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I read the other day a very honest account from Saffia Minney, the founder of People Tree, of the difficulties she has had establishing the People Tree brand in the UK.
This is interesting, I had long had questions about People Tree, I couldnt believe they were making the amount of profit their profile suggested, and I suspected the deep pockets of Ms Minney and her banker husband were being explored with regularity.
Talking to people in Eco fashion over the last few years, I have heard many complaints about People Tree, and their percieved success, despite the fact that the quality wasnt considered particularly good by those who spoke to me. Having never properly examined any people tree produce myself, I cant comment on that.
I have however seen other firms go out of business over the last few years, shops and clothing producers. These were the people who had gone for it, stuck their necks out and taken the risks, but without any seriously big money or marketing nowse behind them.
I have watched with interest as Howies have apparently turned an economic corner, on their way to being a stable brand along side the likes of Fat Face, with high street shops in fashionable places. But Howies of course owe that in part to their relatively new owners Timberland. When I first came across Howies, I think they would have run a mile from Timberland, (maybe I’m wrong) but now they seem happy to be part of the American giant’s family.
All this is interesting and sobering for me, as I continue to explore establishing my own clothing business. It makes me glad I didnt rush into it, and even more so now as I seem to have found a business partner who has the same heart as me, and all the logistical arrangements already in place to make a great business. But if People Tree cant make the books balance yet in the UK (it took them eight years in Japan, still counting here) how long will it take us to do so?
And yet there is something right about it all, until we get to the point where cheap exploitative clothing is no longer the standard we measure everything else by, and we no longer think that good quality clothing made in proper conditions by fairly treated, well supported producers is ‘unaffordable’ then there is a lot of very worthwhile, even necessary work to do.
Hats off to Saffia Minney, hats off too to the people who tried to breakthrough, but didnt have the cash behind them to fall back on. You guys are heroes, and one day you will be shown to be right. You can be proud of what you have tried to do, and you will have something good to tell your grandchildren one day.
I do believe still that we should all consume less clothing by the way, and where possible make our own, buy second hand and so on, but I do recognise that new clothes do need to be made, and if we’re going to make them, it needs to be done properly, no more undercover slavery.
Previous posts on this sort of subject…
Ethical fashion - oh the difficulties; The terrible truth about ethical business
Some very talented and ambitious friends of mine are setting up a large scale organic cotton project in China. One day soon perhaps, I’ll be able to help them by marketing their enterprise in the UK and Europe, but right now I’m worried.
How can I take to the ethical marketplace, a Chinese project? The current backlash against the olympic torch, the promotion of the free tibet movement, the Zimbabwe debarcle, and general fears of China’s growing political and economic might, have swung the niche ethical consumers well and truly away from China.
Howies have had flack in the past for making their jeans there - they seem to have survived. But with big brands keeping a wary eye on their ethical products for signs of a dying off of demand… how can I convince the buyers that this excellent chinese project will actually be worth them becoming involved in?
I’ll post any progress…
Versus 
I see Converse All Stars are plugging their anti establishment credentials, well they’ve got some right to do so. Chuck Taylor High Tops have been worn by the great and good for many a long year. I’ve owned quite a few pairs in my time too, from classic black and whites to camoflague pattern boots, they’ve always served me well.
But Cons arent the anti establishment buy they may once have been. Now owned by Nike, (you cant get much more establishment than them) they’re part of the system which has involved sweat shop labour and exploitation. (In all fairness, in recent years Nike have cleaned up their act, but they remain a massive multinational, with all that involves.)
Just because The Clash and Kurt Cobain sported them, isnt sufficient reason to buy shoes which are produced by such a major multinational. Especially not when a really good alternative is on offer…
I got my first pair of No Sweat sneakers for my birthday last year, and I’ve just bought another pair (this time I got them off ebay, and they have hemp not cotton uppers).
No Sweats are great boots, in my experience they take the same amount of punishment as Cons, they look practically identical, and come with a clean conscience!!
Dont get me wrong, Cons are great boots, but ethics dictate that where another better option is available (get your no sweats here, or keep an eye on ebay for a bargain) true rebels need to leave Nike behind, and go for 100% Union Made No Sweats.
