Femnet e.V.

Ethiopia is a promising country for the future of apparel manufacture, looking at its youthful population of 110 million, its rapid development with an anticipated continued annual GDP growth rate of 8%, low labour costs and preferential conditions in trade with the U.S. and the EU. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the textile and garment sector is growing and so is its export.

However, the country also offers challenges, both commercial and in terms of environmental sustainability and ethical business behaviour. Cotton, fabrics and accessories need to be imported. Import/export regulations are complicated and time consuming. Workers are relatively untrained and unskilled and efficiency is very low. In addition, there is worry among stakeholders and (potential) buyers about issues such as living wage and the freedom of association in Ethiopia.
The overall objective of the report is to describe the comparative benefits and risks (SCP and commercial) of sourcing textile garments from Ethiopia. The aim is to inform potential buyers of the current status of the industry; it does not aim for scientific precision.

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This report is an output of the ‘Putting Water Stewardship to Work Programme‘ which aims to embed responsible water use at the heart of the growing textiles and apparel sectors in Africa. With support from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC), the initiative targets technical support to ‘sherpa’ countries in the fashion value chain to establish the value of improved water stewardship for the sector, for delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals and for shared water security (see boxed definitions). Lessons will be shared across Africa, and across the global fashion sector to support the transition to sustainable resource use. Our study explores the importance of the textile and apparel sector for economic and social development in Africa and identifies the priority water challenges facing the industry. It complements related studies on the cotton sector, at a national scale in Ethiopia, and in the textiles and apparel sector globally.

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The EU is one of the biggest global markets for textiles and home to many of the sector’s most powerful companies. Decades of voluntary self-regulation have led to textiles and clothing value chains becoming synonymous with the use of huge amounts of our planet’s finite natural resources, pollution from hazardous chemicals, the production of high levels of waste, poor working conditions, and human rights violations.

To end the global overuse of resources and the transgression of planetary boundaries, all industries need to change; the textile industry is no exception. In this position paper, ‘Wardrobe Change’, a coalition of environmental civil society organisations, is calling for the EU Textile Strategy to be a coherent overarching framework which ties together the many different policies that are needed to set Europe on a transformative path to sustainable textile production and consumption.

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This report investigates the behaviour of some of the biggest fashion brands and retailers regarding their use of synthetic fibres and transparency about doing so. We reached out to 46 brands with a questionnaire, finding that the majority of brands are dragging their feet on reducing their reliance on fossil-fuel based fibres, with some well-known brands landing in the red-zone for heavy use of synthetics or lack of transparency. No brand was deemed to be a frontrunner on the issue of synthetics. We also conducted meticulous online research of over 4,000 products, seeking to establish what brands are doing on the ground. Our findings not only expose fashion brands’ heavy addiction to synthetics but also demonstrate rampant greenwashing across their voluntary commitments and products, with as much as 59% of green claims for the products we assessed being unsubstantiated or misleading. Whilte ultra-fast fashion brands Boohoo and Forever21 used synthetics in the vast majority of their clothes, 91% of green claims by H&M, ASOS and M&S were found to be unsubstantiated or misleading. H&M and Zalando were also found to have more or almost as much synthetics in their ‘sustainable’ collections as their main collection.

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Im Rahmen der Untersuchung versuchte die Gruppe, die Freisetzung von Mikrofasern aus Kunststoff während des Waschvorgangs zu verstehen. Das Dokument ist das Ergebnis einer Reihe von Rundtischgesprächen, die von der Gruppe mit über dreißig einschlägigen Organisationen geführt wurden. Darunter befanden sich weltweit tätige Waschmaschinenhersteller, führende Akademiker*innen, Vertreter*innen der Industrie und des Einzelhandels und Umweltgruppen. Während der Gespräche informierten die Vertreter*innen die Parlamentarier*innen über den aktuellen Stand der Forschung und die ihrer Meinung nach wichtigsten Problemen im Zusammenhang mit Mikroplastik. Die Gruppe erhielt auch schriftliche Stellungnahmen von relevanten Interessengruppen zu realisierbaren, ganzheitlichen politischen Vorschlägen, die, wenn sie von der Regierung umgesetzt würden, die Freisetzung von Mikrofaserkunststoff in unsere Umwelt erheblich reduzieren könnten.

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