The way such a large corporation functions leads to a huge degree of separation between those who decide the direction of a corporation and those who actually make the product. Conversely, at Glass Clothing, we communicate directly with our tailors in Pakistan, to ensure that there is no such divide. Therefore, it becomes a lot easier to disregard the needs of the people who make them. Nobody actively wants to deprive poor children of education, or force workers to do up to 40 hours of overtime a week.
Such practices are illegal in most countries. But, rigorous inspections are necessary to ensure that humane standards are being upheld. For this to happen, those who have the power to decide where the product is made need to know about how it is made. This is difficult to do in a multi-million dollar corporation. TNCs also need to be motivated to make a change, which is hard for the same reason. Executives think about profit because it affects them directly.
Working conditions for the people who enable it often do not. As well as being cheaper to use due to less regulation , these faraway factories become less of a moral concern for bosses based in the UK or America.
The suffering of an unknown person feels less real — and therefore is easier to dismiss if doing so would prevent trouble close to home. The massive size of the apparatus of TNCs makes this easy to do. It is easy to unintentionally become complicit in the exploitation of sweatshop workers. Also, many people have developed habits of buying from certain brands. Is apple a TNC company that makes computers? What makes Coca-Cola tnc? What makes Kentucky Fried Chicken a tnc?
What company makes telephone? What does tnc stand for? What does tnc mean in geography? Why did Sony become a TNC? What is the organisational structure of Coca Cola? What are the advantages of being a TNC? What are TNC? Why did pepsi become TNC? Is apple a tnc? Why would you like to work for primark?
When was Primark created? What is the population of Primark? Is there a Primark shop in Dumbarton? Is ally a TNC? Why does n't primark have a website? Is primark in carlisle? What is primark called in Ireland? But we do share our supplier information with other partners we are in collaboration with, for example with the Bangladesh Accord By sharing our supplier base information it enables the Accord to map all the factories that everyone is using in the region as effectively as possible.
So we are sharing that information - we are just not making it public. We do share information on which countries we are sourcing from with the public, but not specific factories. Another key issue Primark is focusing on within its supply chain is modern slavery. So we have put in place partnerships with local organisations who can help [illegal] workers in these situations.
Rather than cutting ties with suppliers who do employ vulnerable refugees, Primark works with suppliers and local partners to help them get papers for legal employment and proper payment. NGOs and trade organisations agree that this, as well as working with trade unions, is key for any fashion retailer in tackling cases of forced labour in developing countries. Garment brands should use their power to make sure union members are protected.
For example, in India, Primark is working together with local partners like the Association for Stimulating Know How 11 ASK in one of its main suppliers, Jeyavishnu Mill, to improve its recruitment process. However, despite of all its initiatives aimed at modern slavery issues, Primark is still regularly accused of sourcing from sweatshops and forced labour camps. For example, back in and British shoppers are said to have found letters and hand stitched labels in garments pleading for help, which aimed to raise awareness for the terrible conditions workers were apparently forced to endure.
After reaching out to the shoppers who found these letters and labels and conducting its own research, Primark claimed the distress calls were all part of an elaborate hoax looking to sully its name. The ranking awarded Primark points for having appropriate policies in place against excessive overtime, forced labour and child labour, but did not award any points to Primark later on, as they did not take sufficient action against alleged impacts of these issues.
But these rankings have not discouraged Primark from looking for new ways to improve the wellbeing of its garment workers in developing markets. At the moment Primark does not purchase any raw cotton directly from farmers, as it does not directly own any mills or factories. Nevertheless cotton, a natural fibre, makes up a large percentage of its apparel range, even though it remains a labour and resource intensive product. Although it is grown on large-scale industrial farms in certain regions, in most cases the cotton used to make textiles and apparel comes from small farms in low-income countries, such as India, China and Pakistan.
In these regions a lot of the knowledge concerning the best practices for growing cotton, as well as the most environmental friendly tactics available to do so, tends to be rather limited. At the same time Primark decided to exclusively work with female cotton farmers in Gujarat, Northern India during the pilot because they realised many other cotton initiatives lacked gender focus.
Primark has already begun to train 5, new cotton farmers and plans to scale this up in time. And not only are they buying their own equipment, they are also renting it out to their neighbours as well. However, this boost in income also brought on a new set of concerns for the female cotton farmers who participate in the pilot, as they were not used to managing a large cash flow.