Hey No Sweat, how about a free pair of boots for such a big plug? ;P
Is this undeveloped ground ripe for transformation into a cotton farm?
I sent out an email tonight about the cotton project I’m working on, given that I’m back off to Phnom Penh again in a couple of weeks, I thought I should try and update people.
For those of you who didnt get the email (my fault for certain!) I’ve pasted most of it below - happy reading.
First a quick catch up: About three years ago I was prompted to begin working on setting up a fair trade garment business in Cambodia. The vision for this enterprise was to enrich and empower impoverished people, make great clothes and make an impact socially and environmentally. This is part of what I see as taking the gospel – the good news of the Kingdom of God – to the many people who are least reached in the world. The bible tells us that the kingdom of God is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, there is no getting away from the fact that this affects bodies as well as souls!
Cambodia like many countries has many who live in dire poverty, and that has been made unusually bad in some situations, by the dreadful civil war which wiped out huge numbers of Khmer people, and set the development of the country back many years.
Anyway, the garment enterprise hit a number of obstacles. One of the key factors was that upon investigation, it transpired that none of the ‘ethical’ manufacturers in Phnom Penh that I met, were using materials which were totally ethically sourced. Instead they were relying on imports of poor quality materials, which had been produced in questionable conditions. In short – there were severe supply chain issues.
On investigating this further – I realised that the best way to take this project forward would be to start from the ground up, and work on developing the raw materials. In particular I could see the amazing potential offered by organic cotton production in Cambodia. I was inspired by what I saw of other organic cotton projects in other countries.
One particularly successful project was set up in India – the aim of that project was to alleviate the plight of small holder cotton farmers who were struggling for survival. The project’s stated aims were: “to address the problems of bankruptcy, rural-urban migration, deteriorating soil and water quality, crop vulnerability to pest attacks, and market access in an effort to create economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable livelihoods for smallholder cotton farmers. The objective of the project was to create more vertical supply chains to open the market for organic fair trade cotton.”
This project has gone on to be successful in every way – an evaluation survey of some of the small holders later found that: “90% reduced their indebtedness, 98% experienced less financial hardship, 58% saw a check in urban migration, and 100% attributed reduced incidences of illness in their families to the adoption of organic cultivation.”
You can read more about the Agrocel project here and visit their website too.
My aim is now to establish a project with similar redemptive qualities in Cambodia.
Last year I visited Cambodia again with some friends who were able to advise me on different areas of production. Together we visited potential sites for growing cotton, and made a number of contacts who were interested in helping with the project in different ways.
In particular we were taken to a village where some land is available for the start of such a project – it is peopled by former Khmer rouge soldiers. The village also has a school set up by an NGO to teach agricultural techniques. In some respects it seems like an ideal place to start the project.
This summer along with the rest of my family I visited Phnom Penh for a few days, and during this visit I was introduced to someone who had previously grown cotton successfully just outside of Phnom Penh.
At the beginning of November I will return again to Cambodia – this time for two weeks, to try and see if I can marry the diverse elements which currently exist together, and try and get some cotton growing. Of course this is only the first hurdle. Although there exists a huge market for Organic cotton, because there is currently none grown in Cambodia, finding someone either to buy the raw cotton, or to process it locally still remains a challenge. However this does not seem insurmountable – the possibility of seeing real transformation at a community level is getting closer!
I would like to ask you to pray for the project over the next few weeks – this is likely to be a crucial time.
After last year’s trip I ended up wasting a lot of time by being distracted - I don’t want to waste time like that again.
My hope is that through this project, and others like it, we can make a significant impact on the lives of people in desperately needy communities. Moreover, as Cambodia is heavily dependent on garment production for its export economy, and currently it imports all its raw materials – we could make a significant impact on the economy of the nation should organic cotton production take hold in Cambodia!
I’m some way out of my teens, but I still want to see the world changed – I hope you do too.
If you are willing to pray for this project, these are some points I’d like to ask for prayer on:1) That the links in the chain would fall into place – that none of those important links would be missing!
2) That funding would come through in order to pay for the materials and so on which are necessary if we are to get this thing started.
