SFI0028

Written evidence submitted by the Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

 

Executive summary

 

 

Key words: Bangladesh, United Kingdom, fashion, consumption, clothing, ethics

 

Research study

 

If we change the way that we consume clothing in the western world, what impacts would this have on the fashion and textiles industry in Bangladesh?

 

  1. Introduction

 

Bangladesh is the world’s 50th largest exporter with a value of $37.8B. Of Bangladesh’s export economy, $34.3B is attributed to textile products and 90% of those are ready made garments (RMG) destined for western consumers (Simoes, 2018). As seen in figure 1, the top ten export destinations for Bangladeshi goods are all in the western world. The percentages used in figure 1 are for total exports however, with such a large percentage of those being textile products the graph is indicative of where the demands for RMG’s are coming from.

Figure 1 - Top ten export destinations for Bangladesh (Total exports) 

Data source: UN COMTRADE (2018)

 

The dominance of the fashion and textile industry in Bangladesh is a direct result of a concept of off-shoring which first took hold in the western world in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Begg, Pickles et al. 2003). In the pursuit of cheaper labour and higher profit margins textiles and fashion manufacturing were outsourced to countries such as India, China and Bangladesh.

 

Apart from being linked by the fashion and textiles industry, Bangladesh differs from India and China in size and population. Bangladesh has a population of 163 million living on 147 thousand square km of land whereas India and China have populations of 1.3b each and cover land masses of 3.2 and 9.5 million square km respectively (World Bank,2018). Another difference is that the fashion and textile industry is its predominant source of income.

 

Bangladesh’s fashion and textiles industry forms the countries major source of employment, with between 3.5 and 4 million people working in the garment industry. 80% of these workers are women (World Bank, 2018). The large-scale employment of women has added an extra dimension to the development of young girls in Bangladesh, who previously would have moved from childhood straight into marriage and child bearing. An opportunity to find work in the garment sector is a key way to avoid early marriage and pregnancies at a young age (World Bank, 2018). Although many female Bangladeshi garment workers will be expected to give up their careers after marriage, the opportunity to have experienced the world of work and the act of earning money will have given them a feeling of independence and empowerment that would otherwise have been off limits for them (Sajeda Amin, Ian Diamond et al. 1998).

 

Although the garment industry has changed the outlook of women in Bangladesh, it has bought limited benefits to the garment workers in general. Garment factories have been known to be risky environments to work in ever since the Triangle Shirt Waste factory fire in New York, United States of America (USA) in 1911 (Arthur F. McEvoy 1995). With a death toll of 146 this is still regarded as the worst garment factory disaster in the USA. Bangladesh is no stranger to factory disasters, most notably in recent years was the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013. This incident killed 1,134 people and injured hundreds of others making it the deadliest garment factory disaster of all time (Taplin 2014).

 

Fashion consumption in the west is changing and developments in technology are causing a decline in bricks and mortar stores with fashion companies favouring online stores and shopping through mobile apps (Palosuo 2014). With the increased speed of delivery and greater opportunities for garment customisation offered through digital channels it seems that fast fashion has a way to go before its appeal slows down.

 

The demand for clothing at a faster and cheaper rate is increasing alongside the global population which currently stands at 7.6 billion and is set to rise to 9.8 billion by 2050 (WPP2017 KeyFindings. 2017). If we stick with fast fashion as the predominant model of clothing ourselves, then with the increase in population and the associated demand for clothing there will be an increase of pressure on the producer countries to keep up the momentum of production. This could be beneficial to producer countries in terms of expanding their garment industries, but it could also amplify the existing issues of worker health and safety and fair wages.

The term ‘fast’ has become synonymous with ‘bad’ in both the fashion and the food industry, the burger and pizza chains that have bought us cheap food at record speed can easily be likened to those fashion companies offering the same system for clothing. Therefore, the antidote for fashion and food industries is the concept of slow, not so much in sense of production speed but in a sense of creating “a different worldview that names a coherent set of fashion activity that promotes variety and multiplicity of fashion production and consumption and that celebrates the pleasure and cultural significance of fashion within biophysical limits.” (Fletcher 2010, pg.262).

It would seem that transferring our consumption patterns to slow fashion could be the answer to solving the ethical and moral issues entangled in the world of fast fashion. However, this brings a dilemma for conscious consumers in the west because in trying to become more environmentally sustainable: could they be reducing the demand for new clothing from producer countries such as Bangladesh? In turn, would they inflict a number of undesired economic and societal problems on developing countries that are less able to recover than developed countries would be?

  1. Methodology

 

In order to approach these questions, that could potentially be an incredibly large and complex research project into an achievable sized endeavour, this study focuses on the United Kingdom (UK) as the consumer country and Bangladesh as the producer country.

