Episodes 36 and 37 - Forced Labour

For Labour Day, we wanted to highlight the conditon of workers who aren’t protected by modern labour laws and labour unions. Given its prevalence throughout the world, we chose to examine the cross-cutting theme of forced labour.

We brought back Alexandra Sundarsingh for Part One, to bring historical context. Lex is a second year PhD student in the department of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has a BA and MA from the University of Toronto. Thematically, her research interests include the history of Indian indenture, and its intersections with labor, race, gender, diasporic Indian culture, colonialism, and empire. Geographically, she focuses on how South Asia and the Indian Ocean world connect to broader global histories of migration, labor, and culture. She approaches these topics mainly through legal documentation and debates, transportation and labor infrastructure, and print culture in the Indian Ocean British colonies between 1840 and 1920. She also has an ongoing love of and interest in food history and hopes to be able to use this in her research as well. Check out her work here!
Lex recommended another book for this episode: We, the Survivors by Tash Aw

 Excerpt from Amnesty International’s “Turning People into Profits” (p.7):

When Suresh, aged 39, first considered leaving his village in Saptari district for a foreign job, he hoped it might be a life-changing experience that would set him and his family up for a more secure financial future. His first step was to contact an agent in his village who knew about job opportunities abroad. The agent had good news. He could offer him work in a Malaysian glove making factory. Pay would be relatively high, at RM 1800 (USD 420) per month, and conditions would be good, with one day off every week, safe working conditions and clean accommodation. Ultimately, the agent said, this would give Suresh the chance to save enough money to buy land for his family.

But this chance would cost: Suresh had to pay the village agent, as well as the Kathmandu recruitment agency who would finalise the deal, upfront. To get his job, Suresh borrowed NPR 250,000 (USD 2,416) from a local moneylender, at an annual interest rate of 36%. Although the recruitment fee was enormous (and illegal), Suresh’s agent and the Kathmandu agency assured him that he would be able to quickly pay off the debt once he started earning in Malaysia. The reality was very different. At the glove making factory, Suresh was unpaid for months on end, and when he was paid, his employer made a number of unexplained deductions from his salary. Suresh could not leave and get a new job, because his passport had been taken away, and his employer refused to end his contract or even allow him to leave the factory. In desperation, Suresh turned to his recruitment agency for help. They did not return his calls.

Instead of making money, when Suresh finally returned to Nepal in 2015 he had accumulated a staggering debt of NPR 550,000 (USD 5,317).[1]

What is forced labour?

Forced labour is a form of modern slavery. It includes slavery, practices similar to slavery, and bonded labour/debt bondage. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), forced labour is: “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. The ILO definition includes two core elements.

First, labour must be extracted under the menace of any penalty. The penalty can be penal sanctions or a loss of rights and privileges. In its most extreme form, the menace of a penalty can involve physical violence or restraint. But other, more subtle, forms of penalty exist as well. Sometimes that might mean denouncing victims to the police or immigration authorities. Penalties can be financial, as in the case of debt-bondage and wage theft. In other cases, people may have their documents confiscated.

Second the work must be of an involuntary nature. For this criterion, the ILO looks at things like the method and content of consent, any external constraints or indirect coercion, and whether it is possible to revoke freely given consent. It is often the case that victims enter forced labour situations initially of their own accord and discover later that they are not free to withdraw their labour. (FYI, the ILO definition excludes prison work.)

Debt bondage is a particularly prominent feature of forced labour in current-day contexts. Half of forced labour imposed by private actors included debt bondage. In agriculture, domestic work, and manufacturing, debt bondage was even more prevalent – occurring in more than 70% of cases.

Forced labour is different than sub-standard or exploitative working conditions – so, even though things like low wages or unsafe working conditions are exploitative and bad, they are not in themselves forced labour.

There are numerous international treaties on forced labour, including: ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29); ILO Forced Labour Protocol (ratified, not yet in force); UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.

How it works

This short video does a good job of showing how forced labour often happens.

There are two main phases of forced labour: recruitment and control and exploitation.

Forced labour usually involves some kind of unfree recruitment, involving deception or coercion. Coercive recruitment often involves debt bondage or confiscation of documents. It can also occur through abuse of a difficult financial situation, irregular migrant status, or a difficult family situation. Deceptive recruitment is where promises made at the time of recruitment are not fulfilled. Victims are most commonly deceived about wages, working conditions, the jobs themselves, or the length of stay.  

People in situations of forced labour work under exploitative conditions. This can include low salaries, delayed payments, imposed poor living conditions, excessive work, and lack of social protection. Victims of forced labour face coercion, which might include:

●      Threats or actual physical harm

●      Restriction of movement or confinement to the workplace or a limited area

●      Withholding wages or excessive wage reduction that violates previously made agreements

●      Retention of passports and identity documents

●      Threats of denunciation to the authorities, when the worker has an irregular immigration status

What is the scale of forced labour?

In total, about 40 million people around the world are in modern slavery. That is roughly the same as the population of Canada. Modern slavery includes forced labour and forced marriage. Forced labour makes up more than half of modern slavery. At any given time, an estimated 25 million people are victims of forced labour. For context, that’s roughly the same as the population of Australia. (15 million people were living in a forced marriage). Those estimates are from a study called the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery created in 2017 by the ILO, the Walk Free Foundation, and the International Organization for Migration.

And that’s at any given time. In the past five years, 89 million people experienced some form of modern slavery.

Somewhere between 83% and 90% of the world’s forced laborers are working for the private sector, according to one estimate. Forced labour generates annual profits of about $150 billion USD.

State-imposed forced labour

State-imposed forced labour is declining as a source of forced labour, but it does occur. At least 2.2 million people worldwide are trapped in state- or rebel-imposed forms of forced labour. This form of forced labour often occurs in prisons or in work imposed by rebel or armed forces.

You can think about child soldiers as an example of state- or rebel-imposed forced labour. In previous episodes we have also talked about the Uzbek government’s connection to forced labour in the cotton industry. And of course, forced labour in Chinese re-education camps for Uighurs has received a lot of attention recently.

Another example is North Korea’s overseas workers program. North Korea sends somewhere between 50,000 and 120,000 of its citizens to work overseas and the government receives the lion’s share of wages for these workers (70-90%). North Korean overseas workers are primarily in China and Russia, although they have been found in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe. They are employed mostly in mining, logging, textile, and construction.

The United Nations and others have documented conditions that amount to forced labour. For instance: workers do not know the details of their employment contract; they receive tasks according to their state-assigned social class; they are under constant surveillance while working abroad; and they are threatened with repatriation if they commit infractions. It is believed that the North Korean regime makes $1.2 to 2.3 billion annually from its overseas worker program.

In the second episode, Kyla talks about the Chinese prison system and Christmas Light production. It’s pretty grim, but you can follow the link to read more. She also mentions the stories that have come out in the past few years of consumers finding notes in their merchandise from people experiencing forced labour, and you can read more about that here.

Where is forced labour a problem?

Modern slavery occurs everywhere, although forced labour is most prevalent in Asia and the Pacific, where 4 out of every 1,000 people were victims. Europe and Central Asia was the region with the second highest prevalence of forced labour (3.6 per 1,000), followed by Africa (2.8 per 1,000), the Arab States (2.2 per 1,000), and the Americas (1.3 per 1,000).

Forced labour happens in a bunch of industries, especially: domestic work; construction; manufacturing; agriculture, forestry, and fishing; accommodation and food services; wholesale and trade; personal services; mining and quarrying; and begging.

Source: Global Estimates of Modern Slavery 2017, p.32

There are some regional patterns to this. In the Middle East, for instance, forced labour is most often for domestic work (270,000 out of 400,000 according to the ILO). In developed economies, forced labour is more common in other sectors like agriculture, construction, and manufacturing.

An American study created a typology of sex and labor trafficking using data from a human trafficking hotline. The typology includes 25 categories of work, many of which are related to sex. According to the US Department of Labor, the goods with the most forced labor listings (meaning number of countries listed) are: bricks, cotton, garments, cattle, and sugarcane.

Who is affected by forced labour?

More than two-thirds of modern slavery victims are women and girls (71%). It’s true that some of this is because forced labour in the commercial sex industry is overwhelmingly women and girls (99%) and because women and girls are mostly the victims of forced marriages (84%).

But even in other sectors, women and girls make up more than half (58%) of forced labour victims. There are a few sectors where males are primarily victims of forced labour: mining and quarrying; begging; construction and manufacturing; and agriculture, forestry, and fishing. On the other hand, victims are most often women in domestic work and accommodation and food services.

Victims of forced labour tend to be younger than the workforce overall. About one fifth of forced labour victims are children (18%), although state-imposed forced labour uses children less frequently (7%). 

Even though sexual exploitation is only about one-fifth of all forced labour, in terms of the number of people affected, two-thirds of profits from forced labour were generated by forced sexual exploitation. That is because sexual exploitation is the most lucrative form of forced labour, with an average annual profit per victim of $21,800 USD (compared with $4,800 in construction, $2,500 in agriculture, and $2,300 in domestic work). On the other hand, while forced labour in the agriculture, fishing, and forestry sector makes up a fairly small component of profits from forced labour, it affects quite a lot of people – approximately 3.5 million in 2014.

According to the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline, some groups are most at-risk of forced labour. First are foreign nationals with precarious immigration status, recruitment debts, language barriers, and a lack of awareness of their rights. Second are those working in: agriculture and farming (seasonal workers, farm hands); domestic service (child/elder care and home housekeeping); hospitality (hotel housekeeping, restaurant kitchen work); construction and resource extraction (e.g., mining, timber, etc.); and services such as nail salons and commercial cleaning businesses. Third are people with vulnerabilities related to: precarious housing or homelessness, substance abuse, poverty, physical or learning disabilities, and mental health issues.

What are the causes of forced labour?

Poverty and globalization are two foundational causes of forced labour. But these are pretty broad concepts. To be a bit more specific, I want to talk about six dimensions that make people vulnerable to forced labour: restrictive migration regimes; economic vulnerability; sexism and racism; state fragility and conflict; authoritarianism; and global capitalism.

Restrictive Migration

Forced labour is closely connected to migration and, in particular, human trafficking. Almost one in every four victims of forced labour were exploited outside of their country of residence. This is especially the case for forced sexual exploitation, where three-quarters (74%) of victims were exploited outside of their country of residence. That is because there is a high degree of risk associated with migration, especially for migrant women and children.

Approximately 20% of forced labour is a result of human trafficking. Human trafficking is “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them.” People trafficked into forced labour are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation (43%), economic exploitation (32%), and for mixed or undetermined reasons (25%).

Of course, it’s not just human trafficking: restrictive migration regimes can create unfreedom as well. Qatar’s successful bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup drew a lot of attention to the situation of migrant workers there. 95% of Qatar’s labour force consists of migrant workers, and these workers are brought in through a sponsorship system called the Kafala System. Qatar was roundly critiqued for this system, and international pressure led to changes. For instance, now workers do not require exit visas to leave the country. Although the Kafala System has been rightly criticized for how it creates the vulnerabilities that can allow for forced labour, what I found the most striking when I was reading about it is how similar it is to seasonal migrant worker programs in Canada and other wealthy countries. We mentioned COVID outbreaks among Canadian temporary workers and you can listen to more about that on this episode of Front Burner.

