The UN Forum on Sustainability Standards and the Quality Council of India have together launched a conference aimed at tackling a number of green barriers to the fashion industry.
The International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards takes place on the 17-18 September in Delhi and attempts to find practical solutions to some of the fashion industry’s biggest issues. It will tackle topics on international trade, innovations in sustainable global value chains, and sustainability standard settings. It also explores government policies and multi-stakeholder frameworks for sustainable trade and looks at how the industry can leverage trade, global value chains, standards and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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The textiles session will focus on how the industry can use multi-stakeholder sectoral initiatives and responsible sourcing decisions such as the Fairtrade standards for seed cotton or textiles in apparel value chains to help prevent environmental pollution and socially unacceptable practices such as child labour, excessive overtime, and non-payment of legal minimum wages at various stages of garment manufacturing.
“Governments, brands, and retailers, suppliers and consumers all have a responsibility to do their bit to protect the people who make the clothes we love, whose voices too often go unheard,” explains Subindu Garkhel, Fairtrade Foundation’s cotton and textiles expert.
“As many as 75m people work to make our clothes and 80% of them are women between the ages of 18 and 35. Without sector-wide collaboration, countless cotton farmers, spinners, weavers dyers, sewers and others will continue to face daily exploitation, verbal and physical abuse, working in unsafe and dirty conditions with very little pay,” Subindu adds.
“The sector is a race to the bottom where businesses easily switch their orders for a few cents and move to countries where workers’ wages are low and their awareness about their rights low.”
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By GlobalDataAt the conference, Subindu will remind governments they have a “vital role” in creating a step change for the fashion industry through the right policies and their implementation of these.
