The annual SA Fashion Week is not normally the sort of event that sparks my interest, but last month’s was an exception. This year it was a digital affair where the organisers espoused their industry’s commitment to sustainable production and consumption through “slow fashion”, a transition process that will facilitate greater collaboration between designers and the downstream value chain.
This transition includes a strong focus on localisation, which is important for a number of reasons. The country desperately needs every penny of investment in local industries and the “slow fashion” agenda aligns well with trade, industry & competition minister Ebrahim Patel’s clothing, textiles, footwear and leather (CTFL) value chain master plan. This takes an industry value chain approach to achieving the target of growing the local CTFL share of retail sales to 65% by 2030 to support R69bn in local procurement and deliver 333,000 jobs.
Another key feature of the slow fashion transition is the importance of getting the CTFL industry to tackle its environmental footprint. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 50-billion garments were made in 2000. Last year that figure was over 100-billion, with the average person today buying 60% more clothing than in 2000. This growing consumption trend might sound like good news for the beleaguered CTFL industry in SA, but the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. If present trends continue, the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions will increase by more than 50% by 2030.
In addition to the carbon emissions, demand for plastic-enhanced fabrics results in half a million tonnes of plastic microfibres going into the ocean every year, the equivalent of 50-billion plastic bottles. These microfibres can’t be extracted from the water and in time spread throughout the food chain, bioaccumulating as they move up towards human consumption.
While localising production and focusing on more sustainable reduced-plastic fabrics will help carbon emissions and fabric waste, it is Covid-19 that has made the CTFL industry around the world realise the benefits of a localised supply chain. For example, as a result of supply chain disruptions on imports TFG has announced plans to increase investment at two local clothing factories to reduce its reliance on Chinese and other international suppliers hit by Covid-19. The initial plan is to add more floor space and employ an additional 530 workers this year, with a further 5,000 employees by 2025.
Aside from the associated environmental and broad-based BEE scorecard benefits from this move, a recent study by global corporate environmental, social & governance (ESG) ratings group Sustainalytics suggests this is a smart move from TFG from a share price perspective too. Its comparison of “supply chain all stars” in the 2,560 companies it rates against the FTSE all world index found that one of the reasons ESG funds held up relatively well during the Covid-19 sell-off was that they tend to have an effective grasp of their supply chains, which enables them to hold their value in downswings.
There is still much work to be done, and the other major CTFL brands would do well to take note. The release of the Fashion Revolution Transparency Index earlier this year reflects a high degree of complacency in the local sector. The aim of the index is to “understand how much social and environmental information is shared by the world’s largest brands, to drive greater disclosure from them and to use this information to hold them to account when needed”.
The 2020 edition rated four major SA brands — Woolworths, Mr Price, Truworths and Foschini — all of which scored below average in the 11%-20% category and less than 2% for the traceability of their factories, processing facilities and raw materials.
• Maguire holds a master’s degree in global change studies from Wits and has been developing green economy solutions for the private sector, NGOs and the state for more than a decade.
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