The ILO has a good description of how the vulnerability of migrant workers gets exploited in the construction industry in Eastern Europe, for instance:  

Migrant workers are brought illegally to work on a construction site, without knowing the working conditions or terms of payment. There, they discover that they are forced to live together in a remote place provided by the employer (to avoid police controls) and told that they will be paid only at the end of the construction. A few days before the end, when the work is done and wages are due, the owner may call a law enforcement officer to inform him of the presence of irregular migrants. The workers are then deported and the employer does not need to pay them. All due wages (minus the bribe) increase the profits made.

Economic Vulnerability

Poverty and lack of outside options are important risk factors for forced labour. In addition to poverty, people can be more vulnerable to forced labour when their family has undergone an income shock or is experiencing food insecurity.

Lower education and literacy levels can also make workers more vulnerable to forced labour. Weak labour protections create pools of unprotected workers, “who face serious barriers to acting collectively and exerting rights”. Workers can be unprotected because their country lacks robust labour protections or because they are in a category of work that is unprotected. In particular, the expansion of precarious work makes people more vulnerable to forced labour. The ILO has estimated that more than 75% of the global workforce is in temporary, informal, or unpaid work: so, “only a quarter of workers have the security of permanent contracts”.

Sexism and Racism

Some people are made more vulnerable to forced labour because some part of their identity denies them rights and full personhood. Although different, intersecting forms of discrimination play a role in forced labour, sexism is one of the most prominent dimensions.

Authoritarianism

State-imposed forced labour is largely a product of authoritarianism.

State Fragility and Conflict

On the other hand, state fragility and conflict can create opportunities for rebels and criminal organizations (and sometimes the government) to carry out illegal exploitation of workers.

Global Capitalism

Several facets of our global economy create pressure within the market for exploitable forms of labour and create spaces for exploitation. A report by openDemocracy and the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute identifies four of what they refer to as “demand side” causes of forced labour: concentrated corporate power and ownership; outsourcing; irresponsible sourcing practices (E.g., fast fashion’s quick turnaround); and governance gaps.

Forced labour in global supply chains

The US Department of Labor produces a list of goods produced by child labor or forced labor. The most recent report is for 2018, and it is LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. Forced labour can appear in any industry, and can affect the supply chains or direct operations of companies of different sizes.

The top five products at most risk of modern slavery, according to the Walk Free Foundation, are:

1. Laptops, mobile phones, and computers ($200.1 billion in at-risk products imported into the G20);

2. Garments ($127.7 billion);

3. Fish ($12.9 billion);

4. Cocoa ($3.6 billion); and

5. Sugarcane ($2.1 billion).

Every year, over $34 billion in goods imported into Canada are “at a high risk of having been produced by child or forced labour.” “More than 1,200 companies operating in Canada were identified as having imported one or more of these high-risk goods.” For global figures, see the Global Slavery Index produced by the Walk Free Foundation.

Workers are particularly vulnerable to forced labour in the lower tiers of global supply chains – extracting raw inputs and processing them. While forced labour is a complicated challenge, it is possible for companies to monitor their supply chains to reduce the risk that they are complicit.

Preventing forced labour in global supply chains

Companies can work to prevent forced labour in their supply chains by having policies, knowing where in their supply chain there are risks of forced labour; having supplier codes of conduct and carrying out due diligence; and training staff to recognize forced labour.

What should you do about it? 

Pick Leading Big Brands

You can try to look for brands that are taking action to address forced labour in their supply chains. But know that these leading brands have not eliminated forced labour.

For example, in 2019 the UK police uncovered the largest modern slavery operation in its history, involving 400 Polish trafficked workers. Some of those victims were employed by second-tier suppliers to major supermarket and building supply chains, including Tesco and Sainsbury’s – the two leading companies in Oxfam’s Supermarkets Scorecard for performance in protecting human rights.

Right now, there are no big brands that have truly eliminated forced labour from their supply chains. But there are companies that are doing much better than others.

The Stop Slavery Award recognizes companies with strong policies and processes to limit the risk of slavery in their supply chains and operations, as well as those acting as key agents in the global fight against slavery. Some previous winners include Apple, Unilever, Adidas, Intel, and Co-op.

Know the Chain’s benchmarking reports can help you find leaders and laggards in apparel and footwear; food and beverage; and information and communications technology.

Try Fairtrade

To the extent that Fairtrade labels are available, they can provide an alternative that is likely to be free from forced labour.

Fair trade is a set of movements, campaigns, and initiatives that have emerged in response to the negative effects of globalization. A product that is certified as Fairtrade has met a set of standards on pay, working conditions, and sometimes other social or environmental criteria. As we discussed in the Sugar episode, there are also fair trade member systems that work a bit differently.

However, there are some critiques of Fairtrade. Some see the use of fairtrade certification as “fairwashing” – meaning a way to superficially seem like a company is doing well on workers’ rights without actually addressing the problem. Critics tend not to argue that fair trade products are not living up to the standards established by certifying bodies. Instead, they argue that fair trade does not address the root causes of problems like forced labour.  

Boycott?

A boycott can be tempting, but it is almost impossible and potentially counterproductive. In his TEDx Talk, a Foreign Affairs producer at PBS Newshour named P.J. Tobia recommends focusing on one product at a time and learning about how the supply chain works, what is causing forced labour in that issue, and what solutions are being proposed. Then you can support NGOs working on the problem or lend your voice to promote policy change or to push a company to change its practices.

Use Your Voice to Promote Human Rights

Another thing you can do is tell your representative that you care about ratifying the ILO Protocol on Forced Labour. The Protocol on Forced Labour is an international treaty. To enter into force, it needs 50 states to ratify and currently only 45 states have done so.

If ratified, the Protocol on Forced Labour would require governments to take new measures to address forced labour. For instance, countries will need to increase inspections to protect workers and guarantee victims access to justice and compensation. Canada has already ratified, but the United States and Australia both have not. You can find out more about the ILO Protocol on Forced Labour and how to get involved at the 50 for Freedom campaign website.

In Canada, tell your Member of Parliament that you want to see the Modern Slavery Act (Bill S-211) become law, but you want it to include: higher penalties, due diligence requirements, and a broader focus on human rights (in addition to child and forced labour). The Modern Slavery Act would create an obligation for companies to report to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on steps taken to prevent and reduce the risk of forced or child labour in any step of the production process. This Act is not as strong as its French and Dutch counterparts, but it is a good first step.

The UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 is the first such legislation, though other jurisdictions such as California and Australia now have similar laws. Most modern slavery laws only apply to large companies – for instance, only 150 companies are covered under the French legislation.

The Canadian Act was introduced for a first reading in the Senate in February. Read the report that spurred this legislation.

The Challenge

For our challenge, Kyla and I each looked at a specific good that has been linked to forced labour by the US Department of Labor. I chose rice. Kyla chose Christmas lights.

According to the US Department of Labour’s Sweat and Toil app, there has been forced labour documented in rice production in Burma, India, and Mali (as well as child labour in a few other countries).  

India: debt bondage

In 2007, 24 people were rescued from a rice mill in India. They had been “abused and enslaved” there. The mill owner was convicted under India’s Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act in 2018. There is another story from 2019 where a pregnant woman named Soniya working in debt bondage at a rice mill lost her baby because of the harsh working conditions. Even though debt bondage is illegal in India, in the country’s 2011 census India identified more than 135,000 bonded workers. Of course, the real figure is likely a lot higher – International Justice Mission estimates 500,000 bonded labourers just in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Myanmar: state-imposed forced labour

In Myanmar, there are accounts of up to 8,000 Rohingya Muslims being forced into hard labour by soldiers. Rice production is one of the industries in which this kind of forced labour occurs.

Mali: descent-based slavery

For Mali, forced labour primarily happens in rice production because members of the Bellah or Ikelan community in Northern Mali are often enslaved by Tuareg communities. Tuareg society is an ethnically casted society with five tiers. Three tiers are perceived racially as “white”, according to an article by Baz Lecocq. The lowest two tiers are perceived racially as “black”, a grouping of craftspeople and then the unfree caste of slaves. Colonialism reinforced this hierarchical pyramid, particularly the links between race and bondage. Mali is one of three countries in Western Africa where Anti-Slavery International has undertaken initiatives to address descent-based slavery.

Endnotes

[1] Amnesty International. (2017). Turning People into Profits: Abusive Recruitment, Trafficking and Forced Labour of Nepali Migrant Workers. London: Amnesty International Ltd.

Episodes 26, 27 and 29 - Palm Oil

What is Palm Oil?

Palm oil comes from the fruit of oil palm trees (elaeis guineensis). Palm kernel oil comes from crushing the kernel (the stone in the middle of the fruit). 66 million tons of palm oil is produced annually, making it the most commonly produced vegetable oil. Global production of palm oil has doubled in the last decade. Palm oil plantations cover more than 27 million hectares of the Earth’s surface.

There are approximately 200 alternate names for palm oil and palm oil derivatives used in cleaning products and cosmetics, which can make it really difficult to know if there is palm oil in what you’re buying.[1]

But here’s a trick: there are four root words that give you an indication that an ingredient might be palm oil-derived (but not necessarily so):

Palm-

• Palm kernel oil

• Palm fruit oil

• Palmate

• Palmolein

• Palmitate

• Palmitic acid

• Palmityl alcohol

• Hydrated palm glycerines

• Etyl palmitate

Stear-

• Sodium stearate

• Stearic acid

• Pentataerythrityl tetraisostearate

• Octyldodecyl stearoyl stearate

Laur-

• Sodium lauryl lactylate

• Sodiul lauryl sulphate

• Sodium laureth sulfare

Glyc-

• Glyceryl

• Hydrogenated palm glycerides

But there are a bunch of palm derivatives that don’t use these roots (e.g., sodium kernelate, elaeis guineensis) and sometimes palm oil can be labelled more generically, as vegetable fat or vegetable oil. Here is a list of 25 sneaky names for palm oil. If you live in an EU country, palm oil can’t be labelled as a generic vegetable oil.[2]

More than 50% of packaged supermarket products contain palm oil. Palm oil is in:

• Packaged foods like pizza (dough), doughnuts, chocolate, margarine, noodles, ice cream, bread, chips, cookies. It’s used where you need fat of some kind.

• Personal care products and cosmetics like deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, and lipstick. Some cleaning products also.

• Animal feed

• Biofuels

It is also a popular cooking oil in Asian and African countries. 40% of the world’s palm oil is consumed in China, India, and Pakistan.[3] The food industry used about 72% of all palm oil, cosmetics/cleaning take another 18%, and the remaining 10% goes to biofuels and animal feed.[4]

Why is Palm Oil in Everything?

Palm oil has a lot of useful properties. It is semi-solid at room temperature, so it can keep spreads spreadable. It is resistant to oxidation, so it can give products a longer shelf-life. It is stable at high temperatures, so it helps give fried products a crispy and crunchy texture. And it is odorless and colourless, so it doesn’t alter the look or smell of food products. 

Palm oil is also used in some products for its health properties. Palm oil doesn’t have trans-fat and has a lower saturated fat concentration than butter. Other vegetable oils have to be partially hydrogenated to make them more solid, but that process of artificial hydrogenation creates trans-fatty acids.[5] Palm oil is naturally hydrogenated. When scientific consensus was forming around trans-fats, Unilever led the shift to palm oil in food products. 

