Environmental Audit Committee’s fixing fashion follow up call for evidence

(Traidcraft Exchange’s Submission number FFFU0049)

Traidcraft Exchange responds to the Environmental Audit Committee’s Fixing Fashion Follow Up. This submission sets out the significant effect of fashion retailers and brands’ purchasing practices on the social and environmental impact of the sector. Purchasing practices have not improved since EAC’s 2019 Fixing Fashion report and workers continue to experience precarious working conditions. This has been evidenced in both domestic and international garment supply chains before and since the COVID-19 crisis began.

Unfair trading practices directly cause and perpetuate labour rights abuses such as wages below minimum wages, forced overtime, evasion of holiday, maternity and sick pay, and unsafe working conditions.

This submission sets out why retailers’ purchasing practices will never conform to norms of fair commercial practices unless there is regulatory intervention. The Groceries Code Adjudicator has been effective in reducing abusive purchasing practices in the food sector and provides a model which could be explored further. We propose that the Government establishes a Garment Trading Adjudicator, to act as a watchdog to ensure that practices move towards fair purchasing in this sector. Stopping unfair purchasing practices is an essential precursor if the fashion sector is to have a hope of improving its social and environmental impacts.