26th October 2018
Major clothing businesses back Global Commitment to eradicate plastic waste and pollution at source
Among the 290 organisations behind the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy Global Commitment are H&M, Inditex, M&S, Target and Burberry. Most have committed to extensive steps towards eliminating plastic by 2025
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21st June 2018
Tesco and Walmart “ignore labour practices disclosure”
Tesco and Walmart "ignored calls for more information on their labour practices", said the FT on May 1. They are among over 40 large companies apparently failing to reply to a ...
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9th November 2016
Post Trump and Brexit: there’s more than one way to skin the international retailing cat
While American voters were confounding practically all observers on November 8, on the other side of the Atlantic Britain’s Marks & Spencer unveiled a strategy that may be designed for...
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25th March 2015
Unpaid UK minimum wages not quite what they seem to be
Wage fraud suddenly seems rampant in the UK apparel industry. Or is it? The UK government announced on March 24 that 48 employers - including French Connection and Foot Locker...
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24th January 2015
H&M stops cotton buying from Ethiopia’s Omo Valley
H&M announced on January 19 it was halting the use of cotton from Ethiopia's Omo Valley, after allegations of "landgrabbing" in the area. H&M's decision follows a similar decision a...
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15th January 2015
H&M fined for failing to pay minimum wage to UK employees
H&M was fined for paying 540 UK employees less than the minimum wage, it was revealed on January 15. Given H&M's preparedness to lecture suppliers (and their governments) about ethical...
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29th October 2014
“Modern slavery”: Activists want tougher UK duty of disclosure on slavery-free supply chains
The UK government announced on October 13 that larger businesses will have to state publicly each year what action they have taken to ensure their supply chains are slavery free. The...
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26th September 2014
Cambodian government gets subtly different pressures from foreign buyers and unions over minimum wages
In separate mid-September letters to the Cambodian government, a group of European buyers and the major international union federations pushed for surprisingly similar, but still different, approaches to setting Cambodia's...
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20th June 2014
Li & Fung visit does not overcome growing security fears over Kenya’s “800,000 new jobs” garment ambitions
Though it became sub-Saharan Africa's largest garment provider to the West in 2013, Kenya's belief an export-focussed garment industry can create 80,000 new jobs now appear threatened by an upsurge...
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15th June 2014
Proliferating Cambodian labour disorder leads to high profile order losses
On just one June day (June 11) in Phnom Penh, 1300 workers at Bangladeshi-owned Ocean Garments were on strike demanding severance pay after management announced a one-month closure, claiming major...
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11th April 2014
H&M criticises pace of Bangladesh factory inspections
In an unusual criticism of the pace of progress by the Bangladesh Accord, H&M on April 10 called for a speeded-up, government-controlled, programme of inspecting all the country's factories. The...
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8th January 2014
Factory owners and retailers differ over future of Cambodian garment industry after year-end strike
Two startlingly different views emerged on January 6 and 7 about the effect of Cambodia's garment strike on the industry's prospects for 2014. Cambodian factory owners pessimistic. Garment Manufacturers Association in...
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