its social media platform and also with prove of affordable and valuable prices for its product. However, are these high-end fashion ethical enough?
4.1 Case study 1: Stella McCartney
4.1.1 Environmental Responsibility
Stella McCartney is the first luxury fashion brand which using environmentally friendly in her products. By achieving this, Stella McCartney stated that she has been using the Environmental Profit and Loss (EP&L) to measure and understand the impact on the environment since 2012 (Stella McCartney, 2018). The EP&L is a ground-breaking tool, developed by Kering which examine carbon emissions, water use, water pollution, land use, air pollution and waste (Kering, 2017). For additional information, Kering is a global luxury goods company and focus on sustainability business (Kering, 2017). Due to reason that Kering had been the partnership with Stella McCartney for 17 years (Chitrackorn, 2018), Stella McCartney used the EP&L system for her products. For example, Stella McCartney revealed that her brand reduces their environmental impacts every year based on the result of the EP&L report. “An EP&L allows a company to measure in € value the costs and benefits it generates for the environment, and in turn make more sustainable business decisions” (Kering, 2017).
Based on the report in 2016 (Figure 15), it shows the big impact comes from the raw materials production. Thus, Stella McCartney starts to increase 38% the usage of recycled polyester in 2016, as recycled polyester uses up less than 90% less water than pure polyester and also introduced the recycled nylon into the production. Although Stella McCartney wants to be ethical in her luxury products, the materials that had been used are still managed to produce luxury clothing. For instance, cashmere, rayon from the sustainably managed and certified forests in Sweden, organic cotton, recycled polyester, recycled nylon, vegetarian leather, peace silk which the silkworm are able to turn into moths and emerge naturally from their cocoons, and also wool (Stella McCartney, 2018). In short, Stella McCartney did works a lot in maintaining environmental-friendly in her product when she starts to re-decide her raw materials in production to reduce the environmental impact.
Figure 15: Stella McCartney’s EPL report in 2016, 2016.
4.1.2 Social Responsibility
According to Stella McCartney’s official website, she is a lifelong vegetarian and vegetarian brand, so she treats animals and their habitat with respect. To achieve this, Stella McCartney does not use any animal leather or fur in her designs (Stella McCartney, 2018). Besides, Stella McCartney does collaborate with some NGOs (Non-Government Organisations) to fulfil her mission. One of her collaboration partners is Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network (WFEN) which contributes to protect wildlife in wild places and on agricultural lands in-between (Stella McCartney, 2018). The organisation welcomes Stella McCartney as a founding corporate member as she contributes to animal-right with no using any leather or fur in her design. For instance, she applied vegan leather, mock croc, and faux snakeskin which just presented as her stellar spring or summer 2018 collection in Paris Fashion Week (Kretzer, 2017). This shows Stella McCartney successfully introduce her brand into green even it is a luxury brand.
Other than animal rights in social responsibility, Stella McCartney concerns in defending fair wages, working conditions and workers’ rights. She mentioned that everybody in her brand’s supply chain should be treated with respect and dignity. Instead of manufacturing her brand in Bangladesh, her product development and production teams work are locates in Italy. There are around 76% of Stella McCartney’s manufacturing and material suppliers come to Italy (Stella McCartney, 2018).
However, the labour issue happens when the designer of Stella McCartney was linked with sweatshop when having a high-profile partnership with Adidas to provide uniforms for the U.K. team during 2012 Olympic, London (Marati, 2012). The workers involved in producing sportswear for Olympic by Adidas, Puma and Nike had been discovered that they are “beaten, verbally abused, underpaid and overworked in Bangladeshi sweatshops” (Chamberlain, 2012). Moreover, Stella McCartney’s sportswear line with Adidas (Figure 16) is made by workers in Indonesia (Figure 17) who only earn on average £188 a month which had been confirmed by the company (White, 2018). There are a lot of hard works had been proved that Stella McCartney used to contribute to the environment, but the collaborations with other company should be one of the important considerations also. Stella McCartney should be more careful when choosing collaboration partners as Stella McCartney claiming that her brand respect human rights, merely she still choose to collaborate with another brand that conflicts with her philosophy. In short, her choices to work with the company that is unethical creates questions for her own commitment to ethical for so long. As a consumer, she makes us suspect how ethical that her brand could be when it comes to collaboration.
Figure 16: Stella McCartney’s Adidas line by Indonesian industry, 2018.
Figure 17: Workers in factory supplying sportswear to the west, 2012.
4.2 Case study 2: Everlane
4.2.1 Environmental Responsibility
Apart from Stella McCartney, a luxury clothing retailer called Everlane is worth to be discussed on its ethicality in green branding. This is because it is well-known in claiming of “radical transparency” and positioned itself as a leader in ethical practice which shown on its official website (Everlane, 2018). But how transparent is it?
