After researching what being sustainable and ethical is , it ’ s important to look at what is going on in our world . One of the major issues as to why the mass market needs to become ethical is the working conditions , most of the money spent on clothing is in developed countries and most of the clothing is made in less economically stable countries where poverty is high and wages as low as 23 cents per hour ( Rabine , 1997 ). Working conditions in less-developed countries are appalling , clearly shown in the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in 2013 , where 1,129 workers died in a building collapse ( Chandran , 2016 ). This man-made disaster was because of structural failure due to 3 more stories added to a building that couldn ’ t hold them , large cracks appeared in the building the day , but the next day workers were sent back and this lack of consideration ended their lives . This disaster is much closer to home than you think because they were making clothing for our high street stores such as , Primark , Matalan , Mango and Accessorize Monsoon . Three years on , rights and safety of workers are in greater focus , there has also been legislation to ensure supply-chain transparency which Sarah Labowitz , co-director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business in New York talked about after the disaster , “ You have about 200 brands working together , and there ’ s definitely more transparency , more attention to the issue of human rights in the global supply chain ”. During a primary research Interview with James Macaulay , procurement and store development manager for Accessorize and Monsoon , he stated in the last 3 years they had been focusing on supply chain transparency , and that they now “ have no sub-contracting and know where everything is manufactured and sourced globally so the company doesn ’ t contribute to sweat-shop production and childlabour ”, this may have been a knock on effect from the Rana Plaza disaster , showing the high street is willing to change unfortunately 1,129 people died for them to notice .
Sustainability needs to be at the forefront of fashion because of our diminishing natural resources , the fashion industry is the second most wasteful and polluting in the world after the oil industry ( EcoWatch , 2015 ). Making the mass market more sustainable should be a top priority , because it ’ s most influential out of all the different sectors of the fashion industry , at the moment they mainly run on a cradle to grave system which is where they produce a product , the product gets used then the product gets thrown away or produce a shop layout with all the fittings , install them , then when they want to rebrand or change the store setup they throw it away . This is not a sustainable practice , they should be encouraging consumers and the way in which they manage their store development , in a cradle to cradle practice , which means whatever they take from the earth gets replaced , reused , or recycled . This practice will not only help to create a more sustainable world but also end up saving businesses money , as there is a landfill tax which will reduce if they no longer throw away their shop fittings ( slater , 2016 ).
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