Transnational Clothing Enterprises Fall Foul Door

Many well-known clothing brands, including Armani and Vitoria's secret, were criticized by environmental groups.

The environmental protection organization hopes to find the impetus to promote the environmental protection of the processing enterprises through the appeal to the upstream of brand management.

5 environmental groups including "Friends of nature", "public environment research center", "Dahl ask", "ring friend technology" and "Nanjing green stone" held a press conference in Beijing to issue a research report on "cleaning up for fashion".

In the report, the environmental protection organization looks at the textile and dyeing industry, which has always been questioned by environmental pollution, and tries to establish a corresponding relationship between clothing raw material suppliers and large international brands and retailers.

However, the purpose of environmental protection organizations is not to make a "linked topic", but to try to supervise the environmental pollution problem in the industrial chain.

No complaints

Among the 49 brands and retailers surveyed by the environmental protection organization, 17 brands including H&M and Nike responded positively to the situation of material suppliers. The 10 brands such as ZARA and UNIQLO were generally performing. In addition, 22 brands of Marks and Spencer, the secret of Vitoria, and Armani did not respond or respond to Martha's response.

Martha's department store is the largest multinational business retail group in the UK. It has a history of more than 100 years.

Its unique goods are self propelled.

Or the mode of production designed with the manufacturer, making Martha department store closely related to the manufacturer.

In the field investigation of environmental protection organizations, two suspected suppliers of Martha department store, Zhejiang Qingfeng textile printing and dyeing Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Qingmao textile printing and dyeing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Qingfeng and Qingmao) did not perform well.

In September 10 and 11, 2012, the staff of 5 environmental protection organizations and the local environmental protection agencies launched the field research in Qingfeng, Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou and Qingmao Town, Doumen Town, Shaoxing.

Wang Jingjing, a public environmental research center (IPE) who participated in the survey, introduced to the new business week that the Tianchen International Park near Qingfeng factory is only one wall away from the factory. After four or five years of construction, residents have been disturbed by acid emission from factories. And the west wall of Qingmao factory is next to a river. The other side of the river is where villagers live.

Tianchen international resident said that last year, under the bombardment of numerous letters of complaint, the local environmental protection department once organized Qingfeng to invite resident representatives to enter the factory to visit the whole production process and dispel their doubts.

After that communication, the situation of acid gas emissions has greatly improved, but not long after, everything has revert to the previous situation, and subsequent complaints have been ignored.

According to the monitoring records collected by the public environmental research center, Qingfeng was listed as one of the 83 printing and dyeing enterprises in Xiaoshan District in 2009 by the government of Xiaoshan.

Mr. Lu, who wrote a letter of complaint in June 18th, said: "since 4 years ago, the printing and dyeing mill has been emitting acid gas intermittently, which has brought great impact and trouble to our life.

In a month or so, my baby will be born. As a father, I can not tolerate my child growing in such an environment.

In actual research, Zheng Yuanying, director of the "green eye environmental protection organization" in Wenzhou, also observed that all households installed air purifiers, "they dare not open windows."

Dashi, a Shaoxing public welfare network, said: "the villagers of Qing Mao reflect that many of the silver jewelry they wear will be blackened."

In 2003, after the construction of Qing Mao factory, villagers began a long way to complain. They looked for factories and found environmental protection departments, but the problems were not yet solved.

At the beginning of the investigation of environmental protection organizations, the villagers showed great distrust. They had seen too many "communication" and had no great hopes for solving the problem.

Looking for the "dragon head"

Environmental groups say frankly.

The problem of waste disposal is very large, and 49 brands or retailers surveyed have accounted for some of the industry, but not all of them.

The scope of the textile industry is too large, so Ma Jun of the public environmental research center said: "the environmental protection organization has limited strength, so we must look for the" leading role "and put the role in the leading role.

This action is more like an attempt to "throw bricks into the jade".

In March 22nd, the environmental protection organization first sent a letter to Martha department store, hoping to verify the suspected supplier violation situation in Martha's department store, while calling on Martha general store to manage its supplier's environmental behavior without responding.

In April 9th, the environmental protection organization released the first research report on "decontamination for fashion".

On the 30 day, the environmental protection organization received a reply from Martha general store: "we will naturally take all the external organizations (like your organization) seriously about the communication between our suppliers and check the various concerns that may be raised, so your request may be solved."

"It may be solved" - environmental organizations are not satisfied with the ambiguity of the plation language.

In October, after the second phase of the research report was released, Martha's Department responded to the public environmental research center and admitted that Qing Mao was its main supplier, but admitted that it had not been able to understand Qing Mao's irregularities before receiving the information from the environmental protection organization.

Martha stores hope that the environmental protection organization will give them more time and promise to investigate the problem clearly.

H&M was named by Ma Jun.

He said that after receiving letters from them, H&M took the initiative to take advantage of China's pollution map database to find out whether the co operative suppliers had any violations.

In the interview with new business week, H&M specifically introduced that for those suppliers with irregular records, H&M would ask them to make feedback on the IPE website, explain the specific ways to solve the problem of violation, and follow up them internally.

