Outland Denim founding CEO James Bartle has penned an open letter to Baptist World Aid Australia, voicing his concerns regarding the newly-released Ethical Fashion Report.
While Bartle's Outland Denim was ranked as A+ by Baptist World Aid, he believes that the ranking system falsely represents the progress businesses are making.
"I believe this report is potentially one of the greatest setbacks to the ethical and environmental sustainability movements I've witnessed in the past 10 years," he wrote in the letter, posted to Instagram.
"How is it possible that certain brands score so highly, and yet have a reputation of exploitation on both social and environmental levels?," he said.
Bartle also stated that he is concerned consumers will use the report as a guide to shopping more ethically and will unwittingly be purchasing from brands that do not align with their views.
"Unfortunately, with the current display of the brand rankings, I fear most shoppers looking to use the guide will unknowingly be supporting brands that are not in alignment with their own values and, once again, these fashion giants will leap ahead and use this report as a powerful greenwashing tool," he said.
"I believe that the report is damaging, and therefore I am calling for Baptist World Aid to remove the report and reconsider the presentation of ratings in order to demonstrate an accurate and easy-to-understand rating system so that consumers can quickly understand the scores of brands," he said.
Bartle's full open letter is set out below:
A word from our Founder James, on BWA's 2021 #EthicalFashionReport.
While busy celebrating another A+ rating in the 2021 Baptist World Aid Ethical Fashion Report, I scrolled further down the page and was shocked to see brands who are responsible for huge human rights abuses, let alone a legacy of negative cultural change with the rise of fast fashion, scored an A.
To be honest, this shouldn't have been surprising, as some of these brands also scored quite highly last year. Or did they?
Regrettably, I hadn't paid much attention in previous years beyond selfishly celebrating Outland Denim's high scores and neglecting to think through the impact of the BWA grading system.
As a result of this year's report, and the newly displayed percentages that underpinned the ranking for a brand, I was now thinking about the impact this report might have on the community; the people who want to be part of meaningful change and support brands that align with their own personal values.
How is it possible that certain brands score so highly, and yet have a reputation of exploitation on both social and environmental levels?
For example, under one of the five scoring categories, Worker Empowerment, any score above a C would lead me, and I assume most people who read it, to believe that these companies pass on one of the most important factors in 'Ethical Fashion', living wages.
Unfortunately, I don't believe this to be the case.
This leads me to make this statement.
I believe this report is potentially one of the greatest setbacks to the ethical and environmental sustainability movements I've witnessed in the past 10 years.
Unfortunately, with the current display of the brand rankings, I fear most shoppers looking to use the guide will unknowingly be supporting brands that are not in alignment with their own values and, once again, these fashion giants will leap ahead and use this report as a powerful greenwashing tool.
We know that for consumers, navigating endless certifications, supply chain industry lingo and greenwashing is already a pain-point in trusting brands, and I fear that the way this report displays its ratings makes things even more confusing.
If you share in this view, we ask you to comment below and share this post - with our joint voice we hope to show the BWA team that there is need and benefit to the report being removed and the display of grades to be revisited in future reports.
I don't say these things from an ivory tower, but a place of genuine concern.
On one hand, we have a report that has, and continues to do so much good with unbiased auditing and that each year achieves impressive reach in the community, yet on the other hand, we now see a report that is misleading to consumers.
I myself have implemented policy or strategies that were intended to improve people's lives only to discover that there were unintended consequences that I never anticipated.
In the first year of trying to build the Outland Denim business model, I implemented a pay-by-piece system that I thought would serve as a great motivator for our staff of two.
The young women, who had experienced trauma, had little training, and were now sitting on the second level of a Cambodian cafe, working with foot-peddle sewing machines and dodgy patterns, were now trying to make a quality jean.
How long would it take for them to make let alone a perfect and saleable piece?
I was clearly in a policy rut, and they were, in fact, victims of unintended consequences.
Similarly, I believe BWA and every single individual in their team has the best of intentions and like us want to see transformation in this industry.
But in execution the best of intentions do not always lead to positive impact.
And in these cases we need to be open to reflecting, learning, and doing better tomorrow.
And this is the attitude I hope BWA addresses this with.
I would like to say that I support what BWA are trying to achieve, but I do not support the current representation of their ratings.
With these concerns, I felt it was only fair to first call BWA's Director of Advocacy, Peter Keegan, and share my concerns before drafting an open letter or commenting on any public forum.
As I shared my concerns with Peter, I was nothing but impressed with his humility and obvious commitment to fight for the vulnerable.
I have confidence that Peter and his team are fighting for the same reasons my team and I are, along with thousands of others, though we are coming from different corners.
After my call with Peter, I had the impression that the goal of BWA's report was to encourage and spur our industry to strive for better, and I must say I do appreciate the strategy, however, it leaves already exploitative brands with one of the highest endorsements in the ethical reporting ring.
I believe that the report is damaging, and therefore I am calling for Baptist World Aid to remove the report and reconsider the presentation of ratings in order to demonstrate an accurate and easy-to-understand rating system so that consumers can quickly understand the scores of brands.