Charity shops and fast fashion
30/09/2022 07:38
Susan Meredith, Deputy Chief Executive of the CRA, reflects on a week of sustainable fashion education and poses questions to CRA members about the relationship between charity retail and fast fashion.
“The most sustainable garment is the one already in your wardrobe”
I’m sure some of you have heard this quote from Orsola De Castro, Co-founder of Fashion Revolution. And it’s true. The most positive impact we can have on our struggling planet is to stop mass consuming items with no thought as to where they have come from and what effect they have had in their manufacture, both on the people that made them and the environment. The first ‘R’ of the 3 ‘R’s in the waste hierarchy – Reduce.
We can’t stop buying clothes completely, so what is the next best solution?
According to the waste hierarchy, it’s ‘Reuse’ – which can mean mend, upcycle, resell or donate. And this is naturally where charity shops fall. In the waste hierarchy charity shops are better for the planet than the vast majority of retailers in the world dealing in new goods – who don’t even appear in the hierarchy. What a privilege that is! What a platform from which to speed up the behaviour change we are seeing in shopping trends towards second hand.
Charity shops’ relationship to fast fashion
In the space of one week we have had the Charity Retail Conference, which touched on this subject via the panel session ‘Charity shops and fast fashion’, closely followed by Sustainable Fashion Week – a week dedicated to driving “a positive shift in our relationship with clothes”. The second of these events has highlighted just how huge, deep-seated and complex the problems are around fast fashion and our consumption of it, that it feels, from our privileged position in the waste hierarchy, and our 11,000+ shop fronts, that we as a sector, could be doing so much more to help slow and eventually stop fast fashion.
We started the conversation with you at the Charity Retail Conference and I will attempt to progress it here by describing some of the issues, before making suggestions and asking you what you feel we could do as a sector, and what you feel the CRA can do as your membership body.
First, I need to thank Amber Rochette and Amelia Twine of Sustainable Fashion Week, Jayne Cartwright, Founder and Director of the Charity Retail Consultancy and Rónán Ó Dálaigh, Founder and CEO of Thriftify (all pictured below) for the insightful information and discussion that has inspired this article.
Waste
‘Waste – Climbing a mountain’ was the title of a panel discussion at Sustainable Fashion Week, hosted by Amber Rochette and gathering the opinions of Jayne Cartwright and Rónán Ó Dálaigh. Rónán reminded us that at the heart of the matter is overproduction of garments. Which, after a process involving, among other factors, the poor quality of garments and consumer behaviour, leads to a whole host of shocking statistics, such one from WRAP which states 336,000 tonnes of used clothing ends up in landfill and incineration each year in the UK.
Rónán also pointed out that there are a very small number of very rich fast fashion outlet owners that are the beneficiaries of overproduction – citing one particular brand’s algorithm that can trigger the churning out of garments three days after having spotted a trend on social media. Honing the factory-to-sale process so finely as to enable clothing to be ‘the price of a sandwich’ as Jayne Cartwright noted.
With the climate emergency recognised and a lack of immediate or effective legislation to combat overproduction, Jayne called for education, instilling a sense of fashion responsibility in children and an expansion of the collective thinking that events such as Sustainable Fashion Week brings. We might not have the budgets of the fast fashion labels, but movements start with conversations and actions of the few. We can promote our green credentials, make responsible choices as a sector, write letters to our MPs, and engage with our customers who will then engage with friends and family. Rónán concluded that ‘word of mouth leads to change’.
Consumer psychology and advertising
Fast fashion brands have the budgets to engage with the most advanced advertising agencies in order to take advantage of consumer psychology to their own ends. Our sector doesn’t have that budget. An opinion has been posed that if charity retailers engage with fast fashion brands and learn how to harness the mass market, charity retail could try to employ those methods to influence a mass turn towards our sector. But would we want to, given the plethora of reports available about the negative effects of advertising on teen body image? Would we want to engage with an industry that is happy to create such content? Non harmful advertising methods could be something to explore and ethical agencies do exist – which brings us back to cost.
Rónán and Jayne have seen increased sector engagement from Gen Z – a generation least likely to be influenced by trends. We could investigate their motives for shunning fast fashion and build on that.
The CRA would love to know your thoughts on this topic.
Greenwashing
Are we here to make the most money for our causes at any cost? At the Charity Retail Conference and Sustainable Fashion Week we talked about what engaging with fast fashion labels says to charity shop customers? That the fast fashion label is sustainable because it places end-of-line stock with us? That fast fashion is OK because we’re prepared to sell it?
There has been huge growth in the second hand market, but is it growing the wrong way? Fast fashion labels are creating their own reselling platforms, whilst not addressing overproduction or garment manufacture issues, and making misleading claims about the sustainability of their products.
In the one and only positive observation of greenwashing, Rónán, at Sustainable Fashion Week, felt that this is evidence that the conversations are working around sustainable fashion. Jayne added that the rise and rise of charity shops, and the way in which our sector has transformed both operationally and visually in the past few years, is a part of this sustainable threat to fast fashion – who are spending huge sums of money to ‘look’ sustainable. It’s a sign that they feel threatened. Rónán felt we should be encouraged by that – but we should also unpick the claims and point out the falsehoods.
>> H&M Is Being Sued for Greenwashing. What Does That Mean For Fashion?
Would charity retailers like to be a part of this conversation?
I’m going to finish with lots of questions – as there have been throughout this entire piece. The CRA is your membership body and we’re here to make the trading environment as good as it can possibly be for you. We are also here to lead and to promote and raise the profile of charity retail. Do you agree that the time has come to address some pressing questions? Please let us know.
- Do you want to know more about the effects of fast fashion? – a movement which is not going away – yet. Do you want to be able to use this information to educate?
- As well as the second hand market increasing, so are sales of fast fashion garments, many of which pass through your stores and many of which will not get sold as the quality is so poor. Do we as a sector have the will to work together to turn the tide on fast fashion to prevent huge amounts of poor quality stock made in ways harmful to people and planet. For instance – a joint lobbying effort.
- How far should our sector focus on reuse of second-hand. This is what we’ve done best in the UK more than any other high street retailer since the charity shop concept began. Isn’t reuse of second hand our USP, in a world that can’t do without it and for which we can only gain credibility, respect, profile, customers and, most importantly for charities – sales.
- Does the sheer amount of poor quality stock, but the stability in charity shop numbers suggest there is enough stock out there to maintain the sector without fast fashion. Do you see a decline in charity retail happening without the concept of fast fashion being around?
I would really welcome your thoughts to help us steer our resources in ways that tackle the issues that matter to your retail chains.
Please note: This is a personal opinion piece aimed at stimulating debate.