Palm oil and palm oil derivatives also replaced animal-based fats in foods, as well as cleaning and personal care products (E.g., soaps with animal tallow[6]). Palm oil and palm kernel oil possessed the same properties as animal tallow, which made them the only suitable plant-based alternative.[7] Consumers were already pushing the market toward plant-based alternatives, but the BSE outbreaks in the late 1980s and early 1990s triggered a larger shift toward palm oil.[8] The consumption of animal fats per capita reached its peak in the 1980s and has been in decline since.

Palm oil is also cheap because it’s a productive crop and because oil palm trees demand less work and production inputs than other oil crops. For that reason, it is a popular cooking oil in Asian and African countries.

Where is Palm Oil Produced?

Oil palm trees are native to West Africa but were brought to Southeast Asia in the 19th century. Malaysia and Indonesia produce 87% of global palm oil. However, there are 42 other countries that also produce palm oil. That includes countries in West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and tropical South America.[9]

Palm Oil Production

Oil palms are grown and harvested on large-, medium-, and small-scale palm oil plantations.[10] The palm oil industry is dominated by about a dozen corporations that operate large-scale plantations and mills.[11] The three largest players – Musim Mas, Wilma, and Sime Darby, account for 25% of palm oil production.[12] (While these are big multinationals, they are small in comparison to the biggest agribusiness corporations, the “ABCDs”, which are headquartered in western countries). There are at least a million small-scale oil palm producers in Indonesia alone.[13]

Oil palm trees grow up to 20 metres tall and have an average life span of 25 years. They start to bear fruit after three years and reach peak production between years 6-8. Fruit bunches can contain from 1-3,000 individual fruits, which are the size of small plums. The bunches weigh 10-25kg. Harvesting palm fruit is physically demanding. Harvesters use long steel poles with a sickle at the end to cut the palm fruit bunches down. The bunches are then loaded onto wheelbarrows and taken to collection points.

Like sugarcane, oil palm fruit has to be processed quickly after harvesting – within 24 hours. For this reason, palm oil refineries are usually situated within-country. 

Environment

Deforestation

Palm oil is a major driver of deforestation. For instance, approximately 55% of newly developed palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia from 1990-2005 resulted in deforestation.[14] As the palm oil industry expands, the space for new palm oil plantations is often made through deforestation and peatland clearing.

Palm oil is currently responsible for about 8% of deforestation – that’s a big chunk of the 53% of deforestation caused by agriculture. But keep in mind that 24% of deforestation is from land used for livestock, while 19% is coming from soybeans (which are mostly going to feed animals) and 11% from corn (same). So, if we are looking at changing one consumption practice to counter deforestation, palm oil isn’t the place to start.

And even in the big palm oil producing countries like Indonesia, land clearing for pulp, paper, and timber is a bigger source of deforestation.

However, the forests that are being cleared for palm oil plantations are in some cases particularly biodiverse or particularly efficient carbon sinks. Indonesian forests store even more carbon per hectare than the Brazilian Amazon. Some Indonesian forests are called “peatlands”, which are low-lying rainforests located close to coastal areas. The peat is under the forest, and it is basically a below-ground accumulation of decayed vegetation. It was formed in swampy conditions where plant material fails to fully decay and can build up to a depth of 10 metres or more over thousands of years.

The peat lands are an immense source of stored carbon. They can store up to 20 times as much carbon as tropical rainforests on normal mineral soils. As the forests above them are deforested, those sinks are released – making for something some have called a “carbon time-bomb”. Also, as the industry expands there is concern that its impact on deforestation could increase.

And palm oil could be less destructive. Deforestation could be reduced or avoided by planting in areas that are already deforested.

Biodiversity Loss

This problem is connected to the problem of deforestation and other land conversion for palm oil plantations.  Palm oil expansion could affect 54% of threatened mammals and 64% of threatened birds globally.

Some of the species threatened by palm oil expansion include the cotton top monkey, the chimpanzee, Sumatran tigers, African forest elephants, orangutans, gibbons, sun bears, kangaroos, and cassowaries. For example, 10,000 of the estimated 75-100,000 critically endangered Bornean orangutans are currently found in areas allocated to palm oil.

In addition to the loss of direct habitat, palm oil plantations can increase human-wildlife conflict with species like orangutans and tigers. Each year 750-1,250 orangutans are killed during human-orangutan conflicts, often linked to expanding agriculture.

A Jakarta-based ecologist has referred to palm oil plantations as “green deserts” because they are monocultures. While these are plants, palm plantations in Southeast Asia are an introduced species that does not interact very well with local ecology, so very little biodiversity exists within them.

Unfortunately, boycotting palm oil is likely to displace rather than halt biodiversity loss because it would increase the production of other oil crops. So the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and WWF prefer to push for palm oil sustainability, rather than a boycott or ban of palm oil.

Sustainable palm oil would involve putting an end to the clearing of native tropical forests for new palm oil plantations, and limit demand for palm oil for non-food uses. It would also ask existing palm oil plantations to manage their land responsibly by setting aside forest and other areas identified as important for biodiversity and carbon.

Climate Change

Oil palms are a very productive plant. One of the reasons it was produced initially was environmental sustainability: because palm oil is so productive, you need less land to grow it.

Source: WWF

The problem here is land conversion. Forests and peat lands are carbon sinks. When these lands are converted to palm oil plantations, it results in the release of greenhouse gases. As well, we lose those carbon sinks. Indonesia’s peatlands have gone from a carbon sink to a globally significant source of emissions thanks to deforestation. Oil palms do absorb carbon dioxide, but less effectively than forests.

Also, fire is used to clear lands for palm oil plantations, which emits GHG in addition to creating air pollution. 80% of the fires in Indonesia in 2019 were being set to clear land for palm oil plantations.

The challenging thing here is that oil palm production is more productive than substitute crops. And substitutes like coconut oil have their own environmental problems. We would likely have to convert even more land to keep up with demand.

Chemicals Use and Pollution

Palm oil plantations use a range of pesticides and herbicides, as well as large amounts of fertiliser. These products can pollute soil and groundwater. Although palm oil plantations aren’t large users of pesticides and fertilizers overall, these chemicals are often used indiscriminately – which can result in water pollution.

These chemicals also pose a risk to the people working on palm oil plantations. One herbicide used on palm oil plantations is paraquat dichloride. Paraquat is a highly toxic chemical, and for that reason is banned in the EU as well as several other countries. In Indonesia it is a restricted substance. Amnesty International found evidence of the use of paraquat on Indonesian plantations, as well as the absence of training and sufficient personal protective equipment. Workers described negative health effects after exposure to the chemicals. Palm oil mills also pollute, producing 2.5 metric tons of effluent for every metric ton of palm oil it produces.

People

Oil palms are one of the most profitable crops for farmers, which in part is a success story: palm oil has helped to reduce rural poverty in places like Indonesia, for example. Palm oil has the potential to improve incomes and employment where it is produced. Millions of smallholders rely on palm oil for their livelihoods in Malaysia and Indonesia.

On the other hand, the oil palm industry can sometimes hurt communities economically because they lose access to forests and it may not be compensated sufficiently by economic gains from cultivating oil palms.

Working Conditions

Amnesty International has reported on the labour abuses on palm oil plantations. Specifically, they looked at plantations in Indonesia linked to Wilmar, the largest processor and merchandiser of palm oils (they control 43% of the global palm oil trade).

On those plantations, Amnesty International found evidence of forced and child labour, gender discrimination, as well as exploitative and dangerous working conditions.

Amnesty concluded that these are not isolated incidents, but rather linked to the systemic business practices of Wilmar and its subsidiaries and suppliers, such as the low level of wages, use of targets and “piece rates” (workers are paid based on tasks completed rather than hours worked), and a complex system of financial and other penalties. Because of these systems, workers that do not meet their targets get their already low salaries deducted.

Targets are set by individual companies and “appear to be set arbitrarily to meet companies’ needs rather than being based on a realistic calculation of how much workers can do in their working hours.” Because of the targeting system, workers on the plantations get help from their spouses, children, and others to complete tasks. Amnesty documented evidence of the involvement of children in hazardous tasks, which is illegal under Indonesian law, on plantations owned by two Wilmar subsidiaries and three Wilmar suppliers. Some were as young as eight.

Amnesty found that workers, especially women, are employed under casual work arrangements which make them vulnerable to abuse. While most harvesters (always men) are employed on permanent employment contracts, most plant maintenance employees are women and are employed on a casual basis.

Employers can penalize workers for failing to meet targets or for mistakes in their work (e.g. picking unripe fruit). This penalty usually has a financial dimension. These penalties are not transparent, which allows employers to exact work under the threat of loss of pay or employment. Amnesty International has documented instances of this, which it considers to constitute forced labour. 

Indigenous Peoples and Nearby Communities

Indigenous peoples are losing their land to palm oil plantations. This is especially a problem in Indonesia. Land use rights in Indonesia are often disputed due to conflicts between customary land rights and formal property ownership.[15] Weak laws, poor government oversight, and the failure of palm producing companies to fulfil their human rights responsibilities have led to a loss of land and livelihood opportunities for Indigenous people in Indonesia, according to Human Rights Watch. Companies have failed to consult with Indigenous peoples and to provide just and fair compensation for losses suffered.

In some cases, Indigenous peoples are forcefully removed from their lands, which is one reason that the Rainforest Action Network has used the term “conflict palm oil” to describe the industry. Private armies and paramilitary groups are deployed sometimes, and community members have been killed in Indonesia. There are upwards of 600 ongoing land disputes between palm oil companies and rural communities.

Surrounding communities can also be made more at risk of flooding when palm plants are placed on steep slopes, causing soil erosion.

Food Security

Another problem with the conversion of agricultural lands for palm oil production is that it can hurt local food security (same with all cash crops).[16] And because palm oil is increasingly being used for biofuel, prices are increasing which can sometimes make it unaffordable for communities proximate to these plantations.[17]

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil

What is it?

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a sustainable palm oil certification that was founded in 2004. Like the Marine Stewardship Council, RSPO was founded through a collaboration between the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever, as well as Asian producers and a few other Western brands (e.g. Nestlé, Tesco, Cargill).[18] It has managed sustainability standards for palm oil production since 2008.[19] An estimated 14% of palm oil is RSPO certified.

The backbone of the RSPO standard is a generic set of Principles and Criteria adopted in 2005.[20] There are eight core Principles:

• Commitment to transparency,

• Compliance with applicable laws and regulations,

• Commitment to long-term economic and financial viability,

• Use of appropriate best practices by growers and millers,

• Environmental responsibility and conservation of natural resources and biodiversity,

• Responsible consideration of employees, smallholders, and other individual communities affected by growers and mills,

• Responsible development of new plantings, and

• Commitment to continuous improvement.[21]

Each of the eight principles has corresponding criteria, which can also differ from country-to-country and location-to-location.[22] RSPO creates standards for the growth of oil palms as well as the palm oil milling process.[23] It also has standards for tracing palm oil through the supply chain (which is called chain-of-custody certification).[24]

There are also separate standards for smallholder palm farmers. That was introduced a bit later than the main standard, and it responds to the challenges that small producers can have in obtaining sustainability certifications.[25] Basically, the idea is to ask smallholders to make improvements over time, rather than asking them to do everything before obtaining certification. That program was just introduced in 2019, so it isn’t clear how well it will work.