 

The research question for this study requires both a quantitative and qualitative research approach. The quantitative research is used to predict the economic and industry focused impacts on Bangladesh of changing consumption habits in the west, whereas the qualitative research covers the background of western consumption patterns and also the effects of these on the societal fabric of Bangladesh.

 

Existing data, both qualitative and quantitative, were used to build up a detailed picture of Bangladesh. The existing data sources for this research were the World Bank Databank, International Labour Organisation, United Nations and the Observatory of Economic Complexity. A range of existing research studies and papers were used to inform the qualitative data aspects. These data sources also enabled the research team to plot Bangladesh against other developing and developed countries in order to place the country in a wider geographic sense.

 

To build on the existing data an online questionnaire was devised to understand more about the current fashion consumption habits in the west. Comprised of a mixture of multiple choice and open text questions the questionnaire required respondents to give details of how and when they purchase clothing, how they care for their clothing and how they might want to improve their consumption habits. Distribution channel have been social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

 

  1. Findings

 

Online questionnaire

 

The questionnaire had 134 respondents covering an age range of 17 to 50 plus with a majority of respondents residing in Britain (122/134). The remaining respondents resided in the USA or other western European countries, so their responses were still deemed as informative for the purposes of this study.

 

When asked if consumers preferred to purchase new clothing, second hand clothing or vintage clothing, 62.7% showed a preference for new clothing. The reasons behind this preference include the ease of finding garments to suit your style and size and a greater chance of product availability. Whereas the remaining 37.3% of respondents prefer second hand or vintage clothing and they stated a variety of benefits such as wanting to fulfil a unique sense of style and enjoying the thrill of finding a one-off garment, or an item with history.

 

The questionnaire results imply that there is an attitude difference between the functionality of shopping for new clothes which is made very easy through the design and marketing within major fashion stores and the fun and experience led act of shopping in second hand and vintage stores which perhaps take a less structured approach to retailing. Interestingly several of the respondents opting for second hand clothes over new garments, mentioned recycling or the environment as a motivation for their consumption habits.

 

Figure 2. Priorities when purchasing clothing (sample of study)

 

 

As shown in figure 2, 41% of respondents rated the style of clothes as their top priority when making a purchasing decision, whilst 17.2% rated the functionality of a garment as most important. Interestingly price and functionality are the only options with similar value as a top priority.

 

Fabrics and materials were the top priority for 26.1% of respondents. When asked to explain the reason for choosing their top priority several of those who selected fabric and materials claimed to do so because of ethical considerations such as a preference for wearing natural fibres rather than synthetic fibres.

 

The brand of garments had the most striking result with none of the respondents choosing it as a first or second priority and 77.6% of respondents deeming it of least importance when making a purchasing decision.

 

Moving onto questions relating to garment care, 56.7% of respondents claimed to look at garment care labels before purchasing an item. The main reasons for checking the label were to discover the washing instructions with most respondent’s stating a dislike for garments which requiring dry cleaning or specialist cleaning treatments.

 

When garments are no longer wanted by the respondents, 79.1% of them will donate unwanted clothing to charities, whilst only 6% would sell garments on to other people.

 

In an attempt to discover the popularity of slow fashion and environmentally conscious clothing brands in the UK respondents were offered five different brand names that are current (People Tree, Seasalt, Bibico, Thought and THTC), and one option for ‘other ethical brands’ that had not been named. The listed brand names shown in figure 3 were chosen as the most active brands through internet searches and the researcher’s industry awareness.

 

Figure 3. Top five ethical brands (Questionnaire respondents)

 

 

93.3% of respondents claimed not to have been aware of any of the five brand names listed. Only 28 respondents out of 134 reported to buy from one or more of the named brands on a regular basis.

 

To determine the importance of brands telling their back stories and displaying their ethical credentials to customers, respondents were asked whether these have influence on their purchasing decisions. 10.4% of respondents deemed back stories and ethical credentials as ‘very important’ whilst collectively 78.3% deemed this quite important or neutral to their purchasing decision, leaving 11.2% of respondents that felt no influence when purchasing clothing.

 

Fast fashion is almost unavoidable as a concept to most consumers; however, the idea of slow fashion is still emerging with 49.3% of respondents reporting that they were not all familiar with the term and 24.6% claiming to have heard of slow fashion but not feeling confident in what the term meant.

 

On being offered the opportunity to improve their clothing consumption habits, 94% of respondents decided that they would like to change their habits. Figure 4 shows that the most popular changes that would be undertaken were ‘buying better quality clothing’ (28.6%) and buying ‘only ethically made clothing’ (25.2%). Only 7.3% of respondents showed an interest in buying clothing that is made in the UK, and 4.9% of respondents showed a desire to ‘buy nothing new for a year’.