Everlane exposed all the materials used and manufacturing process in the website to allow consumers to understand and get clear information about the product they purchased. For instance, before Everlane launched its first denim collections, they spent two years to find the factory that uses less amount of producing jeans to the environment (Geller, 2017). And finally, they found Saitex International which has the LEED-certified facility that recycles 98% of the water, relies on alternative energy sources and repurposes byproducts to create premium jeans to minus the waste (Everlane, 2018). This factory helps to produce denim jeans for Everlane. It focuses on clean water, clean energy, clean waste. Saitex owned a closed water system and efficient jet washing machines (Figure 18) which only 4 litres of water lost, due to evaporation rather than the standard denim manufacturer which waste around 1,500 litres of water per pair of jeans (Everlane, 2018). When comes into energy part, Saitex reduced its energy usage by 5.3 million kilowatt-hours of power per year and reduced nearly 80% of carbon dioxide emissions (Everlane, 2018) as the factory air dries the jeans by the air recycled from hot factory machinery instead of using traditional dryers use an element like a bar heater to heat air that dries the clothes (Energy Rating, 2016). Instead of wasting, Saitex extracted the toxic byproduct called sludge that produced when types of denim had been created and shipped to the brick factory so that it can be mix with concrete to build houses (Everlane, 2018). Figure 19 showing one of the Everlane’s jeans manufacturing by Saitex. In short, Everlane chooses to work with Saitex as the manufacturer works in the way of environmental-friendly which fulfil the claiming that positioned itself as a leader in ethical practices.
Figure 18: Closed water system of Saitex, 2018.
Figure 19: Everlane’s straight fit Jeans in mid blue by Saitex, 2017.
4.2.2 Social Responsibility
In claiming of transparency, Everlane makes sure the process of its clothing is exposed to the consumers. Based on Everlane’s official website, it focused on factories that manufacturing clothing. Each of the factories provides with a compliance audit to make sure the workers been given fair wages, reasonable hours, and environment (Everlane, 2018). The chosen factories mostly located in China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Italy, Los Angles. All the factories’ information can be found through the website. As mentioned just now, Everlane cautious when choosing its manufacturing factories, the conditions of the workers have become one of the considerations. For instance, Everlane meets MAS Holdings, Sri Lanka at the first Radical Transparency events in New York, the year 2014 and impressed by this company as they lead to the way on manufacturing ethically in Sri Lanka, and one of it is how they treat their workers (Everlane, 2018). According to the website, a journalist named Thomas L. Friedman from the New York Times mentioned that the working environment of MAS Holdings has been called “world-class” (Everlane, 2018). Even though the majority of their workers are women, they still providing education programs and improving the workers’ lives from women’s health initiatives to financial planning training (Everlane, 2018). Figure 20 shown the working environment of MAS Holdings’s workers (Everlane, 2018). Based on these proves that Everlane did pay attention to the factories they had chosen to be ethical enough as what they had positioned its brand.
Everlane believes that consumers have the rights to know the true cost from their materials to labours to transportations (Everlane, 2018). They revealed the comparison (Figure 21) between their cost, traditional retail and show the price that they mark for their products are only 2 to 3 times the net price of whole production process cost (Everlane, 2018). In short, Everlane had met their claiming of radical transparency as all the information can be found from their website. Everlane successfully let consumers know what they purchased by showing all their decisions to be ethical.
Figure 20: Working condition of MAS Holdings’s workers, 2018.
Figure 21: The cost of Everlane’s production, 2019.
5.0 Conclusion
Nowadays we live in an increasingly environmentally-conscious world, it is important to align with the principles that peoples care about the most. After analysing these few fashion companies from fast-fashion to luxury fashion, it is possible to reach the sustainability for all fashion in the future as the global is getting modern in technologic, but has to be more concern about the ethical part.
For example, H&M and Zara which considered as the leaders of fast-fashion begin to capsize the image of fast-fashion for being the environment destroyer. It is not hard to see that they are getting involved in being green. Based on the analysis, there are a lot of lacking part to be corrected for being ethical in green branding, especially for the concern on workers’ right. Not forgot that being green should not be part of business strategy, but has to be ethical, like Zara’s recycling event rather than H&M.
Besides, Stella McCartney as a luxury brand did well in promoting her brand in her philosophy of being ethical. From the materials to the process of production, she tries hard to reduce the environmental impact. The most impressive part is she maintains to protect the animal-right by using vegan leather, mock croc, and faux snakeskin in her clothing, even though others luxury brand is using animals’ skin or fur. However, her choice in choosing collaboration partner, Adidas, has a conflict with her values as Adidas sportswear line collaborates with Stella McCartney may be produced by low wages and poor working environment in other countries, instead of Italy. When looking into Everlane, a luxury brand but it managed to choose its manufacturer which aligned with the ethical practices that it always claimed to be.
In a nutshell, it is easy to positioned a company to be a green branding, but it is not easy to be ethically in green branding. There are more than that to be concerned no matter in fast-fashion or high-end fashion.