In My View by Eric Musgrave: Laying down the law

You have to admire the optimism of the young. I recently enjoyed a Zoom call with a friend’s 17-year-old daughter who had to write an essay about sustainability in fashion. Young Lottie was of the opinion that everything was going in the right direction because she and her friends (all privately-educated, I should add) hardly bought any new clothes, preferring to shop for “vintage” and “pre-loved” on Vinted and the like.

I felt a bit mean pointing out that well-informed and well-meaning consumers like her are in a very small minority, no matter how many social media posts are pumped out by the ethical campaigning brigade.

If sustainability in fashion is so promising, I asked my teenage inquisitor, how come Shein has just hit sales of £2 billion in the UK, a jump of about one third in the past 12 months alone? At its prices, that is a hell of a lot of garments.

Although the Chinese company has been selling to the UK since the mid-2010s, it only set up its UK subsidiary in 2021, so it has the look of a runaway, almost-overnight, success.

I offered Lottie my long-held idea that no significant difference will be made to the problem (if that’s what you call it) of fast fashion without legislative intervention, that is laws imposed by government. This is not a hugely well-worked-out concept of mine, but I compare the proliferation of cheap, possibly environmentally harmful, clothing to the previous proliferation of smoking harmful tobacco.

Although suspicions were raised about its damaging effects as early as the 1930s, tobacco was not nailed down as a cause of lung cancer until the 1950s. Yet in these islands smoking was not banned in pubs until 2004 (in the Irish Republic), 2006 (in Scotland) and 2007 (in the rest of the UK). That was after a half century of campaigning for action…

Big business has a habit of resisting change that damages its profits.

Of course, lots of smokers still complain about the restrictions and the high cost of ciggies these days, but “only” around 6m people over the age of 18 in the UK admit to smoking today. That is about 12% of the adult population, the lowest figure since relevant data first were collected in 2011.

So, laws can change damaging habits but could the evils of fast fashion be tackled in the same way? Maybe. Maybe not.

I am glad I do not have the job of trying to legislate on it, however. I am equally glad I do not have to deal with the massive raft of legal restrictions that already surround the textiles, clothing and footwear industries in this country...

On 17 September I hosted – for the second year – the annual conference of the Society of Dyers and Colorists at which experts in this essential sector of the industry gather to learn about new techniques, fresh ideas and lots and lots and lots about upcoming regulations, standards and laws affecting how they must operate.

One presentation from the Environment Agency covered UK regulations. Another from UKFT listed regulations coming out of the European Union that anyone selling into the continental market has to adhere to.

It was at once a bewildering and sobering litany of regulations. Even with my limited knowledge of chemistry, I could imagine that having to be cognisant of 58 standards for the British rules on Best Available Techniques (more usually referred to as BATs) is a challenge. Admittedly it is unlikely that all 58 would be relevant to any single company, but a great number would.

This maze of mandatory standards was not made any easier to the novice observer like me by the proliferation of acronyms, such as ELVs (Emission Limit Values) and OTNOC (Other than normal operating conditions).

The European list was just as daunting on the proposed and current regulatory obligations, involving chemical compliance, sustainability, finished product legislation and circular economy legislation, plus forced labour and modern slavery laws.

Such regulations are virtually never imposed quickly. It is not uncommon for there to be a gap of four years or more from a decision being agreed upon to the commencement of its implementation, so at least nothing should come as a surprise.

The next big topic in this area, I am assured, is Digital Product Passports, which are part of the snappily-entitled Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation from the EU. We reported on the initiative just over a year ago.

The reality is such laws affect everyone in the supply chain and will have an effect on what ends up on retailers’ shelves, rails and websites. Listening to the talks at the excellent SDC gathering in Bradford, I wondered how much of all this work way up the pipeline is known about and appreciated by retail buyers, let alone the consumers at whom all the products are ultimately aimed.

I also pondered – not for the first time – just how remarkable it is that retail prices for so much of the merchandise in the UK and Irish marketplace is, relatively speaking, so low when so many hoops and hurdles have to be navigated.

Maybe an easy answer to end the fast-fashion tsunami is to impose higher prices by law. Good luck to the political party who suggests that one in its manifesto.