Figure 4. Future consumption aspirations (sample of study)

 

The thinking behind the design of this question was to discover the aspirations of current consumers and to obtain a sense of where future consumption patterns may head if people were to re-evaluate their current methods of clothing consumption.

 

  1. Discussion

 

The fast fashion system is still in full force, this is apparent through the value of textile exports from Bangladesh to the western world as well as the preference for new clothing, and style led choices shown in the questionnaire results. Equally slow fashion is still an emerging concept as discovered when almost half of the questionnaire respondents reported to be unfamiliar with the term or its meaning.

 

The continued popularity of fast fashion has financial benefits for Bangladesh, and also gives employment security to those working in the industry, however it compounds the concerns that the health and safety concerns surrounding the industry could increase. Although the questionnaire respondents aspire to buy more ethically made clothing and higher quality clothing, those still appear to be aspirations with little effect on their current consumption habits. This suggests that significant shifts towards new consumption habits are happening slower than first thought by the research team.

 

This result agrees with the literature given that the current methods of auditing and corporate social responsibility reporting that take place in Bangladeshi garment factories are flawed because they are not properly enforced, meaning that they are either undertaken voluntarily or can be hindered through stakeholder pressure (Belal, Owen 2007). Through clever marketing and a tendency to turn to a culture of blame, it is relatively easy for western fashion companies to distance themselves from their role in the undesirable elements of the Bangladeshi garment industry (Taplin 2014).

 

5.Conclusion and recommendations

 

The immediate future of the fast fashion industry shows more staying power than anticipated by the research team on launching this study, so it would seem that Bangladesh’s garment industry is secure for the foreseeable future. However, the concern remains that if and when consumption patterns do change, if they result in a loss in demand for clothing made in Bangladesh then the country would suffer severe economic damage and associated loss of jobs which would have much wider societal impacts.

Despite showing aspirations to become more ethical consumers, ranging amounts of consideration are given to the origins of their clothing. It seems that as western consumers we are yet to accept our responsibility for the fate of the Bangladeshi people whom have taken on our demands for faster and cheaper clothing.

 

The researchers recommend that the UK government enforces tighter regulations on fashion companies that are placing great demand on garment factory workers to produce clothing at exceeding rates and decreasing costs as a way of displaying our concern for the safety welfare of garment workers. These regulations need to be more robust than the current model of external factory inspectors and need to place a higher focus on the original intentions of fashion companies when designing their supply chains and production methods.

 

It is also recommended that an incentive is created for western companies to find ways of working with producers in Bangladesh to find new production methods that fulfil a decent amount of western demand whilst providing ethical working conditions and wages to the garment workers. These incentives should then be given a fair amount of media coverage and exposure to demonstrate the alternative consumption methods to western consumers to give them the chance to improve the ethics of their consumption patterns.

 

September 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

Central Intelligence Agency2018-last update. Available: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/fields/2090.html#bg2018].

UN Comtrade Database 2018-last update. Available: https://comtrade.un.org/data/2018].

World Bank; 2018-last update. Available: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.

WPP2017 Key Findings. 2017.

ARTHUR F. MCEVOY, 1995. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911: Social Change, Industrial Accidents, and the Evolution of Common-Sense Causality. Law & Social Inquiry, 20(2), pp. 621-651.

BEGG, B., PICKLES, J. and SMITH, A., 2003. Cutting It: European Integration, Trade Regimes, and the Reconfiguration of East–Central European Apparel Production. Environment and Planning A, 35(12), pp. 2191-2207.

BELAL, A.R. and OWEN, D.L., 2007. The views of corporate managers on the current state of, and future prospects for, social reporting in Bangladesh. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 20(3), pp. 472-494.

FLETCHER, K., 2010. Slow Fashion: An Invitation for Systems Change. Fashion Practice, 2(2), pp. 259-266.

PALOSUO, L., 2014. The State of Fashion. 1. publ. in GB edn. London: Dorling Kindersley.

SAJEDA AMIN, IAN DIAMOND, RUCHIRA T. NAVED and MARGARET NEWBY, 1998. Transition to Adulthood of Female Garment-Factory Workers in Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning, 29(2), pp. 185-200.

SIMOES, A., The Observatory of Economic Complexity. Available: https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/bgd/ [31/08/18, .

TAPLIN, I.M., 2014. Who is to blame? Critical perspectives on international business, 10(1/2), pp. 72-83.

 

About the authors

 

Didi Aben - Researcher at the Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University. Background in textile design, fashion retail and sustainable business management. Didi led the work proposed in this research and performed all analysis.

 

Roberto Pasqualino and Aled Jones - Research Fellow and Director of the Global Sustainability Institute respectively, working in the Economic and Social Research Council funded project Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity project. Roberto and Aled supervised the research.