I have been hunting around on the internet for a list of high street shops & brands with a rating on how ethically aware they are. I am particulary interested in workers rights and want the companies I buy from to make their clothes in a way that is fair to their workers and the communities they come from. Whilst I do buy from some fair-trade brands I believe that every high street retailer should only be selling ethically produced clothes.
Since I couldn’t find a website with the information I wanted in one place I thought I would pull it together myself and make it available for other people to view, here it is:
Those shops/brands listed on the left and highlighted in blue are those that have the highest ethical & fair-trade standards based on the information I have been able to find.
Being a member of ETI means that the shop/brand has declared that they want to work with ETI to protect their workers and ETI then hold them accountable. See http://www.ethicaltrade.org/Z/abteti/who/memb/list.shtml#co for more details.
My second column, regarding a clearly stated ethical policy, reflects the information I have been able to find out about the company from its own website. I have specifically looked for wording in policies that prioritises the workers.
The third and fourth columns reflect findings in annual reports written by ‘Labour behind the label’ called ‘Lets clean up fashion’, the full report can be found here http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/resources/reports/20/190-lcuf2007
Where a shop/brand has performed well in all categories then I have highlighted it in blue.
My page ‘What now?’ discusses what to do with this information, I’d be grateful for your ideas.
If you have found this list useful or want me to include another shop or brand then please leave a comment. I will be writing to all the shops on the list to find out more and will be posting their responses on my blog, if you’d like to know what they have to say (and if they even respond!) then please subscribe.