RSPO is the largest and by many accounts the most robust palm oil certification available, but it has still been widely criticized.

Criticisms

RSPO is a multi-stakeholder organization (meaning there are different voices involved in defining standards). The seven groups of stakeholders included in the RSPO’s general assembly are: palm oil growers, palm oil processors and/or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, environmental and nature conservation NGOs, and social development NGOs.[26]

However, RSPO has been criticized for being industry-dominated and for failing to engage key vulnerable stakeholders, such as smallholding producers, labour unions, social and environmental groups, indigenous peoples and organizations, and women’s groups.[27]For instance, only a small proportion of palm oil-related land use conflicts are sufficiently acknowledged and resolved within RSPO’s institutional dispute resolution mechanisms.[28]

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and other NGOs have criticized RSPO for the low stringency of compliance enforcement.[29] For instance, Amnesty International concluded that “the RSPO is acting as a shield which deflects greater scrutiny of Wilmar’s and other companies’ practices.”

Also, the majority of certified palm oil is mixed with conventional oil during transportation and as a result consumer products with the RSPO logo will most likely contain unsustainable palm oil.

Another argument is that the RSPO standard gives national governments an excuse to forego further public regulation of the industry.[30]

Critics also point to weaknesses in the standards themselves. RSPO initially avoided defining what sustainability means, going forward with the standard first.[31] RSPO’s emphasis on consensus decision-making, critics say, makes it incapable of dealing with contentious or controversial issues.[32] Even the moderate stringency of RSPO’s standards have led major stakeholders to leave.[33] 

Although RSPO has devoted some attention to the issue, it is still difficult for smallholder palm producers to afford certification.[34] And small- and medium-sized producers have less of an incentive to get RSPO certified because they often supply Indian, Chinese, and Pakistani markets[35]

Kristen mentioned a book chapter that looks at the role of auditors in sustainability labelling. The book is called Transnational Business Governance Interactions.

Why is Certification Uptake so Low?

Most sustainability labels deal with agricultural products for which there is a specific consumer product with a recognizable link to the agricultural product – e.g., coffee, paper, sugar, cocoa, fish.[36] That isn’t the case for palm oil.

That makes it much more difficult to get companies to sign onto voluntary standards for palm oil. Consumers mostly don’t know that there is palm oil in a product. Producers mostly don’t want to emphasize that there is palm oil in their items, since it has baggage and is not the major ingredient. That makes it more difficult to develop a price premium for certified palm oil. And that problem is compounded because even companies like Unilever that might use RSPO certified palm oil are not necessarily going to put the label on, say, their peanut butter because they want to emphasize the primary ingredients instead.

Another challenge is palm oil’s position in the market. Because it is mostly used as a cheap additive, producers mostly do not want to take on the increased cost and because there may not be much potential to charge a price premium. That problem is compounded because so much of the palm oil market is from non-wealthy countries, and there is very little consumer demand for sustainability labelling there.

Boycott v. Sustainability Certification

Palm oil mainly ubiquitous because it is cheap. And there are no real alternatives that wouldn’t cause problems. So:

What Can You Do?

Social and Environmental Labels

Assuming that you aren’t going to go palm oil-free: the RSPO is better than nothing, but it’s not great.

The WWF has a palm oil buyers scorecard where you can search brands for information about whether they are RSPO members or not (though again RSPO is flawed). It only has a few brands, though.

Rainforest Action Network recommends looking for the Palm Oil Innovation Group (POIG) standard, which they see as the only standard truly free of deforestation, peatland destruction, and exploitation. All POIG retailers and manufacturers are RSPO members, and must be certified – so it’s basically a stronger version of RSPO. POIG doesn’t have many certified products right now, but it might be the solution of the future. Some noteworthy POIG members include: Danone, L’Oréal, and Barry Callebaut. POIG NGOs include: WWF, Greenpeace, RAN, Verité (fair labour group), Sumatran Orangutan Society, and Orangutan Land Trust.

For workers’ rights, try the RSPO Smallholder Standard (although this might mean weaker sustainability standards). Another option is FairPalm.

Fairtrade hasn’t created standards for palm oil yet, but there is one available label that is substantively like fairtrade: FairPalm is a label for palm oil grown by smallholders in West Africa.

Or try doubling up with organic labels – which can at least address the harmful chemicals problem. Organic labels deal with the use of pesticides and fertilizers, so on their own they cannot address the other problems with palm oil. Unfortunately, RSPO is the best we have on that.

Ethical Consumer Worst and Best Ratings

Ethical Consumer has put together a list of brands to avoid (received their “worst” rating on palm oil use). Here are some of the brands that I recognized from that list:

• Nestlé – Kit Kat, NESCAFÉ, Perrier

• Mondelez – Cadbury

• Domino’s Pizza

• Yum! Brands – Pizza Hut, KFC

• Subway

• Itsu

• Prêt-à-manger

• TGI Friday’s

• Pizza Express

• L’Occitane

• Proctor and Gamble – Pampers, Head and Shoulders 

Ethical consumer also has a list of recommended brands (received their “best” rating on palm oil use). I only recognized a few brands from this list:

• Marks and Spencer

• Waitrose

• Lush

• Nivea

• Georganics

Get Involved!

Get involved with campaigns asking companies to implement sustainable palm oil practices. Write to companies to get them to use sustainable palm oil. Find out more about Michelle Desilets by following her on twitter.

Endnotes

[1] Ethical Consumer Podcast. (2018). Complex World of Palm Oil. Ethical Consumer.

[2] Paiement, Phillip. (2017). Transnational Sustainability Laws. New York: Cambridge University Press.

[3] The Food Chain Podcast. (2019). Can Palm Oil Be Sustainable? BBC World Service.

[4] Ethical Consumer Podcast, “Complex World of Palm Oil”.

[5] Ethical Consumer Podcast, “Complex World of Palm Oil”.

[6] Audio Long Reads. (2019). How the World Got Hooked on Palm Oil. The Guardian.

[7] Audio Long Reads, “How the World Got Hooked on Palm Oil.”

[8] Audio Long Reads, “How the World Got Hooked on Palm Oil.”

[9] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[10] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[11] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[12] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[13] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[14] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[15] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[16] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[17] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[18] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[19] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[20] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[21] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[22] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[23] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[24] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[25] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[26] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[27] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[28] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[29] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[30] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[31] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[32] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[33] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[34] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[35] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

[36] Paiement, Transnational Sustainability Laws.

Episodes 22 and 23 - Seafood

The seafood industry is large, and growing, as humans are eating more fish each year. You might be surprised to learn that, per capita, annual fish consumption has increased from 9.9kg in the 1960s to 19.2kg in 2012. And the average Canadian eats slightly more than this, at 23.1kg. Americans eat an estimated 17 billion marine creatures annually.[1] 

Fishing is a Global Industry

In addition to capturing spectacular worldwide demand, fish is a global industry because it is a highly traded commodity: approximately 200 countries export fish and fishery products. Canadian fish and seafood imports generally match the global trend. The top five countries of origin for our fish and seafood imports are: the U.S. (36.7%), Thailand (14.9%), China (14.6%), Chile (5.1%) and Vietnam (4.6%).

The Fishing Supply Chain

1. Fish and shellfish (A) living in open waters or (B) raised via aquaculture in ponds, tanks or bounded coastal waters are harvested.  

2. They are packed and transported to processing facilities.

3. Processors convert the fish to consumer products (i.e. canned, frozen, filets, smoked). In some cases, processing takes multiple steps while in others fish are transported live.

4. Wholesalers receive the processed or unprocessed fish and distribute the product to retailers and restaurants.

5. You buy/eat it.

This episode focuses on just step one of the fish supply chain. Maybe we’ll cover the others in future episodes.

Overfishing

The State of Overfishing

85% of global fish stocks overfished. “Overfishing” refers to a situation when more fish are caught than can be replaced through natural reproduction. It has several causes, including rising demand, new technology, and governance gaps.

A study of catch data published in the journal Science in 2006 predicted that if fishing rates continue at the same rate, all the world's fisheries will have collapsed by 2048. The problem of overfishing is so bad that some have argued for giving the oceans their own seat at the United Nations.  The global ocean plays a central role in supporting life on Earth. Oceans cover 3/4 of the planet and contain 80% of all life.

Overfishing affects the entire ocean ecosystem. But especially the top of the food chain: the population of large predatory fish has dropped by an estimated 90% since the industrialization of fisheries in the 1950s.

Overfishing is bad for workers as well as the environment: because fish stocks have been declining, vessels must take longer and longer voyages to find fish, meaning that workers are stuck aboard for long periods of time; declining stocks also make fish processing an increasingly precarious job.

You might recall the collapse of the Newfoundland Grand Banks cod fishery in the 1990s: this put between 50 000 and 40 000 people out of work. Fishing is central to the livelihood and food security of an estimated 200 million people. Sustainable fishing matters for the environment, for animals, and for people.

Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported Fishing

The problem of forced labour on fishing vessels is extremely difficult to tackle, as it is linked to illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing (IUU fishing also goes hand in hand with overfishing).  

Because international waters are a global commons, regulating fishing has proven extremely difficult. For this reason, people often refer to overfishing as a tragedy of the commons (each individual has an incentive to overfish, even if collectively everyone would benefit from responsible stewardship).

IUU fishing is a huge problem: it is estimated that IUU fishing accounts for 30% of all fishing activity worldwide.  Structural loopholes in international maritime law, specifically on the high seas, allow for IUU fishing to proliferate.

Outside of a country’s exclusive economic zone (on the “high seas”, which cover 64% of the surface area of the ocean) ships are governed by the laws of the country in which that vessel is registered (the “flag country”).

Often, fishing vessels are registered in countries with no meaningful link to their operations. IUU fishing occurs in primarily on the high seas and poorly regulated national waters. For example, along the coastline of sub-Saharan Africa forced labour is a problem on European and Asian fishing vessels in poorly regulated waters.

Seafood Fraud

A recent investigation of seafood bought in Montreal found that more than half of samples were mislabelled. 61% were mislabelled in some way, while 34% were an entirely different species than advertised.

Unfortunately, this is not an outlier. It merely highlights the endemic challenge of falsely and mislabeled seafood. Between 25 and 70 percent of seafood products in Canada are “mislabeled due to counterfeiting somewhere along the supply chain”. Globally, on average 30 percent of seafood products are mislabeled.

Why so high? As fish markets have globalized so too have the supply chains for fish products, resulting in a “notoriously opaque” system in which weak governance provides a hospitable environment for seafood fraud. Also, consumers don’t really know much about seafood – which is a very wide category. Approximately 350 species of seafood can be found in American markets.[2] So, seafood fraud is very easy.

Common frauds:

·      In Canada, cod is often actually haddock[3]

·      One investigation found that three quarters of red snapper was actually another species – most commonly red sea bream or tilapia.[4]

·      Grouper is another seafood that will be mislabelled. It’s often actually catfish[5]

·      And fish labelled as wild caught is often actually farmed[6]

Beyond being a consumer rights issue – if you buy salmon you probably want to know that you are receiving salmon – seafood mislabeling poses challenges for sustainability.

Eco-labels with traceability standards offer a partial solution to this problem, although seafood mislabeling still happens under such schemes (but it happens a lot less). Of course, private regulation has its limits – accordingly, government-mandated traceability requirements will play an important role as well. (For a good summary of traceability standards in the seafood industry, see this report.)

