Sustainability today covers everything, especially in textiles, where the supply chain is quite complicated and long. There is a plethora of certifications, but these alone will not effect change. In 1988, the first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, was applied to packs of Mexican coffee sold in Dutch supermarkets. At the time, using a product label to say something about standards in a supply chain was revolutionary, but today it is routine. The Ecolabel Index currently lists 463 certifications in 199 countries, according to a ‘The Guardian’ Report. On the face of it, certifications on everything from fish to timber can be seen as progress, promising higher standards and transparency in the pursuit of sustainability.
In sectors such as textiles, there is also room for more informed debate about the role, if any, of certifications.
The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh drew attention to serious problems in textile supply chains, but certification has a low profile there. Will that change?
According to The Guardian Report, Certification standards have done a lot to make supply chains fairer and more transparent over the past couple of decades, and with the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 – we may be moving towards a more nuanced dialogue about certification and its role in supply chains. In the words of the SDG itself, achieving the goal is something that must involve “business, consumers, policymakers, researchers, scientists, retailers, media, and development cooperation agencies.â€Â
With this in mind, The ITJ plans to reserve a couple of pages in every issue for stories, features and snippets of information on Sustainability. We have kick-started it with this issue, and hoped that the information gap in Sustainability in textiles is at least partly filled.
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