The Fashion Revolution Day: Nothing comes after sustainability anymore

One characteristic of man is his thirst for knowledge and his curiosity – one wants to classify oneself and one’s role in life and constantly asks oneself existential questions such as “who am I?”, “what do I do?”, “why do I do?”, “how did the universe come into being?”, “what role does humanity play in it?” or “what role do I play in it?”.

We demand a plausible explanation for everything – and that has always been the case.

Above all, we are also in a position – technically, mentally and physically – to get to the bottom of such things.

History proved that man can also be a destructive being and that he is often simple. Reasons are greed, the desire for power and the abuse of it. But before we fall into a socio-critical history lesson, let’s just say what this is all about:

Do you know what happened on 24 April 2013? No?

Do you know what happened on 11 September 2001? Yes.

On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh collapsed, killing 1,135 people, injuring 2,438, and prompting the textile industry to take new measures.

It is not a matter of condemning or retrieving historical data; it is a matter of drawing attention to the fact that there are disasters that are more memorable and those that are not called upon ad hoc. September 11th has established itself as a trigger since that day, when a thought strikes everyone’s mind like lightning. April 24 could certainly reach this status – but not as much as September 11 does.

All catastrophes in which people die and are injured are worth remembering, and this is exactly where the Fashion Revolution Day comes in, around which a whole April week is entwined. Launched by the events of 24 April, the group calls on individuals, businesses, suppliers, retailers, students, journalists and manufacturers – all active and passive participants in the apparel industry – to raise their voices this week and especially on the day itself.

What is the “Fashion Revolution”?

The disaster in Bangladesh in 2013, in which the eight-storey textile factory Rana Plaza collapsed, 1,135 people were killed and 2,435 injured, is remembered every year anew by the Fashion Revolution. This tragedy is 2019’s 6th anniversary – Fashion Revolution Day wants to commemorate this catastrophe and demands the voices of everyone in the social media with the hash day #whomademyclothes?

Behind the fashion revolution is a dream of people who love clothes – but not at the expense of people or the destruction of our planet. These aspects raise discussions about sustainability in general and the Big 3 of sustainability in particular: the social, the ecological and the economic.

A manifesto supports the values and can be read and internalised here ?

How can I get involved?

To each of the participants listed above – so really to everyone! – is given the opportunity to act as a mouthpiece for a fair clothing industry:

Beside the numerous moves worldwide – thus also in various cities within Germany – also the Hashtag #whomademyclothes can be used or you can post a photo of yourself on which you wear your shirt on the left and mark the label “Made in…”.

Sustainability is no desire concert!

The concern for the well-being of future generations is in the foreground here, this is to be guaranteed here by the “classical” environmental protection: Human actions influence our ecosystem, especially in the logistical field: production processes, production and services – all this has an impact on the ecosystem.

What are the traditional goals of a company?

The classic goals of a company are simple: to maximize its value and increase the profitability of its products and services.

In order to guarantee ecological sustainability today, these goals – however comprehensible they may be – must not be the only ones in a company’s value system today: economic goals and methods must therefore be adapted and reviewed. Ecology (ancient Greek for oikos household/household logos, i.e. teaching from the household) originally refers to the study of the relationships between living creatures and their inanimate environment. Today, we understand ecology and ecology as behaviour that treats environmental resources with care.

There we have it already.

If you think about what it means to manufacture products, we get quite quickly to the point with the resources. Of course, as end consumers these things seem far away, and the product we carry or hold in our hands hides the processes and demands it has on the environment in its production.

No, environmental sustainabilty does not mean that we should do without these items and no, it does not mean that we should not worry about them because of the distance. The use of renewable resources and the minimization of the use of non-renewable resources play an important role. However, sustainable development also requires an examination of economic objectives and methods.

The economic objective can no longer be simply to maximise enterprise value and increase the profitability of products and services.

Since the tragedy at Rana Plaza, discussions have of course not only broken out about environmental protection and resources – within the garment industry, social responsibility also goes hand in hand with environmental responsibility.

Fair wages, fair working conditions – a big issue since Rana Plaza. Even if there is (still) no uniform definition (see: https://www.nachhaltigkeit.info/artikel/soziale_nachhaltigkeit_1935.htm), one can still roughly define the relevant value that creates a decent job. The sociologists Beate Littig and Erich Grießler say: “This is about developing values about how our society should develop, which are the ideals that social development should redeem”.

Because:

“In modern (gainful) work societies, (gainful) work is the pivotal point of the social order as well as of individual life plans and securing one’s existence, and through it conveys the satisfaction of individual needs.

Social sustainability can and should not only be assumed by individuals, but especially by companies, the so-called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The CRS therefore does not focus on what happens to the profits, but on how they are generated. CSR goes far beyond donations and other “good deeds” and rather concerns the social and ecological responsibility of a company as well as sustainable management, i.e. economic responsibility.

In summary, a company is sustainable if it acts in an environmentally friendly, ethical and socially responsible manner and is economically successful.

If we don’t start now, when will we?

Yes, it will take time for the changes to have a global impact, and yes, we will probably not even notice them if they are implemented hopefully successfully. Humanity had enough time to bring the world on the advance of destruction, now it also takes until we can make up for it again. Even if we eat the cake slowly, it still stays on our hips for a long time. The pitted bacon in this case concerns the whole world, and it is inhabited by many living beings, and stupidly humans cause the mess and stupidly we have to spoon out the soup.

And that’s exactly where the Casus Knacksus lives, that’s exactly where responsibility begins, that’s exactly why it’s such a big and – despite all the positivity and sympathy for the topic of sustainability, “for which one is yes” – yet unpleasant topic. Many are “for sustainability”, but doing something about it is tedious and above all requires consistency.

Each group is a cogwheel in the whole mechanism, companies a bigger one, but still everyone has to mesh and do something to keep the process going.

The convinced and motivated private person can already incorporate a lot into his everyday life – companies even more with a much larger radius of impact, especially since they have more contacts to politics and business. The discussion about sustainability has long since arrived in politics, as the climate conferences since 1973 testify.

But to whom do we tell this? So many companies have already jumped on the bandwagon, including our customers.

And Setlog?

Setlog shares the vision and dream of the fashion revolution of transparency within the apparel industry. For more than a decade we have been committed to optimizing the supply chain, making it fairer and more transparent. Our OSCA software supports sustainable processes. Our SCM and VCM systems cover these needs. At our customers OSCA VCM has been in use for a long time, e.g. at our customer Kik.

KIK achieves transparency with OSCA VCM

In the Rana Plaza accident, Kik was known to be very present in the media and received a lot of criticism in connection with the collapse. Kik acted quickly and opted for our software solution. In the Kik Case Study, which you can download for free, you can find out how the company uses our product:

KiK is one of the largest German textile retailers. 250 million parts are sold at the discount store every year. 60 percent comes from China and Bangladesh, another 20 percent mainly from Pakistan and Turkey. (Kik Case Study)

“OSCA VCM can be used stand-alone or in combination with the supply chain module OSCA SCM and covers the entire supply relationship from onboarding to quality management, social and qualitative audits including rework, document management, reporting and ratings. “Setlog already had a great understanding of the management of CSR processes, the price/performance ratio convinced us and it was very easy to explain the system to our Asian business partners,” says Lohmann as the decisive points for the decision.

In addition to Kik, many other customers have opted for our product and thus also for assuming responsibility. If you would like to learn more about OSCA, please visit us at www.setlog.com and feel free to contact us. For a more sustainable future!