3) God’s grace for both my family and me, as we are apart again.
4) Wisdom and discernment as I deal with lots of different people – all with different motivations.
If you know of someone who might be interested in being involved in this, or another organic cotton project, then please direct them to me, a basic description of the project is to be found on the organic cotton project page of this site.
If you have any questions – about any aspect of this project, I’d be delighted to try and answer them.
I’m off to Cambodia again in November to see if we can move the organic cotton project on a bit - unfortunately I’ve just spent the best part of a year being led up a garden path by someone who shall remain nameless… he knows who he is… a lot of time has been wasted, and when you are dealing with very poor people, time is valuable!
So I think it’s back to where I left off, working on setting up a small community based project. I think I can get the seeds, the land too shouldnt be a big problem, the expertise is at hand, now the next stage is fiding someone who can process the stuff - no point in growing it if we can’t sell it.
I’m considerably happier about the idea of setting this up on a small scale again, it allows the project to be much more personal, and to have a real community level impact. Hopefully too it should be replicateable and scalable - in other words there should be some sustainability built in, something which is far from guaranteed when one works on a larger/commercial scale.
I am encouraged, although to be honest still annoyed at having wasted so much time on someone elses’ ego trip.
More as it develops… and yes I am looking for people who can process cotton on a small scale (or any scale) in Cambodia, so if you can help me in any way, please let me know!
I missed this one the other day, but it will go some way to encouraging us all (I hope) to abandon our old non organic cotton ways… and those Uzbeks eh!?
a good edition of the moral maze on tonight (weds) - all about ethical trade, after the “surprise” news this week about supermarkets buying stuff from sweatshops… gosh, I can’t believe it, I honestly thought they were buying their incredibly cheap and poor quality clothing from high quality manufacturers who were paying their workers a good wage!
Moral Maze, always worth checking out for decent debate and analysis.
An article in the guardian/observer tells the tail of how animal tails, an ethical teeshirt company got going - sounds tough.
But to be honest, it seems to me that they had it relatively easy. There is no mention of limited funds, which is usually an important part of the equation for small ethical labels. These guys were at least seemingly able to absorb the hits they took on dodgy quality.
They have also decided they can sell teeshirts, which is a big ask in ethical fashion terms - everybody sells teeshirts! They have clearly done significant makrket research though, so I’m sure they know what they are doing.
Also, they seemed happy(ish) to source from Turkey or India - wherever they could get stuff from, they weren’t tied to a particular country which many ethical labels are.
And perhaps best of all, they just got a nice bit of PR courtesy of the afore mentioned national newspaper - which wont do them any harm!
Nobody is even mentioning the whole ‘buy less stuff’ side of things, so I wont spoil the party.
talking of big promises, treehugger have a good write up for Timberland, owner of everybodys favourite Cardigan bay based ethical sportswear brand.
aiming for total carbon neutrality eh… I’m impressed, although I still have some mixed feelings about any company which like them aim to sell more stuff.
It’s a tricky old subject, can there really be such a thing as ethical business?
A well spent afternoon today, discussing issues concerning the production of organic cotton, and the practicalities of running an ethical business.
Such meetings leave me feeling exhausted, partly in a good way, as I am glad to be able to put effort into things which make a difference. But also there is a negative side, as conversation often takes a turn for the depressing when one examines the reality of ethical business.
There is a real question over whether many of the ethical brands we see out there are really sustainable.
Some of the biggest name brands have severe difficulties making the books balance, and are reliant on the deep pockets of supportive investors, who are concerned more with doing some good, than getting financial return.
If you have, like me, spent a lot of time talking to retailers and consumers of ethical clothing, you would hear a lot of negative information about some of the biggest ‘name brands’ in the industry. And yet those brands continue to be seen as the best.
Why? Well in part it is because of journalists, (I know, I’m guilty) who return to the same old people everytime they want to site an ethical trader. Inevitably, they are going to be the people who have spent a lot of money getting their name known.
And that is the second part - money. One of the brands I refer to in the preceding paragraphs is run by someone whose partner is a big time banker - (not a euphemism) which makes riding out those pesky sales problems a lot easier.
