Good on You!

A lot of people want to buy ethical clothing but find it difficult to know a company’s policies on topics relating to its use of natural fibres, organic materials, animal products, and labour welfare. There is a great company called ‘Good on You’, which is now pulling all this information together. Using their free app or website, you can search your favourite fashion brands and find its rating; using an easily understandable 5-point rating system, ‘Good on You’ rates a brand based on its labour welfare, environmental impact and its treatment of animals. It also offers suggestions and recommendations of great environmentally friendly and sustainable brands for you. This is a huge step forward for decreasing fast fashion and encouraging everyone to be more mindful when shopping this Christmas.

Top 10 List from Best to Worst of clothes shops in Newbury, rated by ‘Good on You’:

1. H&M
H&M is great with its use of eco-friendly materials, but it has fast fashion (cheap clothing quickly produced to stay trendy). The business also has a project aiming to improve the wages in its supply chain, but there is a lack of evidence that people within the supply chain are paid a living wage. H&M has an animal welfare policy, it does use leather and exotic animal hair, but does not use fur, exotic animal skin or angora.

2. Topshop
Topshop has talked about minimising the suffering of animals, and does not use fur, down, or exotic animal skin or hair; but does use leather and wool. The business does publish information about its suppliers in some stages of production but not all stages. Although Topshop does use some eco-friendly materials, it is not enough, because as well as having fast fashion traits Topshop has no target to reduce its use of hazardous chemicals or its greenhouse gas emissions.

3. New Look
New Look has a formal animal welfare policy, and only uses leather, down and exotic animal fur, it has also made a commitment to reduce its use of animal products, but still uses leather down and exotic animal fur. Although none of its supply chain has been certified by labour standards which ensures labour rights, but it does publish lists of its suppliers. New Look does have a policy in place to prevent deforestation, but there is no evidence that it has reduced its carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

4. Fat Face
Fat Face like many fashion companies but does have fast fashion, although some of its packaging is recycled, but has no initiatives to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals or water. Fat Face is a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative, there is no evidence that workers in its supply chain are paid a living wage, or that it has any worker empowerment initiatives, and it doesn’t use fur or exotic animal hair or skin, but does use leather and wool.

5. Dorothy Perkins
Dorothy Perkins has a greenhouse gas emissions target, but there aren’t any initiatives in place to reduce hazardous chemicals or reduce the use of water. The company currently has no worker empowerment initiatives, and it has not revealed any details about the stages of production, Dorothy Perkins uses leather wool and exotic animal hair in its products but not fur or exotic animal skin.

6. White Stuff
White Stuff sources the final stages of its production from countries that are at a high risk of labour abuse, and there is currently no information on its workers being paid a living wage, although White Stuff only uses leather and exotic animal hair in its productions.

7. Matalan
Matalan does not disclose any information about whether production workers are paid a living wage, and there are no details available for where their production takes place, although Matalan only uses leather and wool in its products.

8. Phase Eight
Phase Eight has little information published about its environmental policies or its supply chain, but it doesn’t use any fur, exotic animal skin or angora, instead it only uses wool, exotic animal hair and silk.

9. Monsoon
Monsoon does not use a lot of eco-friendly materials, and there are no aims to reduce carbon emissions or prevent deforestation, but Monsoon does publish information about some of its suppliers, some information available about forced labour and gender equality. Monsoon has a policy to protect animal welfare, although it does use leather, exotic animal hair and wool in its products.

10. Superdry
Renewable energy is used in some of Superdry’s operations, and it uses some eco friendly materials, but there is no action currently taking place to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals, with no stages of its production has been certified by labour standards and very little information is published about its suppliers, Superdry uses leather and exotic animal hair in its products.