Finally, better tools are needed. DNA testing has generated research attention since it poses a potential solution to the deficiencies of current traceability best practices. For instance, the MSC published a report on the subject in March. 

The Ecological Effects of Fishing

In addition to overfishing, sustainability also concerns the broader environmental impact of fishing processes. For example, if gear is lost during the fishing process or if fishing entails destructive processes, such as the use of dynamite and poisons, this can cause more widespread ecosystem damage.

Commercial fishing gear is becoming more efficient and less efficient, depending on how you look at it. Modern fishing devices are great at finding and catching fish. But they damage the seabed and catch a lot of unwanted species in the process. “Bycatch” refers to marine species captured in a fishing operation that aren’t the target species. Bycatch is usually thrown overboard, dead or dying.

The bycatch ratio varies dramatically from method to method, but in general about a quarter of all fish taken worldwide is bycatch.[7] Sometimes, as is the case for shrimp trawling, there is much more bycatch collected than the actual intended catch.[8] In Thailand’s shrimp industry, the bycatch ratio is 14:1.[9] Dredges, bottom trawls, and drift nets are the worst for bycatch and habitat destruction – well, also dynamite.

Bottom Trawling

Bottom trawling basically turns the bottom of the sea into something resembling a paved surface or plowed field.[10] This causes extensive and irreparable damage to coral reefs and seabed ecosystems.[11] It also stirs up sediment that makes the area unlivable for some species.[12] Bottom trawling is the “marine equivalent of clear-cutting a rain forest.”[13] The average trawling operation throws 80-90 percent of the sea animals that it captures as bycatch overboard.[14] “Imagine using a bulldozer to catch songbirds for food – that’s what it’s like.” (biologist Sylvia Earle)[15]

Dolphin-Safe

Dolphin safe: in 1987 a biologist filmed dolphins being drowned in purse seine nets for tuna fishing. The footage of dolphins shrieking as the nylon nets tore away their fins really affected people, and tuna consumption dropped almost overnight. “Dolphin-safe” tuna was maybe the first ethical seafood consumer movement

Aquaculture

As overfishing impacts more and more species, fish farming is on the rise. For instance, if you are eating Atlantic salmon it is almost certainly from a fish farm: 300 farmed salmon are sold for every wild caught salmon.[16] Fish farming is the fastest growing form of food production in the world. In 1970 it contributed 3% of the world’s seafood, compared to more than 50% today.[17] And the weight of farmed fish exceeds the weight of beef produced globally.[18]

Here’s a description of aquaculture that I found helpful: “In the fjords and coastal inlets along the coast of Norway, Britain, Iceland, Chile, China, Japan, Canada, the United States, and many other countries, cages or nets that may be more than 200 feet long and 40 feet deep have been lowered into the sea and secured to platforms from which workers feed the fish. With salmon, 50,000 fish may be confined to each sea cage, at a stocking density that is equivalent to putting each 30-inch salmon in a bathtub of water.”[19]

 Fish farming is problematic for a bunch of reasons. First, because of the intensity of farming it is not great from an animal welfare perspective. More on this in a bit.

The second problem with farmed fish is that fish farms require lots of fish feed: “Fish farming sounds like a good way of meeting the growing demand for seafood while taking pressure off wild fisheries. But that can be like thinking that if we ate more beef, we wouldn’t need to grow so much corn.”[20] What often happens is that carnivorous fish are farmed and fed high volumes of fish meal. So, in essence, these operations actually use up a lot more fish flesh than they produce – and that means putting more pressure on wild fish populations.[21] And if you’re thinking, hey, at least fish meal is from relatively abundant fish, remember that this is taking away the food supply from vulnerable apex predator populations.

Fish farming also isn’t very carbon efficient for that reason. Whereas a wild salmon will go and catch its own food, fish farmers need to get fish meal from fossil-fuel powered boats.[22]

Fish farming can also cause harm to the wider environment through the spread of farm waste, chemicals, disease and parasites.  

Basically, high concentrations of fish feces and food waste are discharged, untreated, into the water around sea cages. According to WWF calculations, Scottish salmon farms discharge the same amount of waste as 9 million people (double the human population of Scotland).[23] 

The pollution from fish farming can also affect the people that inhabit coastal areas. For instance, in 1996 activists in India won a class action lawsuit against shrimp farms, on the basis that these farms had cost local communities their livelihoods.[24] In Bangladesh, illegal shrimp farms have displaced thousands of local villagers.[25]

And as with factory farming on land, the intensity of fish feedlots means that fish need to be given antibiotics and pesticides. Those leach into the water and cause environmental problems like ocean dead zones.

Lastly, farmed fish sometimes escape when predators or storms cause holes in the enclosure nets. As many as half a million farmed salmon escape every year, for example.[26] These escapees can infect wild fish with diseases and parasites. For example, young wild salmon now have levels of sea lice infestation 73% times higher than previously.[27]

Some kinds of aquaculture operations are better than others. Oyster and mussel farming seems to be relatively benign.

On the other hand, shrimp farming is a major contributor to the destruction of mangrove forests, in addition to all the regular harms.

Animal Welfare

As was the case for the vegetarianism episode, there are sort of two issues here. The first is whether it is ever okay to eat a living being that feels pain. The second is whether the manner of catching or farming fish is justified on welfare grounds.

Because we’ve covered the first bit before, we’ll skip over it here. Check out part one of vegetarianism for this. I will just quickly say that seafood encapsulates a wide variety of animals, with different capacities and levels of intelligence. Some fish – like octopus – are incredibly intelligent. Most are social creatures that have demonstrated pain responses in scientific studies.

The one exception to this may be bivalves. Bivalves are a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. They include species like oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops. The evidence for consciousness in bivalves is “barely stronger than it is for plants, which is to say it is vanishingly slight.”[28]

A Good Death? Not So Much

Wild caught fish is somewhat proximate to hunted meat. The fish live normal lives for their species, so the only question is whether the slaughter is unjustifiably cruel. There is no such thing as humane slaughter for wild-caught fish. Take longline fishing, for example. When fish are hooked, they struggle for hours trying to escape. Then they are either clubbed to death or have their gills cut and bleed to death.

In trawlers, hundreds of different species are crushed together, gashed on corals, bashed on rocks – for hours – and then hauled from the water, causing painful decompression (the decompression sometimes causes the animals’ eyes to pop out or their internal organs to come out their mouths). On longlines, too, the deaths animals face are generally slow. Some are simply held there and die only when removed from the lines. Some die from the injury caused by the hook in their mouths or by trying to get away. Some are unable to escape attack by predators […] no fish gets a good death. Not a single one. You never have to wonder if the fish on your plate had to suffer. It did.[29]

Also, your wild caught fish probably came with bycatch.

Fish Farming

Farmed fish are similar to factory farmed cows, chickens, and pigs. They are in very crowded environments. Farmed fish exhibit stress behaviours just like factory farmed mammals and birds.[30]

Eating Animals identifies six sources of suffering on salmon farms: “(1) water so fouled that it makes it hard to breathe; (2) crowding so intense that animals begin to cannibalize one another; (3) handling so invasive that physiological measures of stress are evident a day later; (4) disturbance by farmworkers and wild animals; (5) nutritional deficiencies that weaken the immune system; and (6) the inability to form a stable social hierarchy, resulting in more cannibalization.”[31]

Also like factory farming on land, farmed fish have a high death rate due to illness, abrasions, and sea lice infestations – which Lex so helpfully told us about in the food episode. A recent study found that salmon bred and raised at fish factory farms are forced to grow at such an accelerated rate that over 50% of them are going deaf. Cool. “Another study by Royal Society Open Science found that a significant proportion of farmed salmon suffer from severe depression. The fish are referred to as ‘drop outs’ because they float lifelessly in the dirty tanks they reside in.” (source: Live Kindly)

Farmed fish are typically starved for 7-10 days before slaughter.[32] Because there generally aren’t rules for the humane slaughter of fish, farmed fish are killed in brutal ways that would be illegal in land operations.[33] Sometimes they are simply allowed to suffocate on land, which can take 15 minutes.[34] They are sometimes bashed in the head with a wooden bat, which sometimes doesn’t kill them – meaning that they can be cut open while fully conscious.[35] Sometimes they have their gills cut and bleed to death.[36]

Bivalve Farming

The one type of fish farming that may be ethically justifiable is the farming of bivalves like mussels and oysters. Because these creatures likely don’t feel pain and aren’t conscious, the same cruelty concerns don’t apply. Also, bivalves feed themselves and actually clean up the water around them – theoretically getting around some of the environmental issues.

Generally speaking, “mom and pop” mussel and oyster farms seem to be fine – good, even – for the environment. However, there are some arguments that mussel and oyster farms at a large scale can have negative environmental effects. So, it’s still unclear whether they’re a good idea at an industrial scale.

Human Rights

Thailand is the third largest exporter of seafood in the world (the country’s seafood industry is worth $7.3 billion USD annually); it is also notorious for crewing fishing boats with slaves trafficked from Burma and Cambodia. A form of bonded labour is typical: in this scenario, trafficked fishermen are sold to fishing boat owners and then must work to pay off a given price (the ka hua). In addition to being enslaved, workers on such ships are exposed to overwork, violence, torture, and even executions at sea.

Each year the U.S. State Department produces its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. In 2014, that report downgraded Thailand to a Tier 3 ranking due to a lack of improvements. The report revealed that the Thai government ignored instances of human trafficking and even sought to punish those attempting to bring these abuses to light.

Thailand is often used as an example of human trafficking in the fishing industry because of the size of its fishing industry and inaction on the part of its government (regulation of the Thai fishing industry is woefully inadequate). Nonetheless, this is a problem that exists worldwide. While Southeast Asia is the biggest problem region for slavery on fishing vessels, this is a global phenomenon. Human trafficking is endemic in the fishing industry. Some fishing operations in at least 51 countries crew their ships with slave labour. 

Sustainability Labels

Marine Stewardship Council

When purchasing sustainable seafood there may be several different eco-labels available to you, but the one that is largest and most well-known is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). MSC was founded in 1996 by WWF and Unilever.

The MSC’s standards are based on three principles:

1. The condition of the fish populations: are there enough fish to ensure that the fishery is sustainable?

2. The impact of the fishery on the marine environment: what effect is the fishery having on the immediate marine environment, including non-target fish, marine mammals, and seabirds?

3. The fishery management systems: the rules and procedures that are necessary to meet principles one and two.[37]

The MSC now accounts for about 10% of global wild caught seafood (as compared to aquaculture/farmed fish) but this proportion is often much higher in developed countries, where the demand for certified fish is higher. In Canada, for example, 67% of domestic wild catch seafood is MSC certified.

In addition to being the most widely used eco-label, MSC is also well-known for its rigorous standards. However, it has been criticized for focusing too narrowly on the sustainability of fish stocks instead of the overall environmental impact of fisheries and the fish supply chain, as well as for having a process that is too burdensome for small fisheries and fisheries in developing countries.

If you are looking for sustainably caught seafood, the MSC is probably your best bet: it is the most likely to actually be available in stores near you and has standards that are reasonably stringent and evaluated impartially, based on evidence.

