H&M, Boohoo face off with UK legislators over sustainable fashion policy

Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts. To become a Vogue Business Member and receive the Sustainability Edit newsletter, click here. On Wednesday 1 May, members of the UK’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) gathered in the Palace of Westminster to take stock of the fashion industry’s sustainability efforts since the landmark ‘Fixing Fashion’ report in 2019 that outlined 17 policy recommendations, including strengthening the Modern Slavery Act for textiles; reducing microfibre pollution; and introducing tax incentives for more sustainable businesses. The bottom line: while some small pilot projects have taken off, voluntary action is nowhere near enough, and fashion’s volume is still increasing far beyond what’s sustainable. “We’ve seen a massive increase in the volume of fashion. Fast fashion has now become instant fashion, which is about overstimulation of the market. We have an imperative now that is far more clear,” Professor Dilys Williams, founder and director of University of the Arts London’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, told the committee. Many of the EAC’s 2019 recommendations have since become key pillars in the EU’s bid to legislate sustainable and circular fashion, but the UK government rejected enacting them (select committees like the EAC cannot enact policies themselves, they can only urge the government to). “We saw after the Fixing Fashion report, that the government did not take on board any of the committee’s recommendations. This inquiry needs to be reopened to grapple with the government’s total failure to act since the report’s publication,” says Hilary Marsh, garment policy advisor at Transform Trade. Brands and retailers were invited to share insights and report on progress, alongside answering the committee members’ questions — some of which seemingly demonstrated a lack of awareness around the complexity of sustainable fashion, or the ability to interrogate issues around fast fashion further. Brands were asked to submit evidence on the extent of their social and environmental impacts, the progress they have made on improving these in the last five years, how government policies and initiatives have or could support them in this endeavour, and what more they plan to do in the future. Fifteen of the invited brands declined to attend. Ludlow MP and EAC chair Philip Dunne said during the meeting that this showed these brands were “not prepared to stand up to their own corporate responsibilities”. This includes Matalan, TK Maxx, Asos, I Saw It First, Shein, Asda, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, New Look, Next, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, as well as secondhand platforms Ebay, Vinted and Depop. (Asos, Asda and Depop all submitted written evidence the day following the meeting.) H&M and Boohoo were the only brands who showed up. Dunne applauded them for having “had the courage to come and sit before the committee”. Wednesday’s meeting was part of the current Parliament wrapping up its term (Parliament changes hands every five years after general elections). In light of the evidence given, committee staff will now put together a draft report for committee members to discuss, which may result in a public report of further policy recommendations, or a letter to the head of state. Here are the key takeaways of what was discussed. Fast fashion in the hot seat With H&M and Boohoo in attendance, committee members took the time to question their business practices. Marcus Hartmann, head of public affairs at H&M, and Andrew Reaney, outgoing responsible sourcing, group product operations and wholesale director at Boohoo, sat on a panel alongside Thrift+ founder and CEO Joe Metcalfe, as well as Oxfam trading director Lorna Fallon. H&M does not have any UK suppliers, but Boohoo has over 40, and has come under scrutiny in recent years for alleged worker exploitation in the English city of Leicester. Claudia Webbe, the MP for Leicester East, dedicated her allocated time to questioning Boohoo. The issues in Boohoo’s supply chain represent “a global issue” whereby “there are hundreds of millions globally employed making garments, but unsafe conditions, poverty pay and abuse are rife”, she told Vogue Business. “The solution is a statutory garment regulator and government mandatory measures to ensure goods are made ethically and only imported if this can be proven.” With limited time and witnesses, alongside a lack of investigators with specialised knowledge of the industry, the meeting barely scratched the surface of fashion’s sustainability struggles. Brand representatives pointed to their use of Better Cotton and recycled polyester — “post-consumer”, according to Boohoo’s Reaney — as evidence of their shift to more sustainable materials, for example, with no follow-up concerning the flaws of Better Cotton or the fact that recycled polyester is actually plastic bottles. Also entirely missing were manufacturer and worker voices, says Transform Trade’s Marsh. “The committee missed getting deeper into the impact of the industry on people, which cannot be separated from the environment.” “I would also have liked to hear more interrogation on Tier 2 and Tier 3 responsibilities, as brands don’t own most of their factories,” adds fellow attendee Tamara Cincik, founder and CEO of think tank Fashion Roundtable, secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion and Hairdressing. “This is not a default issue, it’s a central one.” Tackling waste is a priority Waste was debated in both of the meetings’ panels, with proposed solutions ranging from a levy on new products for extended producer responsibility (EPR) and ecodesign principles to improve recyclability, to more investment in recycling infrastructure, a hot topic in recent months. Currently, the handling of post-consumer textiles relies heavily on a secondhand retail and export system, which is not — and has never been — equitable or viable for the long term. “The charity retail sector works because of the 10,000 charity shops powered by 100,000 volunteers sorting through our old clothing and significant tax breaks for the charity sector,” said Thrift+’s Metcalfe. While the government has previously put EPR for textiles on the back-burner, attendees were hopeful that may change after a general election. “It’s clear there is an appetite to address waste, but we cannot tackle it head on without EPR,” says Cincik. “The end-of-life market is the growth opportunity for the industry, if it has the right approach and infrastructure.” Modern slavery is still a reality MP Webbe raised concerns that UK garment workers were being subject to modern slavery — with contracts stating workers’ holiday pay will be paid only after 12 months of service, that their hours can be reduced to 10 hours a week (if there is a downturn in the economy or if work from brands and retailers reduces), and that workers are forced to work longer because they are seeking to meet brands’ deadlines. Reaney responded, “What you have listed there is effectively evidence of modern slavery and what I would say categorically is no responsible modern retailer would tolerate modern slavery, nor us.” According to Webbe, these were clauses in Boohoo’s own supplier employment contracts. Boohoo is not alone in this. On the first panel, Dilys Williams addressed the systemic nature of modern slavery accusations in fashion’s supply chains. “We need to make the modern slavery act more accountable and more visible,” she said. “We need to be able to support the businesses trying to change. Rather than moving out of a business or factory, we need to strengthen trade unions and facilitate change.” Voluntary action and consumer demands won’t cut it In the five years since Fixing Fashion, the UK government has essentially left the industry to its own devices, and Wednesday’s meeting showed this approach has fallen short. “Unfortunately, there is no competitive advantage to being responsible,” said Williams. “There is no infrastructure for businesses to behave in a more responsible way, so any good initiatives — such as rental or resale — are outweighed by the increase in production volumes and the race to the bottom.” In certain cases, increasingly educated consumers demanding more transparency and accountability from fashion businesses can spark change. But consumer behaviour is a fickle and unreliable beast. “There isn’t just one type of consumer,” said Femke de Hartog, CSR policy advisor for Europe at Netherlands-based trade association INretail. “Some are very responsible, but the largest group likes to buy at a low price.” For Williams, policy comes before consumer-behaviour change. “Policy isn’t just about accountability, it’s about creating a cultural shift,” she said. “We need to incentivise and support circular business models and localised fashion, and disincentivise fast fashion and its broken model.” Legislation can’t exist in a vacuum Fashion is a global business, and brands and retailers often operate across jurisdictions. Many British businesses are already required to adapt their behaviour and reporting to fit the new regulations in other countries and continue selling in those markets, regardless of whether or not the UK also legislates. Issues would arise if the UK were to try and legislate with different parameters, such as different ecodesign principles or ecolabelling rules, De Hartog told committee members. “Businesses are not keen to do something different for each country.” Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.

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