For Stewart, the community impact of the programme and the knowledge the farmers have gained thanks to the programme has been the most rewarding to witness. In addition the Farmers Field School has made Primark realise how important education truly is for farmers and what impact it can have on their lives.
Primark has published the results of their sustainable cotton programme on their website, as well as personal stories from the farmers themselves, but Stewart admits the company is still learning on how to take what they have learned from the pilot all the way through to end production to bring it to scale.
But now that we have a formula that we know works, we can start to look at how we can do that in different locations. To date over female workers have been coached and they in turn have taught more than 20, women. Another programme that Primark has had in place since , focuses on enriching the lives of its workers, and sees the value retailer working together with Social Awareness and Voluntary Education 4 SAVE to educate its workers in Southern India.
The programme helps raise awareness on a wide range of topics, such as the importance of children's education, financial planning, general health and workers rights through the formation of worker education groups. In total 6, workers in groups have been trained through the programme since , which has impacted the lives of approximately 30, garment workers.
However, although Primark has heavily invested in improving the livelihoods of these female cotton farmers, some wonder what other initiatives Primark has taken to ensure the rest of the cotton it uses is as ethical and sustainably sourced. For example, Primark previously sold organic cotton products in the past, but no longer does so. The value retailer claims it aims on selling organic and Fairtrade cotton products in the future, but that it depends on market demand - thereby leaving it up to their customers to ask for it.
In addition, the fashion retailer received the worst score on the Ethical Consumer 5 rating, an independent public consumer rating, for its cotton supply chain.
The steps Primark is taking to improve garment workers wages. In any event, wages should always be enough to meet basic needs and to provide some discretionary income.
For the value retailer, a living wage is seen as one which includes the total cost of living, healthcare, food, education and housing.
For example, Primark is a founding member of Action, Collaboration, Transformation ACT 9 , an initiative consisting of other retailers, manufacturers and trade union IndustriALL which aims to improve wages by establishing an industry collective bargaining power in key sourcing countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh.
ACT aims to uphold world class manufacturing standards as well as responsible purchasing practices. Primark stresses that its programmes aim to help its workers have better livelihoods. At the moment Primark is developing a holistic strategy aimed at improving wages, which includes country-specific approaches. The strategy aims to build on its current pilot programmes while building on key areas of focus, such as factory improvements, worker empowerment and benchmarking supplier performance.
Another key initiative to help its workers manage their finances sees Primark partnered with banking service Geosansar 10 in India. Acting as an agent and intermediary between banks and customers, Geosansar and Primark have aided workers in opening a bank account for the first time. In order to ensure garment workers can have easy access to their bank accounts, Geosansar bank kiosks are located close to factories and worker communities.
The partnership, which sees Primark and Geosansar also provide financial education, as well as access to banking, has helped over workers. But is Primark doing enough to boost wages for garment workers? For example, Cambodia was the first country in which the ACT initiative began its first process to develop an industry-wide collective bargaining for higher wages.
However, since then there have been no further updates or concrete outcomes on record of what exactly has been done to date. Brands could also work together on other labour rights issues, such as supporting labour unions, setting up worker committees, setting realistic workloads and working hours Primark should be more transparent in their sustainability efforts. Publicly showing their wage calculations would be a good start. Where possible we encourage our members —and all other garment brands- to increase leverage.
Hence whenever we see that there are more member companies sourcing from the same factories, we encourage them to exchange information on audits, remediate together and cooperate on further improvement plans. What Primark is doing to produce clothing with the least amount of harm to the environment.
Outside of its sustainable cotton programme, Primark has been working hard on what good guidance looks like and is searching for ways to decrease its overall water usage, chemical usage, waste production to help protect the environment. For example, Primark has a team of specialist auditors who conduct audits in all of its stores across 11 countries. The team works together to make sure each location is fully compliant with the regulatory requirements and that the value retailer continues to meet accepted good practices within the retail industry.
The audits include onsite waste management practices, review of store emissions and ensuring all equipment is properly maintained. Primark also conducts energy audits in all its stores and reviews how much energy each store consumes. The value retailer was even awarded the Carbon Trust Energy Standard 1 in recognition of its continued commitment to energy efficiency in its stores in The ERICC system offers real-time information on the primary energy drivers within any store and indicates how a store should be performing from an energy management point of view.