Aquaculture Stewardship Council

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) was founded in 2010, also with the involvement of WWF. ASC standards focus primarily on environmental issues, like pollution reduction and protections for biodiversity. There are also a few social standards – no child or forced labour, safe working environments, consulting Indigenous communities, and regulated working hours – in ASC. There are no animal welfare standards as far as I was able to tell.

SeaChoice reviewed ASC and MSC certifications in Canada. They found some weaknesses with MSC, but bigger ones with ASC – lots of evidence of non-compliance with the standards.

What to Think About When Choosing Ethical Seafood

For my own part, I believe that seafood is largely not an ethically justified dietary choice. I would only consider eating bivalves, and in that case only if the method of farming/fishing is sustainable and environmentally responsible.

However, for those that want to cast a wider ethical net, here is what you should think about:

Species

Is it overfished or not? There’s a fairly long list of seafood species you should never eat because they are overfished. But some of the more well-known ones include: bluefin tuna, Atlantic cod, Chilean sea bass, shark, Atlantic halibut, and monkfish.[38]  You can usually feel comfortable that a few seafood species aren’t overfished. Those include: oysters, mussels, sardines, Pacific halibut, herring, jellyfish, mullet, and pickerel.[39]

What is its trophic level? Is it an apex predator? Bottomfeeder recommends eating only bottom-of-the-foodchain species, because the big fish are so overfished.[40]

Does it feel pain/how intelligent is it?

Fishing or farming method

Things you might want to ask yourself about the fishing or farming method include:

• How much bycatch is produced?

• Does it kill coral or otherwise destroy ecosystems? How polluting is it?

• How cruel is this method?

The best catch methods from a sustainability perspective are hook and line fishing, harpoons and scuba, pots and traps, and purse seines.[41] Always avoid seafood caught with drift nets (“walls of death”), dynamite and cyanide, and bottom trawls.[42]

Location

Location matters too. Try asking:

• How far does the seafood have to travel to get to me?

• How did it travel? (e.g. really pricey fish by air freight have a large carbon footprint)

Brands/Certifications

To try to push the market you can ask: is the company that sold it a seafood leader or laggard? You can also look for seafood with MSC or ASC certification. And if there isn’t a certification, ask yourself: do you really know anything about where the seafood came from?

How to Choose Ethical Seafood

If you are going to be a selective omnivore, Taras Grescoe’s Bottomfeeder offers a generally good rule of thumb for seafood: eat as close to the bottom of the food chain as possible.[43]

Bottomfeeder also recommends:[44]

• Avoiding cheap seafood, since it was probably farmed

• Avoiding fish that has travelled far

• Avoiding long-lived predator fish (e.g. Chilean sea bass, sharks, tuna, swordfish)

• Avoiding farmed shrimp, tuna, salmon, and any other carnivorous fish

• If buying farmed salmon, cod, or trout, opt for organically farmed ones (the book was written before ASC was created)

• Opt for seafood at the lower end of the food chain as much as possible

In addition, there are a few useful tools that can help you pick ethical seafood:

• SeaChoice is a good place to go to get informed about sustainable seafood.

• Oceanwise classified seafood as recommended or not recommended. The full list is a bit overwhelming, but you can also search the website pretty easily. SeaChoice ranked this as the best resource for choosing ethical seafood.

• Seafood Watch has a useful website that you can use to search species that are “best choice”, “good alternatives”, or “avoid”.

Endnotes

[1] Singer, Peter and Mason, Jim. (2006). The Ethics of What We Eat. Rodale Publishers.

[2] Grescoe, Taras. (2008). Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. Toronto, ON: HarperCollins.

[3] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[4] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[5] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[6] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[7] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[8] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[9] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[10] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[11] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[12] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[13] Safran Foer, Jonathan. (2009). Eating Animals. New York: Back Bay Books at p.191.

[14] Safran Foer, Eating Animals.

[15] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder at p.27.

[16] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[17] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[18] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[19] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat page 122.

[20] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat page 123.

[21] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[22] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[23] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[24] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[25] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[26] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat page 122.

[27] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[28] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat at page 133.

[29] Safran Foer, Eating Animals at p. 192-3.

[30] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[31] Safran Foer, Eating Animals at p.190

[32] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[33] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[34] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[35] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[36] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[37] Singer and Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat.

[38] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[39] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[40] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[41] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[42] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[43] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

[44] Grescoe, Bottomfeeder.

Episodes 12, 13, and 14 - Clothing

People

Fast Fashion

Fast Fashion has gotten a lot of buzz recently. Hasan Minhaj devoted an entire episode of The Patriot Act to it. CBC did a documentary on fast fashion, called Fashion’s Dirty Secrets. There have also been books published on fast fashion, like Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas or Over-Dressed by Elizabeth Cline.

Zara is often the brand people think about when they think of fast fashion. It is the world’s largest fashion brand, producing more than 450 million items in 2018.[1] Zara was a pioneer in fast fashion, and it has changed the apparel business paradigm. Other retailers have since gotten on board.

Essentially, under the model of fast fashion, brands take designs from top-tier fashion designers. Then they produce a cheaper version with worse fabric and sell it at low prices to middle-market consumers.[2] It’s called fast fashion because production and sales have been sped up.[3] Between 2000 and 2014, the number of garments doubled: 100 billion garments are now produced annually.[4] That amounts to fourteen new garments annually for everyone on the planet.[5]

In a way, fast fashion has democratized or massified fashion – bringing high design to regular consumers. But fast fashion has also caused a lot of problems

As a result of fast fashion, we have lots of poor-quality clothes and we don’t wear them for very long. On average clothing is worn seven times before being disposed of,[6] mostly to landfill. Shoppers buy five times more clothing now than they did in 1980.[7] In 2018, the average consumer bought 68 garments.[8] 

French designer Jean Paul Gaultier has said: “The system doesn’t work… There aren’t enough people to buy them. We’re making clothes that aren’t designed to be worn. Too many clothes kills clothes.”[9]

Offshoring and the Fractured Supply Chain

Another important change, to set the context, has been the globalization of clothing supply chains. This change is often called “offshoring”, which basically means relocating factories in countries with low labour costs. Offshoring has changed the industry dramatically over the last thirty years. In 1991, 56.2% of all clothes purchased in the United States were American-made. By 2012, it was 2.5%.[10]

And today that supply chain is not only offshore, it’s also fractured. Fabric is woven and dyed in one place, cut in another, sewn somewhere else, and then zippers and buttons are attached in another location.[11] Brands rarely own the factories that make their clothes. They contract to suppliers, who often subcontract to other suppliers.

Together, this creates challenges for ensuring workers’ safety and rights. And that matters: “fashion employs one out of six people on the globe, making it the most labor-intensive industry out there – more than agriculture, more than defense. Fewer than 2 percent of them [garment workers] earn a living wage.”[12]

The fashion industry’s supply chain has roughly six stages:

1.     Planting and harvesting the raw materials (e.g., cotton)

2.     Weaving the fibre into cloth

3.     Finishing and shipping the cloth to distributors

4.     Producing the garments

5.     Shipping finished products to the warehouse

6.     Distribution from the warehouse to the storefront

Within each of these stages, there can be different steps. For instance, dyeing isn’t included in here, but it will occur in most cases. For blue jeans the supply chain will also typically include distressing at a washhouse. These steps may occur in different locations.

Sweatshops

The garment industry has had sweatshops since the Industrial Revolution. In the 1830s, the invention of the lockstitch sewing machine made possible mechanization of clothes-making.[13]

Cotton mills in particular were horrorscapes. Both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote about the conditions they observed in cotton mills, where death, mutilation, rape, and illness were common. Engels was so horrified by what he saw that he called mill work a new form of enslavement.[14]

One of the most famous incidents in historical sweatshops was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which took place in 1911. 146 employees died in that fire (123 women and 23 men). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was NYC’s worst workplace disaster until 9/11.[15]

After a lot of activism, workers’ protections were introduced. In America, Frances Perkins, Labour Secretary under FDR, introduced a number of legislative protections for workers, which cleaned up the manufacturing industry.[16]

Unfortunately, when production moved offshore in the 1990s, “the old-style sweatshop system came roaring back to life.”[17] The EU is still a major apparel exporter, but most garments are exported from Asia. China is the top apparel supplier, followed by the EU, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, and Turkey.

Offshore sweatshops today look a lot like the sweatshops of the 1800s and early 1900s. They are hot, unsanitary, dusty, and unsafe. There is often no food or clean drinking water. Workers work long hours for low wages. They often don’t get breaks and are forced to work overtime for no pay. Buildings are often locked. Workers sometimes can’t talk to each other. And as most workers are women while most supervisors are men, sexual assault and rape is endemic.

In wealthy countries like the US and Canada, there are domestic sweatshops, too. When the FDR-era reforms got rid of legal sweatshops, sweatshops became less common – but they didn’t disappear entirely. There are still sweatshops in wealthy countries, but they exist illegally and are run by organized crime. Because of their illicit nature, these sweatshops are also hubs for human trafficking and money laundering. [18] Domestic sweatshops are a particular problem in the US, and especially LA, because of the large undocumented immigrant population. About half of the apparel manufacturing workers in LA are estimated to be undocumented workers who make as little as $4 per day.[19]

Rana Plaza

Beyond the generally shitty working conditions, there are still frequent sweatshop disasters on the same scale or larger than the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

One of the most famous ones took place in Bangladesh in 2013. On 13 April 2013 there was an explosion at the Rana Plaza garment factory. It ripped a hole in the wall. Engineers wanted to condemn the building immediately, but the owner refused.[20] The next day, workers returned. The power went out and, as backup generators went on, the building began to quake. Then, “It went down.”[21] Rana Plaza was the deadliest garment factory accident in modern history. 1,134 people died and another 2,500 were injured.

The infuriating thing, though, is that it was the third high-profile sweatshop disaster in Bangladesh within three years. A December 2010 fire at the That’s It Sportswear garment factory killed 29 and injured more than 100. Gap had just finished inspecting the factory.[22] In November 2012, a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory killed at least 117 and left 200 injured.[23] Sears, Walmart, and Disney products were produced there. Overall, between 2006 and 2012, more than five hundred Bangladeshi garment workers died in factory fires.[24]

After a 2010 fire, NGOs created the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement. It went unsigned until winter 2012.[25] Then, a handful of companies signed on when ABC News ran a story on the 2010 fire. Most other brands did not act until after the Rana Plaza explosion. And even then, a number of brands went with a watered-down voluntary agreement called the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, which was not legally binding.

There have been some changes since Rana Plaza, but unsafe sweatshops still exist there.[26] And as of 2017, 95% of buildings in Dhaka still do not have a fire exit. A recent study found that firms support factory safety but aren’t willing to increase prices, so factories have to absorb these costs themselves. And although the incidence of sweatshops went down after Rana Plaza, there are still problems of low wages, long working hours, overtime, abusive supervision, and union busting. The optimistic way of framing this is that activism and public pressure can work, but it needs to be sustained in order to really generate progress.

A garment factory fire in New Delhi killed 43 people in December 2019.

Child Labour

The garment industry is also a hotbed for child labour. Child labour has been an unfortunately common practice in the apparel industry going back to the advent of mechanized clothing production. Lots of sweatshops have children working in them.

