What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar. I mean, Ethical Clothing.

I have no idea where my shirt was made. I mean, I can take off my shirt, look at the tag, and see “made in Honduras”, but that really doesn’t tell me that much. In our New Global Voices class, we opened by checking the tags of what we were wearing that day and putting the locations up on the board. Most came from China, some from the US, and some from other places like Bangladesh. Bangladesh is actually the perfect example of what I would like to address here. Around a month ago, a factory in Bangladesh collapsed killing (as of March 15^th) over one thousand workers. This is, in the world’s greatest understatement, an issue.

                Now, on to the solution. What can we do to fix this? Obviously we cannot bring 1000 people back to life, and no matter how much fun burning down some sweatshops sounds, there are more effective ways we can address this issue. That’s right – we as consumers HAVE to do something. That is the only way this problem will get fixed. In an incredibly recent survey street shoppers were questioned about their views on ethical clothing. They were asked whether or not the inevitable price hike of ethical clothing would turn them off from purchasing it. The response was, for the most part, as expected. In spirit, shoppers would be willing to pay that extra 5% or 20% of however much it would cost to support ethical, sweatshop-less manufacturers.  But really think about this for a moment. If you, the consumer, walked in to a store and saw two identical shirts, one for 20 dollars and the other for 12, which one would you really pick? I don’t believe it is possible to guilt trip consumers into spending eight dollars more per shirt, because people will just carry on with their lives and think “oh it’s OK because I’m saving myself money I’m such a smart shopper”.

                In situations like this, positive emotion will trump negative almost every time. What I mean by this is that it telling the consumer that they are horrible people for supporting sweat shops and indirectly responsible for the death of thousands will be less effective than rewarding the shoppers who support non-sweatshop clothing. This article (scroll down, its longer) offers what I believe to a great solution. The store Rapanui boats the fair trade symbol. Not only this, but all of the clothing’s tags come with a grade based off of ethicality of its production but also its eco-friendliness.

This “eco-labeling” system gives the buyer a quick and easy visual representation of the quality of their product. Going back to the identical shirts, if one of them had an “A” grade while the other had a “C” grade, I would for sure shell out the additional eight dollars. What’s great about this is that it raises awareness (which was lacking previously) as to which shirt will lead to another factory collapse and which gives you a sense of moral victory. I really hope what Rapanui is doing spreads to other retailers, as this could drastically reduce accidents. 

-Philip