In addition Primark has also achieved the Carbon Trust Standard for Waste for its waste management systems in store and is working to assume direct control over as much of its recyclable materials used during packing and transport as possible.
For example, Primark established a resource recovery unit in its German depot centre in July , where cardboard, plastic and hangers are collected from its Northern European stores to be reprocessed and sent for recycling. The value retailer has had a similar system in place in the UK for a number of years now, which ensures all recyclables are collected from its stores via its delivery trucks and transported back to the central distribution centre.
As Primark has become more actively involved in the recycling process of its materials, it has been able to significantly reduce the volume and frequency of waste collections at each store and aims to expand this system to additional regions. Although its high energy is often cited as another reason as to why the fashion industry is seen as one of the most polluting in the world, there is another factor which contributes to this picture. The purchase and use of clothing is said to contribute approximately 3 percent of the global production of C02 emissions, over million tonnes a year according to the Carbon Trust.
The value retailer has been working hard to ensure its energy usage is as low as possible and reduce its store and warehouse waste, but it has yet to fully tackle its greenhouse gas emissions GHG , one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Primark notes it is constantly reviewing its routes, type of vehicles used and shared services to ensure it minimise miles and the resultant emissions as the company expands. But the value fashion retailer has yet to explore alternative solutions or set itself fixed goals in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
Although Primark has been transparent with its energy efficiency and waste management, it is clear the value retailer still has some ways to go to ensuring both its supply chain and vast store network become more sustainable. We would suggest the brand show leadership by setting goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for its manufacturing supply chain, and start to introduce the use of renewable energy, along with increasing its use of sustainable fibres, increasing transparency of its supply chain and working to increase the percentage of its First Tier suppliers that comply with its Code of Conduct.
Primark is not the first fashion high street retailer to initiate an in-store recycling scheme with I:CO, but one key difference between the Primark clothing recycling pilot and other fashion retailers textile recycling programmes is the customer incentive. Rather than giving customers a discount voucher for their next purchase in-store, Primark gave customers an organic cotton bag in return for a clothing donation. However, in order to reach its goal of creating clothing with the least amount of harm done to the environment, the value retailer should be looking into additional avenues to increase its use of sustainable resources, as well as its use of recycled materials.
Next to its textile and garment recycling initiative, Primark has been working with two organisations to efficiently manage its textile waste while helping those in need.
Is Primark doing enough in terms of sustainability with its excess stock? Making items in lower quantities so that they sell out and making them more exclusive, will reduce the need for Primark to explore donating its unwanted items.
The value retailer disagrees with this opinion, as Stewart says Primark has invested a lot in improving the quality of its garments over the last few years. According to WRAP, approximately million pounds worth of used clothing is sent to landfills in the UK each year - accounting for 30 percent of consumers unwanted clothing.
Many workers take pride in the work they do and the clothing they make and do not deserve to be exploited as they are now. Brands should plan accordingly so no garments go to waste. What Primark is doing to cut down its use of chemicals. Outside of energy, waste and water management, Primark has also begun to look further down the supply chain on how it can help fabric mills decrease their chemical usage.
This way the value retailer can manage its chemical usage before the material even arrives at garment factories. Together the group has created a list of restricted manufacturing substances, developed audit protocol tools and waste-water quality guidance and are in the process of creating a common training tool on chemical management. By encouraging mills to use less chemicals in the dyeing or processing of the fabrics, Primark is driving sustainable change further down the supply chain to lead to sectoral change.
Primark also supports the Partnership for Cleaner Textile industry PaCT 16 , a holistic programme which supports the Bangladesh wet textile processing factories in adopting cleaner production methods.
The training focuses on denim and jersey production, paying attention to the environmental impact of the main technologies used during the dyeing and washing processes. However, in spite of the numerous initiatives Primark has undertaken to combat its chemical usage, the value retailer may not be able to reach its Detox commitment to Greenpeace by This technology is still in development for the process to work at scale, but there is exciting potential here for a large reduction in garments being sent to landfill, and the decreased use of virgin raw materials.
If you think about the cotton project for example, we only started communicating that last year, when we have been working on it for three years. We want to be able talk about the things we have done and show what results we have achieved.
I think it is a bit hard to talk about things you might do in the future because the challenge is keeping up with the ever-changing world. Circular economy - we will talk about that when we have something we have done about it.
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