Transcriber: Nusyba Elgheddafi Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
If I asked you,
Do you support child labour or sweat shop labour?
Do you think human trafficking is evil?
I am quite certain that 99.9% of you in this room today
would say, "I do not support child labour or sweat shop labour.
I think human trafficking is terrible."
So let me ask you then:
How many of you can say with certainty that the clothes you're wearing right now
have not been made in a sweat shop or by child labour?
How many of you can say for sure that the cotton in your clothing
wasn't picked by children
who were trafficked on to work in cotton farms?
The truth is
it's very hard to know where the material used to make our clothing comes from
or how our clothes were made.
The clothing supply chain is a complex system.
Perhaps this is what our clothing label should look like.
Currently, only 5% of companies know where all their inputs come from.
So how, then, can you make sure that your purchasing decisions
do not contribute to child labour, human trafficking
or environmental degradation?
The answer is ethical clothing,
an idea that has been widely discussed over the last 10 years.
Ethical clothing can be defined
as an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacturing of clothes
that maximises benefits to people in communities
while minimising the impact on the environment.
Ethical clothing is even more relevant today
due to the emergence of a new trend
called "fast fashion."
Now, when I say "fast food," what words come to mind?
For me, I immediately think "fast, cheap and bad."
It's similar with fast fashion,
where fashion has changed from seasonal styles
to something new nearly every week.
Prices of clothing have also dropped substantially over time.
You can now buy a T-shirt for as little as seven dollars
and a pair of jeans for fifteen.
To keep these prices low,
companies outsource their clothing production
to countries such as Bangladesh, where wages are very low.
Currently, over 92% of clothing sold in Australia is made overseas.
They don't just absorb this loss of profit
resulting from lowering their prices;
they try and pass it down the supply chain in an attempt to offset their loss
until it reaches those who cannot pass it down anymore.
They are your most vulnerable, those who have no voice.
They are your garment factory workers in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia;
the poor cotton farmers in India
and the child slaves working in cotton farms in Uzbekistan.
There are currently 14.2 million people in forced labour
and 168 million child labourers scattered across the globe.
More than half the population of Australia works in forced labour
and seven times the population of Australia
in child labour.
Most of these people are forced to work in the farms and factories
that produce the inputs for our clothing industry.
Their wages are so low
that they're unable to lift themselves and their families out of poverty,
and thus, the cycle just continues.
Apart from lowering wages, firms also try to offset their loss
by asking suppliers to cut their wholesale prices.
Suppliers say
that because they are desperate for business,
they don't really have a choice:
either cut their prices or lose out on business.
Suppliers then try and offset their losses
by cutting back on maintaining a safe work environment,
which can lead to tragedies such as the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013
where 1,130 people died.
Four times the number of people in this building today lost their lives
because of someone else's negligence.
But people say,
"Are we not doing them a favour
by giving them business and stimulating their economy?
Isn't working in a factory at any wage
better than the other alternatives available today?
For example, working as a prostitute
or selling your child into slavery
or leaving your village, your family and your children behind for months on end
to work for wickedly low wages and unsafe working conditions."
This is not a choice.
This is the exploitation of vulnerability.
Companies are profiting off of their need to work.
We need to respect these people,
treat them like we would treat workers in Australia
because this wouldn't happen in Australia.
We have strong unions and fair work practices.
When we speak, people listen.
But you can be their voice.
By being mindful about what and how often you buy,
you are saying that you value the lives of these people
enough to pay a little extra to ensure that they're taken care of.
To ensure that a Bangladeshi garment factory worker
is paid a living wage
adds an extra 3 to 5% on top of the retail price
that you pay in the shops.
For example, that adds an extra 70 cents to a dollar
to your 15-dollar pair of jeans.
In addition, the amount that is paid to suppliers in garment factories
accounts to only 10 to 20% of the total price that you pay
as a customer in the shops.
This 10 to 20% includes everything up to the point of shipping,
such as sourcing of raw material,
the manufacturing of the garment
and the payment of middlemen profits.
So then I know that if I paid $7 for a T-shirt,
the supplier was paid between 70 cents to $1.40.
Common sense then tells me that his workers were not paid a lot.
Nick Savaidis,
the founder of the Australian ethical fashion brand Etiko
talks about moving from a conscious to a conscientious shopper.
In other words, moving from being just aware of the problem
to actually doing something about it
He says that managing an ethical supply chain is challenging
but nowhere near as hard
as getting individuals and organisations to change their values and beliefs.
According to a [inaudible] report, only 10% of Australians
make consistent green or ethical purchasing decisions.
This is a huge discrepancy
to the 90% of Australians that said they care about an issue.
In addition, clothing brands say
that they're unwilling to stock ethically made clothes
because a) they're not convinced that customers actually care
and b) that by stocking ethically made clothing,
they worry about what it might say
about the other presumably non-ethically made clothing
in their shops.
This just highlights to me the power that we have as consumers.
Now, I acknowledge that this issue can seem really overwhelming.
Perhaps you're feeling helpless.
But there is hope.
Your everyday purchasing decisions and choices
can help lift a person and their family out of poverty,
I suggest starting with three simple steps.
Number one - buy less.
When you go into a shop, ask yourself,
Do you really need that item of clothing?
British journalist Lucy Siegle
calls it "getting a more fashion mileage out of your clothing."
She says that if you cannot commit
to wearing something for a minimum of 30 times,
don't buy it.
Number two - look for brands that have a fair trade accreditation for stock.
Suppliers won't stock clothing brands that are not selling.
You, the customer, are in charge.
Buying from companies
that treat their workers and the environment well
not only affirms their ethical decisions,
but it also encourages other companies to take similar action
Thirdly, research.
Do some research on the company that you want to buy from.
From where did they source their raw materials?
How much do they pay their workers?
But it sounds tedious and time-consuming, doesn't it?
[1. Buy Less 2. Buy Better]
Well, it is.
But the really good news is that there are many organisations
working hard to enable us to make everyday ethical purchasing decisions.
For example, Baptist World Aid,
an Australian NGO published an annual "Ethical Fashion Guide"
that grades around 300 companies that sell in Australia
against criteria such as payment of a living wage,
knowledge of supply chain.
They make this indispensable resource available to everybody for free.
You can download it off their website or from the TEDx page.
You can also download an app called "Good On You"
that enables you to compare and rate different companies.
There can be a very happy ending to the story.
Since Baptist World Aid released the first "Ethical Fashion Guide"
in the wake of the Rana Plaza tragedy,
the number of companies working to keep track of their inputs
has increased from 49% to 79%.
32% of companies are now paying minimum wage or higher.
This is so encouraging
because it demonstrates how much influence our voices can have.
I used to think that the elimination of the fashion industry
was the only answer.
But as I did my research,
I realised that we can use this very same industry as a tool
to lift a country's living standards.
It's one of the fastest growing industries
in the world today.
40 million people in Asia alone work in garment factories.
The fashion and clothing industry can play a huge role
in reshaping the economy of a country.
However, it is clear that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
This industry still fuels child labour, forced labour, human trafficking
environmental degradation, especially in developing countries,
exploitation and unsafe working conditions.
Your voices and your purchasing decisions
have so much power
to change the direction
in which the fashion and clothing industry
is taking the world.
You are all now aware of this issue.
It is my hope that after today 100% of TEDxTownsville
will move from conscious to conscientious
and contribute to a world free from poverty and exploitation.
Thank you.
(Applause)