In the fast fashion industry – appearance is key, appearing to care, is key. Appearing to pay your workers a living wage is key and throwing in some claims about recycled materials always helps. The icing on the cake for fast fashion brands, most recently H&M, is appointing a multi-pound ‘sustainability ambassador’ to green-wash the billions of customers awaiting the next sale. The focus on performative activism and the final stage of production is seen as sufficient with the sub-par expectations we have of the fashion industry, but sustainability starts with human rights and equal opportunities. Maisie Williams smiling outside H&M and posting on Instagram isn’t going to rectify that, unfortunately.

The world turning virtual in 2020 brought both advantages and disadvantages to the fashion and human rights industry. Firstly, and unfortunately, profits more than doubled for fast fashion brands such as Boohoo and ASOS – with absolutely nothing else to do but spend, we fell right into the trap of buying countless ‘summer 2020’ garments that were never going to be worn. Overconsumption soared due to boredom, and the pockets of the fashion CEO’s were bursting at the seams. On a more positive note, we also used our lockdown boredom to educate ourselves, with more and more online resources and increased internet traffic, fashion activism groups like Fashion Revolution Scotland were able to get the truth out about Western brands such as H&M and the damage they do to the Eastern world. I, myself, have learned a lot about the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘ethical’ in relation to garment production - and how capitalised these words have become by the big brands in the industry. I decided to join fashion Revolution Scotland and campaign for ‘sustainability’ to start where it has to start: stage 1 of production. That’s creating safe workspaces in the third world, guaranteeing minimum wage as a starting point – and wilful transparency between brand and customer. This comes before sourcing the alleged recycled fabrics, brands must be held accountable and be aware of what they are physically selling, and where it comes from, and who is working there. The basics. With this being considered stage 1 production by countless fashion and human rights activist groups across the world – sustainability ambassadors come in around stage 16405. Stage 1 production is where the sustainability ambassador should be based – quality checking and ensuring human rights and job stability are met. For me, that’s a true sustainability ambassador, not promoting a brand that won’t disclose their working wage for a 5 figure pay-check.

H&M is an ideal case study for the performative activism-template brand. The H&M group owns H&M, Monki, Weekday and Cheap Monday (to name a few) and is worth an estimated 13 billion dollars. The same company was found to be paying supply workers in Myanmar around 13p an hour, and 9/12 HM factories in Cambodia were found to have sexual assault active in the workspace. The most notable discrepancy being the Rana Plaza factory complex in Bangladesh, where workers who supplied H&M among other fast-fashion brands such as Primark collapsed and killed 1250 people and injured a further 2,500. This came after complaints of cracked walls and unsound structures were ignored by owners – and the fashion revolution began. To H&M’s credit – they immediately signed the ‘Accord on Fire and Building safety’ agreement with over 200 global brands to ensure a higher standard of construction and routine health and safety checks, which expires next month.

Soon after this agreement was signed in May 2013, H&M started their pledge to sustainability. They are listed on global sustainability-rating application Goodonyou as ‘it’s a start’ due to only disclosing surface-level information of their production process. It must be noted that there are a handful of brands who have achieved a 5/5 sustainability rating on Goodonyou, it is not easily achievable. However, H&M can and must do better – there are more ethical steps to sustainability than plopping a celebrity in front of a webcam and making a virtual recycling game. That’s right – Maisie Williams and H&M have spent a large sum of money investing in a digital recycling game in partnership with Animal Crossing called ‘Loop Island’ where you can learn how to virtually recycle your clothes. The issue with sustainability and prioritisation lies here – there is so much focus, and money, put into the ‘face’ of the company that the brand becomes a circus. There is no concrete figure for the money paid to Maisie Williams to promote H&M as sustainable, nor given to the giant sum it took to design and pay for a virtual recycling game, and it isn’t probable that we will ever find out. But this is the issue, this money could more effectively be distributed among thousands of H&M garment workers in third world countries to ensure safer workplaces, employee protocols and monitor the condition of basic human rights in these factories. Only then can the fast fashion industry start the sustainability thing right the second time around.