Another of the biggest brands, and this time I can name them - Howies ( great clothes, great catalogue, great brand, great blog etc) - had to sell out to Timberland in order to sustain the growth they needed to acheive.
In business its grow or shrink, and if you shrink, you aint gonna last. They needed to grow, and the only way they felt they could do so was to effectively sell out. As it goes I dont blame them, after all, the founders had remortgaged their home a number of times, etc etc, and it isnt like they arent doing their bit.
I know of other brands, who I cant name for reasons of commercial sensitivity, who appear very succesful, but are in fact struggling hugely, and only able to survive because of constant baling out.
I hear many other tales from people who say that they are only just surviving, unable to even think about starting to pay back the original investments, others are doing less well.
Occasionally I hear about people who are doing better, because they have found a way of making it work, and generally that has to do with staying small, meeting local needs.
So it appears that the terrible truth about ethical business is that when independent ethical brands try to take on the competition, they collapse under the strain.
The ones which do have what it takes to succeed in the big wide world - Howies, Green and Blacks, etc, are snapped up by bigger, less ethical companies. Notable exception of course - Patagonia, which took its own unique route, chronicled in Yvon Chouinard’s excellent book which you can see in my side bar.
Staying small, a business may survive, and perhaps flourish in the right market - but in clothing there is a problem, meeting the minimums. You must order a minimum quantity of product which would perhaps be 400 garments per colour.
So say you wanted to do a tee-shirt range, which you would manufacture yourself, and you wanted four different colours, you would need to order 1600 garments. A tall order for a brand new outfit. Especially since the price you pay per unit at minimum order level is much higher than you would on a big order, so your profit is immediately lower.
Some small brands buy blanks off companies like SAF or others which offer much lower minimum order quantities, but at much higher unit prices, plus you need to relabel and so on. So you’re caught between a rock and a hard place.
Of course the finishing of an ethical garment, (if you are using safer dyes or less harmful printing) is also more expensive, and often more prone to problems, than conventional harmful processes. The small ethical brands lose out again.
And that isnt all, if you were to go to a big retailer - I notice Next and New Look are among the high street brands using organic cotton now, and were to ask their buying department ( Ihavent tried this yet - so I may be wrong, but I bet I am not) where the cotton they use comes from, they wont know. Why? Because they simply buy it through an agent, who buys it from somebody else, and etc and so on, until at the bottom of the chain somewhere you get to the farmer.
What I am saying is that the accountability of this sort of product is always suspect, because unless you can trace your cotton from seed to shelf (this can be done, and some are doing it) then you cant really have a truly ethical supply chain.
Clear audit trails are key in ethical business, and as far as I know, the big chains cant provide that in most cases. The smaller ones sometimes can, but not always.
This my friends, is the terrible truth about ethical business.
What is the conclusion of this long and rambling spiel? When you have to buy stuff, keep buying ethical products. Buy local as much as possible, buy second hand as much as possible. Support the smaller pioneering ethical enterprises, with more customers they might be able to break a decent profit one day. Dont be fooled by the hype, your best way of finding good ethical product is by word of mouth, and a bit of research.
And if, like I was today, you are in Ammanford any time soon, stop by Damien and Michelle’s Organic Pantry, which is a good example of how a small, ethical, local business can do well - and serve a community. Their shop is cool, their veg boxes are excellent, and their teeshirts are really good too. I only popped in for a couple of minutes, but it was worth it. They are nice people.
Organic cotton is very hard to come by. The scarcity has led some to call it ‘white gold’ because a good supply can be very valuable. To others the scarcity is a worry, mainly because if demand continues to outstrip supply, the demand may well begin to dry up.
More and more companies are beginning to convert to Organic cotton in small percentages. Manufacturers like Nike and Marks and Spencer among others have actually led the way in this.
Out front there have always been the small guys of course.
If you are interested in sourcing Organic cotton for your clothing range, or for a smaller project, then get in touch, and I can pass on some suggestions. For big business, I would suggest, as a first port of call, organic exchange, which is very good indeed.
For more info on Organic cotton generally, (and why I believe - along with others that it is very much part of the future of the garment industry) please see articles linked to the tag cotton in the sidebar.
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