For example, in 2016 “H&M, Next, and Esprit were found to have Syrian refugee children sewing and hauling bundles of clothes in subcontracted workshops in Turkey.”[27]

Sometimes children are lured from their homes to work in sweatshops. For instance, a report by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) found that: “recruiters in southern India convince parents in impoverished rural areas to send their daughters to spinning mills with promises of a well-paid job, comfortable accommodation, three nutritious meals a day and opportunities for training and schooling, as well as a lump sum payment at the end of three years.” (from the Guardian) But in reality, “Girls and young women are being lured from their home villages by false promises and are working under appalling conditions amounting to forced labour” (SOMO and ICN).

Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Uzbekistan are particularly notorious for child labour in the textile and garment industry.

Child labour occurs at different phases of the supply chain, from the production of cotton seeds (Benin), cotton harvesting (Uzbekistan), yarn spinning (India), and “cut-make-trim” garment production in factories (Bangladesh). An investigation by SOMO found that 60% of the workers at spinning mills in India were under 18 when they started working there (the youngest workers were 15).

Forced and child labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton industry is particularly egregious. “Every year […] approximately 1m people – including teachers, doctors and students – are dumped in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields to pick “white gold”. They are taken from their jobs and their schools, sometimes threatened with expulsion or dismissal or physical violence, and compelled to meet quotas to help the government earn some hard cash.” (From the Economist) This is a unique case of state-sanctioned mass mobilization of child and forced labour.

The Uzbekistani government sets cotton quotas. If famers don’t fulfil their quotas they can be kicked off of their land. But farmers can’t afford extra farm hands for harvest, so state officials order state employees (e.g. doctors and nurses) and students into the fields. A study by the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London found that between 86 and 100 percent of schools in the districts that they studied were subject to compulsory recruitment of children in grades 5-9 (ages 11-14). Students were employed in the cotton harvest for between 51 and 63 days without breaks and under unsanitary, unhealthy, and nutritional conditions.

The Responsible Sourcing Network has convinced 314 companies to pledge to eliminate Uzbek cotton from their supply chains. You can check out the list of brands here. As a result of advocacy efforts, the export of Uzbek cotton has been reduced from 2.5 million bales to 0.7 million bales in the last decade. The pledge was launched in 2011. American Apparel, as of December 2019, still has not signed the pledge. It is one of the last remaining American brands to do so. Polo Ralph Lauren is another non-signatory. I also did not see Roots Canada on the list.

Outside of Uzbekistan, child labour in the garment industry may not be state-sanctioned, but this does not make it any less harmful.

Forced Labour

The fashion industry is also one of the biggest sources of modern slavery. The Walk Free Foundation estimates that $127.7 billion USD worth of garments imported annually by G20 countries are at-risk of modern slavery.

Last year it was revealed that China is operating forced labour camps in Xinjiang province. Uighurs detained in “re-education camps” are reportedly working in factories producing cars, cotton, and clothing. Brands so far have said that they haven’t found evidence that the labour in these factories is forced, but investigative journalism has come to a different conclusion.

Women’s Rights and Sexual Assault

Fast fashion is fundamentally a gender inequality issue. Approximately 80% of workers in the garment industry are women between the ages of 18 and 35.

Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are big problems in sweatshops. For instance, a study by the Fair Wear Foundation and Care International found that 43% of women interviewed in Vietnamese factories said they had suffered at least one form of violence and/or harassment in the last year. Research by ActionAid found that 80% of garment workers in Bangladesh have either seen or directly experienced sexual violence or harassment in the workplace.

So Why Is Everything So Shitty? 

Here is where the fractured supply chain comes in: when disasters and abuses like these happen, brands often claim that they are not responsible, that the sweatshops in questions were not authorized suppliers. Basically, big brands have approved suppliers, and those approved suppliers subcontract to sweatshops. When a scandal happens, brands that claim to be sweatshop-free will “often claim they had no idea their “approved” contractors were subcontracting to sweatshops.”[28]

Are Things Getting Better?

Not really, no. These problems are fundamental to how fast fashion works: there is a need to get clothes made really quickly and really cheaply. People and the environment inevitably suffer.

There have been some changes, though. The first industry shift was a move toward supplier codes of conduct. In the mid-1990s, American apparel brands faced criticism over offshore sweatshops. “In response, some started drafting “codes of conduct”: a list of standards that a company expects its suppliers to respect.”[29] Levi Strauss approved fashion’s first code of conduct in 1992.[30]

The independent audits that are used to enforce the codes aren’t great. Visits are often announced in advance. And the monitors themselves have no oversight, so things like bribery can happen.[31] Still, this IS progress. In 1998 about 15% of company codes of conduct included freedom of association and collective bargaining, and now nearly all do. [32]

Another big move is transparency: it is becoming more common for brands to publish supplier lists.[33] Fashion Revolution and other NGOs have been instrumental in pushing fashion brands to be more transparent.

How You Can Act to Promote Human Rights in the Clothing Industry

Fashion Revolution

Fashion Revolution promotes a more ethical and sustainable fashion industry. Their manifesto is pretty holistic (it covers dignified work, fair and equal pay, labour rights, cultural appropriation, solidarity, environmental impact, the throwaway culture, transparency and accountability).

Fashion Revolution was founded in reaction to the Rana Plaza disaster. It is most well-known for publishing an annual Transparency Index. But Fashion Revolution also organizes Fashion Revolution Week and runs the #whomademyclothes and #imadeyourclothes campaigns.

Fair Wear

Fair Wear is an organization that is working to promote worker and human rights in garment production. They focus on the sewing, cutting, and trimming processes because those are the most labour-intensive parts of the supply chain. 133 brands have signed onto the Fair Wear Foundation’s Code of Labour Practices. You can check them out here.

Environment

The environmental impact of clothing comes from three different stages of production: the impact of producing the fabrics from which clothing is made; the impact of moving those fabrics around, turning them into garments, and selling them; and the impact of clothing disposal.

Fabrics

Fashion’s environmental footprint is mostly from manufacturing textiles – so, growing or making, then spinning, dyeing, and finishing the fabrics.[34] Examining the environmental impact of clothing means looking at the different fabrics that make up our clothing. The most commonly used fabrics in clothing today are cotton and polyester. They make up 75% of the global fibre market.[35]

Polyester

Polyester is everywhere. It is present in 60% of clothing.[36] There has been a 157% increase in the use of polyester between 2000 and 2016.[37] That is because polyester is the backbone of fast fashion: “it is the cheap, easy-to-produce material that an industry built on low price and speed depends on.”[38]

Polyester is plastic. It is made from fossil fuels, which are non-renewable and contribute to climate change. The demand for polyester and other plastics drives investment in petrochemical refining.[39]

Polyester has a huge waste problem. Because it is plastic, polyester does not readily biodegrade. And we really have no plan for what to do with the massive volumes of polyester we are producing. Right now, only a very small amount of polyester clothing uses recycled plastic, and typically this is from plastic bottles rather than plastic clothing.[40] And of course, go back to our laundry episode to hear more about how it sheds plastic microfibres.

Given that polyester is everywhere, if you want to buy the best version of the stuff, try to seek out recycled polyester or polyester that is certified hazardous substances free.[41]

Other synthetics – Spandex, Nylon, Acrylic, Polyurethane, PVC

There is a variety of synthetic fibres in clothing, and they are all slightly different. Nylon is present in 5% of clothing, making it the second most common synthetic fabric, next to polyester. Acrylic is the third most common synthetic material. It is present in 2% of clothing. It is a cheap alternative to wool. Spandex makes stuff stretchy. Polyurethane is used in things like coatings and faux leather

Most synthetics seem to have problems with carcinogens, and they all take a lot of energy to make.[42] As with polyester, Elizabeth Cline recommends looking for synthetics with safe-chemistry labels, as well as recycled synthetics.[43] She also recommends avoiding all polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is used for vinyl and some faux leather, since it often includes a chemical that is linked to endocrine disruption.[44]

Cotton

Cotton makes up about a quarter of global fibre production.[45] The majority of cotton is grown in China, India, and the United States.[46]

Cotton can be tricky to grow, so usually it is farmed with a lot of pesticides and fertilized. As a result, cotton uses about 6% of all pesticides, which is more than any other major crop.[47] Twenty percent of insecticides are devoted to producing conventional cotton, even though it is grown only 2.5 percent of the world’s arable land.[48] The WHO has classified 8 out of 10 of America’s most popular cotton pesticides as hazardous.[49] These pesticides can poison workers, as well as the people and environment around cotton farms (when it gets into the air, water, and soil).[50]

Cotton is also super thirsty. Growing one kilo of conventional cotton requires 10,000 litres of water (2,600 gallons). And processing cotton requires even more: about 5,000 gallons for a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.[51] The good news is that organic cotton can be grown with up to 91% less irrigated water than conventional cotton.[52]

And almost 60% of all cotton is grown in water-scarce regions.[53] That means stuff like this happens…

The Aral Sea in Central Asia was once the world’s fourth largest lake, but today it has almost completely dried up. That is because in the 1950s the Soviets began using the rivers that feed the Aral Sea to irrigate surrounding agricultural area. It is a practice that has continued into today. As the Aral Sea has dried, it is releasing salts and carcinogens into the air, which has caused throat cancer and respiratory diseases for people in surrounding villages. How is this relevant to the fashion industry? Well, because the river is being used to irrigate 1.47 million hectares of cotton.

Where you can, try to find organic and/or fairtrade certified cotton, as well as recycled cotton.[54]

Viscose Rayon (Cellulosic Fabric)

This fabric type will show up on labels in a variety of ways, including viscose, rayon bamboo, modal, lyocell, eucalyptus, and Tencel. Some of these are identical and others are slightly different. But basically, all of these fabrics are made by chemically dissolving food from eucalyptus, beech, or bamboo trees; the chemical pulp is then reformed into a fibre.[55]Viscose or rayon (which are the same thing) makes up about 70% of this category of fibres.[56]

Cellulosic fabric and its compatriots are essentially a cheaper cousin to silk or cotton. Cellulosic fabric is also often marketed as ecologically conscious or sustainable, even though it may not be. So, you really have to be careful about greenwash with these fibres. There are some forms of viscose rayon that can be more sustainable (like lyocell).

Cellulosic fibres take a lot of energy to produce and the materials have a higher greenhouse gas impact than the manufacture of polyester or cotton.[57] They also produce a lot of waste: 70% of the tree becomes waste in the manufacturing process.[58]

And cellulosic fabric is driving deforestation. Ancient and endangered forests are being used in the manufacture of these fabrics. This includes the Amazon and Indonesia’s rainforests. But Canada’s boreal forests and Great Bear Rainforest are also being threatened by these practices. The NGO Canopy is working with clothing companies like Levi Strauss & Co., Marks & Spencer, and H & M to protect forests.

If you are going with a cellulosic fibre, try to look for lyocell (also called Lenzig Tencel), since it is the most sustainable cellulosic fabric. Look also for safe-chemicals certifications, and buy from brands that are working with Canopy.[59]

Wool and Leather

Although we did not focus on animal welfare in this episode, it is worth noting the environmental impact of animal-based fibres.

Leather has a big carbon, water, and land use footprint – we’ll do a full episode on leather, but let’s just mention that here.

