34
votes
"Ethical" brands that aren't living up to their hype vs what's actually a good one?
Link information
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- Title
- Patagonia helps Samsung redesign washing machines to help reduce microfiber pollution - ~enviro
- Published
- Jun 11 2023
In light of the fact that only 40% of Patagonia's factories pay living wage, not to mention if those 40% factories in fact employ 99% of all their workers, can Tildes members recommend another brand?
I was actually looking forward to going to their store this afternoon and after finding the linked comment, I will hold off until 2025 to see if they did change. Their reason of oh we aren't in control of how much they pay is such horse apples: make it part of your contract, check up on them. It's not like they're charging customers so little money that that makes sense.
What about Fjallraven? Arc'teryx? Whatever they say on the sites obviously can't be trusted to tell the whole story.
Are there ethical choices at all or is reduce and reuse and recycle still the best bet?
Side question: I know most donated clothing go to the landfill. How do I get in on some of these textiles and I'll make my own stuff or use them for visible mending?
I frequently check the Good on You brand directory when making purchases. I think it does a good job of showing that there isn’t any one axis of “ethical” and that there’s quite a big spectrum between the best and the worst. I also use it as a sort of “is this genuine or is this marketing?” when I hear about a company’s “ethical” efforts.
Patagonia has an overall Good rating from them. They do identify some issues under their People category:
Compare that to something like SHEIN and you can see that even though Patagonia isn’t perfect, it’s still a long way ahead.
Most of the top brands on Good on You aren’t mass producers. They’re usually smaller stores/creators with often bespoke clothes. This can be really awesome, but it can also be really expensive. Sizing is also an issue — I wear men’s tall clothes, and very few people make those, so even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to get from them without custom ordering (which I definitely can’t afford).
Ultimately, I try to balance buying from better companies with what’s within my budget, and that often means I’m settling for something with a score like Patagonia rather than something at the very top. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I can do, and I try to see it as at least better than a lot of the alternatives.
I know this is an unsatisfying answer because I too want a perfectly ethical company, and I think part of the reason that’s impossible to find is that exploitation is so embedded into mass production that it’s hard to buy literally anything (clothes especially) and have it be ethical. Someone once linked The $3500 Shirt here (though I can’t find it so it must have been in a comment) which stuck with me as a great thought experiment about the actual cost of our clothes, the labor that goes into them, and the quantity of clothes that we have in the first place.
I have my own small (very small) fashion brand and have always shied away from calling my brand "ethical" or "sustainable". I do what I can, but it's so far from "perfectly ethical" which is truly difficult to do. Yes, exploitation is so embedded in all parts of production, or commerce in general.
I think my least favorite part of the fashion business is the "fashion calendar"-- the expectation that you have to release a new collection every season. I find it wasteful, so I ignore this calendar entirely.
Thanks for the site! I looked up Cotopaxi as it's one of my favorite outdoor companies, not a terrible rating..
Surprised to see Allbirds have such a low rating. I have to admit I did buy into their hype and marketing, and I genuinely thought they would check many more boxes than they actually do.
At least the shoes are really nice.
By living wage, do you mean a living wage for the region?
Also, reduce,. reuse and recycle will always be the best bet, no matter where or how anything is made.
Probably a solid 80% of my work clothes (mostly hiking stuff) comes from thrift stores/secondhand purchases. I’m teaching myself to darn fabric so I can repair merino (or similar) wool clothes that have developed holes or runs, and the fun part is that a lot of my merino stuff is black so I can also do it in fun colours :D
That's what I have started to do as well: what's a good way to source used fabric aside from store fronts of thrift stores? I want to rescue their huge mass of landfill destined rejects too
The easiest way to buy ethically is to buy used. Poshmark and Mercari for clothing, Swappa for electronics. OfferUp and Craigslist for large stuff like furniture etc
Now obviously there is some stuff you can't buy used, but you've already drastically reduced your impact. It's hard to keep up with "ethical" companies because they keep selling out to slave labor to increase profits eventually. It's much more accessible to buy used as much as possible and don't stress about the little things.
I would argue that buying second hand really isn’t any more ethical in the big picture. Sure you may have not directly bought an item from said company. You can be positive that the original manufacture price includes a percentage based on resale of their products. All these companies know that there are people who will never buy a product brand new and this is taken into account in the initial price.
Then there are wholesale companies that specialize in providing used items to 3rd party sellers that you would find on all of those sites that you listed. I will use Swappa as a good example because I use that to sell phones and computers myself. That platform is full of almost nothing but actual companies that only sell used phones. If you dig into the supply of used phones, you will find there are companies that do bulk wholesale for used phones. Those companies source a large portion of the used devices directly from the OEM to sell to the 3rd party used retailers. A lot of times used electronics are making the OEM money twice with the used market.
Obviously if you are buying from a solo individual on these platforms it may be a bit more ethical. You also have to consider that most of those people are probably selling what they have to buy the new stuff when it comes out. That’s what I do with swappa, I buy a phone use it for a couple months. Turn around and sell it so that I can buy the next best phone to use for a couple months and then sell the device. There are people that do that with clothing and all sorts of stuff.
Perfection is the enemy of good. Other people being wasteful in their consumption is not under my control, and not my problem.
It's not surprising that someone who purchases new phones every month is trying the "you can't do it perfectly so why do it at all?" argument that I see so much. It's just a way to feel better about your own choices by putting others down.
Not sure where your perfection rant is coming from. All I did was point out that the systems are designed to always make the company money. Whether it’s first hand or second hand.
Pretending that buying second hand doesn’t contribute to the unethical practices of business. Is literally just a way to feel better about your choices.
Buying an item made by children in factories second hand. Doesn’t change the fact that the item was made by children in factories.
The only way to buy anything ethically is to not support those companies who partake in unethical practices. Good luck finding a company that doesn’t do some shady stuff ant some point.
If I don't buy something second hand it doesn't magically go back in time and prevent it from being made. It, at the very least, accomplishes that it is reused and not sent to a landfill. Demand directly to the company that has control over production does impact their future choices though.
There is definitely some difficulty with buying used but it can be a good alternative. It's what I tend to rely on most to ensure at least some of my clothes are ethical. I live in the UK so my methods may be harder to apply in other countries, but I buy it two ways:
On eBay I found often if the photography is a bit amateurish, like a dress on a hanger or a person who isn't model showing it, or a dress laid out on a bed, and they don't have a tonne of items all up for sale at the same time, it's usually pretty legit just one person selling their own clothes.