The fast fashion industry has, for decades, been criticized for its devastating environmental impact, poor labor conditions, and economic exploitation of its mostly female workforce. Women – and often migrant women – dominate textile, clothing, and footwear (TCF) industries around the world. In a highly feminized workforce, where women rarely occupy management roles, workers face heightened risks of harassment and discrimination, as well as unsafe and under-unionized workplaces.
Pressure from global social movements has prompted the fashion industry to respond to these criticisms, largely through certifying brands as “sustainable.” The rise of “sustainable” or “eco-fashion” labeling has been criticized as a marketing ploy that “greenwashes” a company’s reputation. The legislative response to ensure accountability in the sector has been slow. Recent reforms have focused on extended product responsibility (EPR) which traces the composition of the materials used in the manufacturing of clothing. Building on a 2008 EU Directive addressing the environmental and climate impacts of the textile sector, in 2023, the European Parliament called on member states to produce clothes that are more durable and easier to reuse, repair, and recycle. Promising legal developments from the Netherlands and France aim to promote a circular economy. However, less regulatory attention has been paid to workers’ labor conditions. In our research, we examine how the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals can be utilized to promote better labor practices in the fast fashion industry.
What do the Sustainable Development Goals offer?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were a set of 17 global goals that formed part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs do not escape criticism. Many argue that the SDGs are focused on growth and productivity, with insufficient attention given to social protection and redistribution of wealth. As an inter-governmental instrument, there is an evident transnational power dynamic that underlies the SDGs. They do not do enough, some argue, to challenge the inequalities that exist within countries, let alone the inequalities between them.
Nonetheless, the SDGs enable progress comparisons between countries, which motivates governments to perform well against the 17 goals.
Garment-producing countries are predominantly located in the global South and buyers in the global North; this divide calls for a response to the ways the garment sector exacerbates inequalities between garment-producing and buying nations.
The SDGs offer potential for pursuing gender justice and environmental sustainability in the fashion sector.
Six Requirements for Gender-Just and Sustainable Fashion
Responsible Consumption
Global fashion is largely built on a “throwaway” culture, which has an undeniable environmental toll. SDG 12 sets the ambition of ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns by rendering visible the material footprint (the raw materials extracted to meet consumption) of the industry. This visibility may make legislation easier to implement and has the potential to influence buyer patterns as well. While ethical considerations alone will not suffice, research suggests that consumers can be persuaded to care about the unfair conditions women workers face and to alter their consumption patterns accordingly.
Women in industrialized countries such as the US are some of the biggest consumers of “fast fashion.” Consumer activism should incorporate a concern for the labor conditions of the women producing these goods.
Economic and Gender-Justice
The low levels of women’s representation on boards and in leadership roles in major corporations is one manifestation of gendered power within businesses. Target 5.5.2 of the SDGs tracks the proportion of women in managerial positions. It is important, however, to shift away from using women’s participation at a senior level in corporations as a proxy for equality of representation in the workplace.
SDG 8 brings visibility to the experiences of the world’s most marginalized workers, seeking to protect the labor rights and working environments of women and migrant workers. While trade unions have improved representation, many women fashion workers remain ununionized. Home-based work offers women flexibility, but this work is less monitored, often involves piece-rate pay, and precludes workers from organizing, putting them at a greater risk of inadequate pay and poor working conditions. Home-based workers are also vulnerable to underpayment or non-payment of wages and need avenues for safe reporting of physical and emotional abuse. Laws need to be drafted to encompass both the formal and non-formal settings of work and ensure the experiences of vulnerable workers are included.
Living wages
The Global Living Wage Coalition calls for workers to receive remuneration that enables them and their families a decent standard of living. Factory owners are often only legally obliged to pay the national minimum wage. Factories may also set unrealistic deadlines, with workers suffering wage penalties if they are not met.
The goal of shifting to a living wage is closely related to SDG 8: the promotion of inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all. The ending of poverty in all forms for everyone (SDG 1) includes essential targets related to social security (Target 1.3). The fashion industry needs to be held to a social protection floor that includes maternity payments, unemployment and disability insurance.
Tax as a requirement of gender-justice
Taxation makes an essential contribution to the country and community where workers are based. By acknowledging the relationship between corporate tax, public revenue raising, and public services, rigorous and monitored systems of corporate taxation can increase the availability of government resources for the benefit of women workers. An increase in public resources may mean greater investments in transport, infrastructure such as street lighting around workers’ homes and places of work, child care facilities for workers, and social protection. A focus on public spending and services aligns with SDG Target 5.4.1 which tracks the proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic work.
Currently, fashion corporations enjoy a tax loophole. Companies such as H & M define themselves not as employers, but as buyers from “independent suppliers.”
A company’s local office in countries such as Cambodia may merely be considered a “procurement office”—allowing multinationals to avoid paying income tax in countries where clothes are made. The SDGs offer a framework to ensure companies give back to the communities in which they operate through taxation.
Public infrastructure as gender justice
In garment-producing countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh, women workers are frequently migrants from rural and remote communities. Overcrowded housing, poor hygiene and sanitation, poor lighting, and the distance between lodging and toilets have been found to increase the risk of gendered violence.
Multiple SDGs address the intersections between housing, sanitation, and sustainability. Global progress on SDGs 6 (sustainable management of water and sanitation), 11 (sustainable cities and communities), and 10 (reduced inequalities) hold the potential to significantly improve the lives of women workers.
Safety
Gender equality is a core component of the SDGs (SDG 5). Target 5.2.2. aims at a reduction in gendered and sexual violence. In the fashion sector, corporate accountability for gendered violence is eluded by subcontracting, where a factory sends a worker to another factory without the knowledge of the buying fashion brand. Extending SDG 5 to the global fashion industry would help in the implementation of other accountability tools. The landmark ILO 2019 Convention on the Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work calls on governments to protect workers at places of work, rest, washing facilities, and on commutes. The SDGs, if viewed this way, have the potential to amplify existing human rights commitments.
Moving forward
The SDGs add another tool to the existing human rights framework – alongside ILO Conventions and progressive domestic legislation, particularly from Europe, that is pursuing less waste from the textile sector. While skepticism towards their effectiveness may be justified, the SDGs provide a mechanism to benchmark progress between governments who have a vested interest in showing the global community that they are improving. The SDGs may prove particularly important as we await the development of the UN’s Business & Human Rights Treaty, a process that has not yet reached fruition and may not aid in closing equity gaps between the North and South.
Skeptics may be justified in their concerns that we are still left with the risk of “business as usual” in what remains a female-dominated workforce. However, consumers may be more powerful than they think. When buyers are armed with a more holistic understanding of the experiences of workers and better understanding of the commitments that bind governments and impact corporations, stronger demands can be made on the industry for change.
