Tears over Tearfund report for wrong reasons
The other day as my niece was ferreting around our library, she came across the Felix Donnelly book from 1978, Big Boys Don’t Cry. Donnelly was a Catholic priest who, in a huge departure from the status quo, came out with views around human sexuality that strongly departed from the Catholic sentiment at the time.
The book itself is a broadranging work looking at societal values of the day and where Donnelly felt they had gone wrong. It is interesting reading, especially for those who have perhaps forgotten just how far we have come in terms of acceptance and inclusion in 40 or so years.
I was thinking about Donnelly’s book, or at least the title of it, when I was brought to tears recently by a report by Tearfund, an organisation that sets out to reduce the incidence and impact of social and environmental ills caused by the apparel industry.
By way of background, the rag trade is something I have a long involvement with. Albion Clothing, a manufacturing company I am involved with, is now the largest apparel manufacturer in New Zealand.
And to give an indication of just how the topic has been subverted by those with ulterior motives, I actually have to point out that ‘‘manufactured in New Zealand’’ means someone actually makes the stuff here in Aotearoa.
One would have thought it was not a term that allowed for much confusion but it seems that assumption is wildly inaccurate.
Anyway, Tearfund annually puts out a survey to rank the various brands available in New Zealand for their social and environmental impact. All the usual suspects are there – names that you know and love and shop at daily. These are big, generally multinational brands that have entire teams to tick boxes, embark on multitudinous certification programmes and generally do lots of things that, while making themselves and their customers feel good, do little to actually improve social and environmental outcomes.
Now I could be seen as being a little miffed that Cactus Outdoor, my own business that is one of the last remaining manufacturers of workwear and outdoor equipment in New Zealand, has never been contacted by Tearfund for our view. I could be slightly pent-up that we have about 100 skilled technicians making apparel at Albion, all of whom enjoy the stringent labour laws that we
There are awesome brands that are committed to manufacturing in New Zealand still.
have in New Zealand (and, for the record, there are few of those in Vietnam and Bangladesh where the overwhelming majority of respondents to the Tearfund survey source their garments).
Or I could be confused by these same companies which are jumping up and down about their environmental sustainability even though they choose to manufacture in low-cost countries at least in part because they are not held to the same environmental standards.
I could even be grumpy that many of the certifications these companies rely upon can be bought by all-comers on the internet, regardless of what the true situation is. All of those would be valid reasons to be annoyed. But I am more annoyed by what the Tearfund report does.
By giving companies that produce fast fashion an imprimatur of credibility, it is telling the public it is OK to continue to buy clothes that wear out in five minutes and end up in landfill because, through some magical formula, those suppliers have suddenly made it OK from a social and environmental perspective. Tearfund, in giving a seal of approval to companies whose business models are predicated on perpetuating fast fashion, actually makes things worse. For the environment (more carbon-spewing transportation needs) and for society (more people working in marginal conditions overseas).
I can hear the howls of protest from people commenting that I must be advocating we all wear sackcloth. I am not.
There are awesome brands that are committed to manufacturing in New Zealand still – Anna Rodewijk, Artstori, Nisa and Untouched World among them. Those brands make stylish garments here that are designed to last more than one showing – and none of them got a look-in when the Tearfund report was written. Instead, some of the top scores given in the Tearfund report went to companies which make flimsy clothes in low-cost and low-environmental standard countries.
I would question the ethics of an organisation that is focused on giving those companies a platform from which to justify their business model. It really is enough to make a guy cry.