At the same time, H&M also strongly urged suppliers to disclose their emissions data. At present, several vendors have published data on IPE's website.

The positive response of H&M is the "jade" that environmental protection organizations want to draw out.

Environmental organizations hope that brands or retailers can check daily suppliers' illegal records in China's pollution map database. Before signing the contract with the new suppliers, they will check whether there is any environmental record on the pollution map, encourage factories to make public emissions and water efficiency and energy efficiency data, and confirm the rectification work through the third party audit to get public approval after the corrective action is completed.

Garment processing plant

China has been playing the role of "for a long time".

The role of the processing plant.

As far as the industry chain is concerned, China is an indispensable part of the world's factories from the beginning of the supply of cotton yarn to the garment processing of the terminal.

The world famous clothing brands bring a lot of orders to China, but also bring pollution.

According to "China Environmental Statistics Yearbook" (2011), the textile industry ranked third in the industrial drainage ranks of 40 major industries in China, and the annual wastewater discharge is nearly 25 billion tons.

In the past two years, with the rise of labor cost and land rental price in China, the scene of "Made in China" once in the world garment manufacturing pattern has disappeared. "Made in Cambodia (Kampuchea)" or "Made in Bangladesh (Meng Jiala)" is quietly occupying the market.

But large international brands and retailers are starting to turn their orders out of China, which does not mean that they will shift pollution away.

In fact, at present, they pfer part of the garment processing parts with low energy consumption and low pollution, and the dyeing and finishing links with high energy consumption and strong pollution remain in China.

On the other hand, the pfer of the textile industry terminal will take 5 to 10 years to complete.

Wang Qianjin, chief analyst of the first textile network, said that in recent years, the demand for pollution control in the textile industry is getting higher and higher. But if we really want to implement it, the pressure from the government, the supervision of environmental protection organizations and the internal self-discipline within the industry are indispensable.

Data show that China has more than 50 thousand textile factories, such huge data for the government's environmental protection department is a great pressure.

Some brands have little to do with the problems existing in the cooperative factories, lack of awareness of supply chain supervision, and only link with the garment processing links at the end of the supply chain, so that they can not reach the most polluted dyeing and finishing links.

Together, these factors form a key blind spot in the textile industry.

In January 20, 2011, a number of environmental organizations jointly released the report on the other side of apple, releasing a map of Apple's pollution in China's supply chain, exposing the huge environmental pollution problem of suspected suppliers of 27 Apple Corp.

After the release of the report, apple, which did not reply to any environmental group for 5 consecutive months, finally responded to the pressure of strong public opinion, and established a conversation mechanism with the environmental protection organization and took measures.

"Apple washing" has made environmental groups taste the sweetness.

They hope to extend this way to the textile industry.

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Establishing communication mechanism

"In China, the sense of corporate social responsibility has not yet been well formed. Through some large brand organizations, small businesses have begun to face up to this problem and supervise the supply chain management very well."

Zheng Yuanying said.

H&M told the new business weekly reporter that it is very important for the brand to formulate relevant policies and regulations for the sustainable management of the supply chain, but in some cases, the strength of these policies and regulations is very limited. It is inseparable from the cooperation of any part of the government, NGO and suppliers.

H&M believes that the work done by environmental groups is a very useful supplement to their policy formulation.

Dr. Linda Greer, director of the global environmental health program at the NRDC, told reporters that in the United States, business information about the environment is very easy to get, and emissions are all publicly available to the public.

In addition, pressure from the government and the public has forced the factory to reduce energy consumption as much as possible, which makes the brand itself do not have much work to do in terms of supervision and demand for suppliers.

However, due to the fact that the United States does not have very specific regulations on carbon emissions, the brand enterprises play a certain role in this vague area, and put forward specific requirements for carbon emissions in the supply chain.

Linda also introduced that in the United States, NGO plays a very important role in the regulation of pollution.

Many NGO analysis networks publish all kinds of information from the government, and then publish specific reports.

In addition, the United States also allows ordinary citizens or NGO to sue polluters.

So NGO plays the role of an assistant like the power of the government.

Linda gives an example. There is a large NGO alliance called "river protector". The members of the alliance are responsible for some rivers. They row the boat down the river, see suspicious scenes, take photos immediately, and find that the abnormal waters will be sampled and sent to the laboratory for testing.

These members are very familiar with the area's Hydrology and geomorphology and factory distribution. They can detect problems for the first time.

In the face of corporate irregularities, some members will choose to directly reflect the problem to the government departments, and some will get in touch with the media.

At this time, enterprises will be caught in a very awkward situation. They have to take action to solve problems and release themselves from negative reports.

The example of a "river protector" is a good case of communication and interaction among all sectors of society. In the eyes of Linda and Ma Jun, this kind of communication is a beautiful vision for Chinese enterprises and environmental protection organizations.

According to Linda, the "sustainable clothing alliance" with more than 60 well-known clothing retailers, brands and a few public welfare organizations will soon meet in Hongkong. There are 5 environmental protection organizations named in this report.

She hopes to urge textile mills to improve environmental protection through this meeting.