Green Cotton

Photosource: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Today, the New York Times reported that the H&M on 34th Street in New York has regularly (at times daily) disposed of brand new apparel in trash bags, purposefully slashed or otherwise destroyed to make them un-wearable. To think that a major retailer such as H&M could get away with such waste in the middle of an economic recession (not to mention frigid winter) when thousands of the cities homeless, unemployed and otherwise struggling people would happily make good use of that clothing is hard to digest.

For reasons unknown (H&M was unavailable for comment in the article – despite numerous attempts– other than to say that the question needed to be answered by headquarters), H&M appears to be regularly dumping new clothes and yielding them permanently un-wearable behind certain stores.

In speculating a rationale behind this irresponsible behavior, the only thought that comes to mind is that the retailer is afraid give brand new clothes (not selling fast enough) to a charity or other group for fear that potential customers would start shopping at Goodwill rather than at their store? Or are they simply being lazy? Wouldn’t they be able to take a tax deduction if they donated them somewhere?

Beyond the rationale for dumping though, a key question is why is there a need to dump clothes in the first place? The last time I was in an H&M, I was struck by how many garments seemed to be cheaply made with no apparent sustainability elements, and also how items seemed to be priced strikingly low. Having researched garment production inputs here at Green Cotton, the prices did not seem to possibly reflect the true cost of production….Yet, with so many garments to chose from at once and many with few redeeming attributes, it is not surprising that the store has unsellable wares on a daily basis…At the same time, that in no way excuses their disposal, nor any reason to continue with such a production model.

Considering all the water, land, petroleum, chemicals, time, human resources and other resources that are typically used to make a single garment, it is troubling to think that at the end of a production lifecycle, a producer (or retailer) could decide to render the product useless. When this happens, the whole process becomes an entire waste of the planet’s precious resources. Not only is this irresponsible environmental stewardship, but it is also, a reflection of poor planning and bad decision-making.

Corporations today, especially those that are in the manufacturing industries, are in important stewardship positions for our planet. They are on the front lines, working in countries all around the world, extracting the earth’s resources, employing people, building factories, manufacturing goods, and it is their responsibility to ensure we have a planet with viable, healthy resources for generations to come. Corporation’s need to make the right/best choices possible in terms of resource-use, energy-use, environmental stewardship and human capital investments.

We as customers on the other hand, are subject to the choices available to us in the marketplace. Our duty is to make the best choices, given the information available to us. Along these lines, we have the power to choose which companies and products we want to support (through our purchases). However, as we are not on the front lines, and do not see all that is being extracted, grown, disposed of, and made, we are at a disadvantage in terms of genuine stewardship. We are often not privy to key pieces of information and are left in relatively naive positions to trust (or not trust) what our corporate partners are doing to steward our finite resources.

That is why, in cases like this one, we (as consumers) can play an important role in encouraging change. We can take steps to ensure that companies like H&M continue to move faster and more effectively toward sustainability. Some things we can do NOW to foster change:

1)   Do not buy from retailers who you know are blatantly wasteful and/or are manufacturing their clothes in ways that damage the environment or the people who made them. If you love a particular company that you know is being wasteful, then write the CEO a letter and say how mad you are. Write that you will not tolerate this kind of behavior or will leave for another competitor.

2)   Do diligence on the retailers you buy from. Ask about their commitment to the environment and to human resources? Are you able to easily find this information? If not, probably these are not very important issues to the company. Be wary of retailers patting themselves on the back for small successes while missing the big picture (eg dumping new clothes in the dumpster regularly).

3)   Ask questions. If you are not sure about your favorite retailer or designer, write the CEO a letter. Ask them what they are doing about sustainability and the environment and tell them this matters to you.

4)   Take a look at the pioneers. Certain retailers we know are doing tremendous work when it comes to sustainability. For example Patagonia, Indigenous Designs, Timberland and many smaller emerging eco-designers. Find out exactly what these leaders are doing and then benchmark that against your favorite company. By looking at some of the pioneers, you will be able to more easily tease apart the “genuine” from the “green-washing” next time you read a sustainability claim.