FASHION REVOLUTION | FASHION TRANSPARENCY INDEX 2019
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WHY TRANSPARENCY MATTERS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY Lack of transparency costs lives
When Rana Plaza collapsed six years ago in Bangladesh, killing and injuring thousands of garment workers, people had to dig through the rubble looking for clothing labels in order to figure out which brands were producing clothes in one of the five garment factories operating in the building. In some cases, it took weeks for brands and retailers to determine why their labels were found amongst the ruins and what sort of purchasing agreements they had with those suppliers. Many clothing brands sourcing from the factories inside Rana Plaza didn’t know their products were being made there. Unfortunately, factory fires and accidents, poor working conditions, dangerous pollution and exploitation of garment workers remains rampant six years after Rana Plaza.
Fragmented supply chains obscure accountability The vast majority of today’s fashion brands and retailers do not own their manufacturing and supplier facilities, making it challenging to monitor or control working conditions and environmental impacts across the highly globalised supply chain. This can sometimes be used as an excuse for brands to evade responsibility for how their products are made. Brands and retailers may work with hundreds or even thousands of factories at any given time – and that is just the suppliers that cut, sew and assemble our garments. There are many facilities further down the chain that weave, dye and finish materials and farms that grow fibres used in our clothing. During the manufacturing process our clothes pass through many pairs of hands before they ever reach the shop floor or, increasingly, the screens of our phones and computers.
[TOP] 'Dhaka Savar Building Collapse' by rijans via Flickr CC [Bottom] 'Bangladeshi garment workers block a road during a demonstration to demand higher wages in Dhaka by RTE via https://www. rte.ie/news/ world/2019/0109 /1022163-clothing-workersstrike-in-bangladesh/