Mike Barry is the Head of Corporate Social Responsibility with Marks & Spencer. You may know him from such campaigns as 'Look behind the label' and 'Plan A' their 5-year, 100 point 'eco' plan - because there is no Plan B for the planet.
I was particularly interested in what Mike had to say on Friday, as the Plan A stuff was the most powerful in-house campaign to catch my eye in quite some time (even if my M&S shopping is still more about food than fashion).
Here are the main points he covered:
* Stuart Rose, their chief exec, forced ethics onto their marketing agenda despite in-house protestations that customers wouldn't care too much about that kind of message. Rose was proved right - 75% of customers surveyed later said that they did, to one degree or another.
* M&S engaged customers in coming up with Plan A and it covers aspects across climate change, waste, production, fair trade and consumer health.
* M&S customers are rewarded with a £5/€7 voucher for recycling their old M&S-bought clothes at a local Oxfam branch. I love this initiative, because everyone wins. In the 1st 6 weeks, 750,000 items were donated, making £250,000 for Oxfam and keeping the landfills a little bit emptier. How cool is that?!
* The Ethical Trading Initiative have helped the company in all aspects of world labour practices. M&S have virtually become a cotton buyer in order to sustain overheads while paying a fair wage.
* Mike reckons that if everyone in the UK & Ireland washed their clothes at 30 degrees rather than 40, it would have a greater positive impact on CO2 emissions than closing the entire M&S operation for a year.
* M&S engaged customers in coming up with Plan A and it covers aspects across climate change, waste, production, fair trade and consumer health.
* M&S customers are rewarded with a £5/€7 voucher for recycling their old M&S-bought clothes at a local Oxfam branch. I love this initiative, because everyone wins. In the 1st 6 weeks, 750,000 items were donated, making £250,000 for Oxfam and keeping the landfills a little bit emptier. How cool is that?!
* The Ethical Trading Initiative have helped the company in all aspects of world labour practices. M&S have virtually become a cotton buyer in order to sustain overheads while paying a fair wage.
* Mike reckons that if everyone in the UK & Ireland washed their clothes at 30 degrees rather than 40, it would have a greater positive impact on CO2 emissions than closing the entire M&S operation for a year.
If it came down to a choice, I'd definitely choose a 30-degree wash over having to go without their ham & mushroom pizza for a year. Those things are carbohydrated-heaven.
Overall, it was a story of the high street behemoth successfully using an ethical message in order to shift more units. That might sound cynical, but personally I think it's great that a) there's a consumer desire for ethical products and that b) companies like these are responding to it, making a difference to the world and doing so profitably.
After all, that means that other companies are more likely to follow their example and more of the bad practices will be stamped out over time.
Ingrid Schullstrom has a similar role at H&M and covered much of the same ground. H&M use a risk assessment approach at every stage of the fashion production cycle - from raw materials through production to sale and even up to the consumer's use and (hopefully) recycling.
* A key part of Ingrid's talk covered the issue of cotton from Uzbekistan - you may have seen the BBC documentary on the same topic. The main problems are around child labour, pesticide use and insufficient pay leading to crippling debt.
* Ingrid admitted that she couldn't absolutely guarantee that H&M wasn't using cotton from Uzbekistan because of the fragmented nature of the supply chain (although of course, they had sought assurance that they weren't). This prompted some discussion over the extent of a retailer's responsibility, the impact of boycotts and the complexity of banning child labour - because in some cases, this would simply lead to starvation.
* Ingrid admitted that she couldn't absolutely guarantee that H&M wasn't using cotton from Uzbekistan because of the fragmented nature of the supply chain (although of course, they had sought assurance that they weren't). This prompted some discussion over the extent of a retailer's responsibility, the impact of boycotts and the complexity of banning child labour - because in some cases, this would simply lead to starvation.
* The discussion also covered the EU's 'environmental flower' - the official label for 'good' cotton. H&M are using the label for some of their babywear, but unfortunately hardly any consumers have heard of the thing. Had you? Nope, me neither. It also doesn't necessarily indicate that the cotton is organic so it's unclear if it's of any use at all yet. Here it is anyway, in case you're interested:
All rather gloomy, but there are some messages in here about simple things a consumer can do to make change happen:
* Lobby your favourite brands - it works, because they need your cash to stay in business.
* Wash your clothes at 30 degrees. It's officially no longer skanky, but saintly.
* Donate your old clothes, rather than binning them.
* Reward the brands that are already doing it right by buying from them. In case you haven't noticed, quite a few of the designers in our shop provide details about their ethical stance and production methods. Check them out.
* Wash your clothes at 30 degrees. It's officially no longer skanky, but saintly.
* Donate your old clothes, rather than binning them.
* Reward the brands that are already doing it right by buying from them. In case you haven't noticed, quite a few of the designers in our shop provide details about their ethical stance and production methods. Check them out.
I'm re-posting their link to the excellent Environmental Justice Foundation, where you can find out more about the issues and how to take action.
