MADE-BY: transparency from field to factory to shop
International clothing brands are under increasing pressure to pay attention to the chain of companies that pass their garments from field to factory and into shops.
Supply chain transparency is improving thanks to MADE-BY, a European fashion industry not-for-profit organisation whose aim is to work with brands and retailers to boost social and environmental conditions in garment production.
As a major contributor to the UK-based Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP), it is helping signatories – who account for 45% of the UK market by sales value – work towards achieving their goals to reduce carbon use, water and waste by 15% by 2020.
SCAP has drawn on all areas of MADE-BY’s expertise – sustainable fibres, wet processing, strategy development, chemical management and data analysis – to help brands improve their garments’ footprints.
For the past decade, MADE-BY’s mission has been to make sustainable fashion commonplace. It achieves this is by developing free tools that trace and track complex garment supply chains.
In 2014, for example, it introduced the groundbreaking MODE Tracker – a tool enabling brands to report on their engagement with suppliers, from people to products and from manufacturing to brand operations, all in one place.
It also launched the “wet processing benchmark” (WPB) to help brands tackle areas like dyeing, printing and finishing.
WPB uses data to drive change, helping brands and mills to understand their usage relative to typical water and energy consumption.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest garment producers, with production having a huge impact on the country’s already depleted and fragile natural resources. MADE-BY works with the Bangladesh Water PaCT: Partnership for Cleaner Textile, sponsored by the Dutch embassy and eight international brands, including C&A, Tesco and Primark.
The industry is a central to economic growth in Bangladesh, accounting for nearly 80% of export earnings. By focusing efforts on reducing the impacts of the 1,700 textile wet processing units that use an estimated 1,500bn litres of water to wash, dye and finish around 5m tonnes of fabric each year, the work promises improvement on an international scale.
MADE-BY delivered a key part of the programme, developing the “decision support guidance” (DSG) tool. This highlights the sustainability issues associated with a number of wet processing techniques and focuses on helping product teams make more sustainable choices in their daily work. It is due to be made available in spring 2015.
MADE-BY says its tools are designed to make the issues simple to understand and solutions practical to apply. Its fibre and social benchmarks are used by brands including Burberry and H&M, and the newly launched WPB has drawn attention from sustainability leaders.
The Guardian judges said: “MADE-BY deserves recognition because [it’s] mission driven …It has taken a systemic view to tackling complex changes across supply chains and are a definite ‘one to watch’.”