Wool can be sustainable, or it can be bad for the environment – a lot depends on where it is produced and how the animals are raised.[60] Although there are different wools out there, sheep’s wool is 95% of the market.[61] Cashmere comes from goats.[62] Wool production can cause erosion when animals overgraze.[63] Cleaning raw wool creates high quantities of wastewater.[64] Also, it produces a lot of methane.[65] On the other hand, wool lasts longer than most other fabrics, so Elizabeth Cline recommends buying timeless wool products and mending them to make them last.[66] She also suggests buying organic and safe-chemicals-certified wool.[67]

Check out our Winter Gear episode to learn more about choosing between animal and synthetic materials.

Bast Fibres (Linen, Hemp, Jute, Ramie, Flax): Best Fibres

Linen is the oldest known fabric. It is a natural fibre, cultivated from the flax (linseed) plant. Together, bast fibres are about 5.5% of the global fibre market.[68] Bast fibres use less energy and fewer chemical inputs, so these fibres can be cultivated sustainably.[69] There are few environmental issues with purchasing these fabrics, but why not also look for recycled or organic bast fibres?[70]

Buying Conscious Fabrics

Whichever fibre you choose, there are a few certifications that you can look for to signal effort on one aspect of environmental stewardship.

The first set of certifications are safe-chemicals certifications, which guard against the use of hazardous materials. Some common safe-chemicals certifications include: Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Oeko-Tex, and Bluesign-approved.

Next, organics standards prohibit the use of pesticides. Some organics labels to look for in clothing include: Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Organic Content Standard (OCS), and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certified.

You can also look for fairtrade member and certified products. Fairtrade essentially means that the workers producing a product have been paid fairly and experience some level of safety in the workplace. See our sugar episode for more on fairtrade certification, but one label we will mention here is Fair Trade USA.

Garment Production and Distribution

Water Use

The fashion industry uses a lot of water. “If fashion production maintains its current pace, the demand for water will surpass the world’s supply by 40 percent by 2030.”[71]

Emissions

Fashion also has a big emissions footprint. Apparel and footwear production accounts for 8.1% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. And clothing production is growing at a swift pace, meaning that emissions from textile manufacturing are projected to grow by 60% by 2030.

Some companies try to use carbon offsets to improve their image, check our episode on this subject to see where we land on that.

Pollution and Hazardous Chemicals

We talked about plastic microfibres in our laundry episode. But it is worth remembering that synthetic fabrics pollute waterways when they break down in the washing machine.

In addition to plastic microfibres, toxic chemicals are a big problem in the clothing industry. 46 million tons of chemicals are used to process textiles annually, and ten percent pose a potential risk to human health.[72] Some are even linked to cancer.[73]That is a problem for worker health and the environment, as well as for us because chemicals can remain on the clothing that we buy.

In 2011 Greenpeace released a report revealing that suppliers of major clothing brands are polluting the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas with toxic, hormone-disrupting chemicals. The report focuses on pollution from two facilities in China (the Youngor Textile Complex and the Well Dyeing Factory Limited). Greenpeace took samples of wastewater discharges from the two facilities and found that alkylphenols and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) were present in the wastewater. These two facilities were linked to major brands including Abercrombie and Fitch; Adidas; Bauer Hockey; Calvin Klein; Converse; H&M; Lacoste; Nike; and Puma.

Greenpeace followed up this report with another one on the presence of nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) in clothing. Their analysis of clothing bought from 15 leading clothing brands, and found that two-thirds tested positive for the presence of NPEs above the limit of detection.

Why are NPEs bad? NPEs wash off of the clothing and break down into nonylphenols, which then accumulate in the food chain. Nonylphenols are hella toxic. So even though NPEs are banned in some places… they can still end up in the water supply when people wash clothing produced with NPEs elsewhere.

Tools for Seeking Out Conscious Brands

If you are interested in finding conscious brands, there are some tools out there to help!

The Good on You App and website rates the ethics and sustainability of fashion brands. Done Good is a web directory of conscious fashion brands. You can buy directly from the website. Rank A Brand assesses and ranks consumer brands on sustainability and social responsibility. There is, of course, also Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index, which focuses on supply chain transparency. (For more on this, see our very first episode!) And you can also consult the Ethical Fashion Report. 

End-of Life

We, as a society, are throwing out so many clothes. Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles enters landfill or is burned, which amounts to a $500 billion USD loss in value due to clothing waste. In the United States, 23.8 billion pounds of clothes are thrown in the garbage annually, which is about 73 pounds per person![74] Clothing is the fastest-growing category of waste in US landfills.[75]

In addition to the problem of waste from landfilling clothes, this can be an environmental problem. Natural fibres slowly decompose. When they are trapped in the landfill, they release methane, which is super bad for climate change.[76] Synthetic clothing can take hundreds of years to biodegrade, but the hazardous chemicals they are made out of can be released into the air or ground as they slowly break down.[77] For every 2 million tons of textiles we keep out landfills, we can reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road.[78]

Escaping Fast Fashion

Trying to incorporate ethics in clothing can be overwhelming. But the overall message to take is that we do need to reject the mentality of fast fashion, since the business model itself is causing a lot of problems.

More than 70% of the average wardrobe is going unworn.[79] Being more intentional about your wardrobe is an important first step. And, of course, just wearing what you have for longer is the biggest way to have an impact. But if you’ve got a fast fashion wardrobe full of shitty materials that wear out quickly, that can be tricky. So, what do you do?

You can work towards building a conscious closet.

The Conscious Closet

What is a conscious closet? According to Elizabeth Cline, author of The Conscious Closet: “A conscious closet is a wardrobe built with greater intention and awareness of our clothes, where they come from, what they’re made out of, and why they matter.”[80]

There are lots of different tools and strategies to build a conscious closet, and the mix that works best for you will be different than for everyone else. But Cline identifies three Fashion Personality Types that can help to guide you. Minimalists buy for keeps, have a more timeless look, and want to cut clutter from their lives. Style Seekers are maximalists; they want statement pieces and lots of change. Traditionalists are somewhere in the middle.

There are six components of a conscious closet:

1.     For-keeps: clothes you already own, love, and want to keep wearing;

2.     New-to-you: swapped, borrowed, handmade, hand-me-downs, resale, secondhand, thrifted, vintage;

3.     Rentals;

4.     Quality: timeless pieces that are built to last;

5.     Better Big Brands: clothes by the big brands that are on the right path, compared to their peers; and

6.     Conscious Superstars: the most pioneering, ethical, and sustainable brands.

Conscious Closet Inventory and Cleanout

Cline suggests starting with a Conscious Closet Cleanout, which is a good way to really examine what you own, how often you wear it (if at all), what it’s made of, et cetera. But this isn’t like Marie Kondo-ing your wardrobe. Cline wants to emphasize that you should not throw anything away.

We reproduced this impact inventory card from Elizabeth Cline’s book, The Conscious Closet.

Here are some quick tips for doing a conscious closet cleanout. First, purge by season. Focus on in-season clothes only. So, look at sweaters in winter and sundresses in summer. Your decision-making will be better this way. Also, it will be easier to responsibly deal with end-of-life (donation etc.) if the clothing is in-season. Next, if you love it, keep it. Don’t shame yourself for things you’ve already bought. Building a conscious closet takes time. Third, pay attention to what you wear most, and why they make you happy.

Eventually you will want to find your magic wardrobe number – how many clothes you need, which will be different for everyone. Cline suggests that minimalists can be happy with 50 pieces or fewer, but style seekers might want 250+ items and that’s okay. You can use a fashion fast or a capsule wardrobe to get a better sense of what your number is. De-cluttering your wardrobe is an important element of building a conscious closet, but you don’t want to go too far.

When deciding what to get rid of, here are a few tips. Aim for balance and look for things that go together. Look for pieces that don’t go with anything else. Then, either find a way to make them work or prune them. Cut back on trendy pieces. Learn from items you’ve never worn. When you are eliminating bad fabrics, focus on which fabrics wore out more quickly and what brands produced them. If you are even a little unsure, keep the item for a while and give it another go. And repair items if you can!

Reuse Plan

When you are getting rid of clothes, how do you deal with it responsibly? Cline calls this a “Reuse Plan”.

There are four different ways that you can consciously get rid of clothes, but you need to really think about the item, and which is the best fit.

1.     Donate or give away: do that when clothes are in a clean and wearable condition.

2.     Sell or swap: do this for your highest-value, on-trend, and in-season pieces when they are in pristine condition.

3.     Repair: do it where you can and either keep it for yourself or put it in one of the first two categories.

4.     Recycle: when items are worn-out beyond repair, do this.

Donations

Charities only sell about 20-25% of what we donate. The rest gets exported overseas or downcycled (turned into mattress stuffing, insulation, or rags). [81]

Exporting clothes sounds nice, but it is actually a big problem. Used clothes exports have tripled in fifteen years – the US exports 1.7 billion pounds of clothes annually.[82] Most exported clothes go to sub-Saharan Africa, where second-hand dealers distribute and sell it.[83]Although this sounds nice, the volume and low quality of the apparel that is donated means that those second-hand dealers aren’t able to make a living anymore; many are living in extreme poverty.[84] And ultimately a lot of this stuff ends up as garbage. One NGO found that 40% of all used clothing imported to Ghana is immediately landfilled rather than worn or resold.[85]

So, how can you donate effectively? Investigate first: make sure that you are giving to a reputable charity. Vet clothing donations bins. You can do this by looking for bins that are clearly marked with the organization’s name and going to their website. Find out what their acceptance policies are and where they send the clothes that they collect. Depending on what you are donating, you can often donate directly to those in need: homeless shelters, crisis centres, and churches. If you can meet a direct clothing need, this can help assure that your donation won’t end up in a landfill.

For example, Kristen’s building has a Diabetes Canada bin. The website says that their clothes are collected by the linked social enterprise National Diabetes Trust. It delivers clothing to Value Village, though, and they are not transparent about where unsold clothing goes. Kristen didn’t love this option.

Dress for Success Toronto is a charity that provides support, professional attire, and tools to help women achieve economic independence. Dress for Success international has a high (91.4%) charity rating. Kristen ultimately decided that this was the best option for the item she wanted to donate (a pair of dress pants).

It is also crucial that you follow basic used clothing etiquette. First and foremost: always, always, always clean your clothes first. It’s the best way to keep them from ending up as trash. Remove personal belongings from pockets. And tie your shoelaces together! That way the shoes don’t lose each other when they go through re-sorting. You should also mend and repair donated clothing whenever possible. Tears and stains often result in immediate landfilling: usually clothes aren’t getting repaired by the second-hand market. And never leave your donations outside unattended, because they can get rained on and then they will be landfilled.

Recycling

Most clothes are recycled through downcycling: the clothes you recycle are turned into lower-quality products like rags or insulation. That doesn’t solve the waste problem because these still eventually end up in a landfill. But it does increase the length of their lifespan, and that is good.

There are companies working on recapturing cotton that can be used again in exactly the same way as virgin fabrics, which is neat. Hopefully in the future that will be possible and affordable!

For now, though, how do you recycle clothes responsibly? If you are donating your clothes to major charities or thrift shops, a lot of it is likely already being recycled.[86] But ask to make sure! Kristen asked her local Value Village and found out that they do not do this: unsold items get shipped to Africa, where they are most likely landfilled.

There are also in-store garment recycling options. Brands (like Patagonia) sometimes will recycle or repair their own clothing, taking responsibility for end-of-life. A few other brands offer to take and recycle clothing of all brands. Depending on where you live, you may also be able have municipal clothes recycling, so look into this.

In Toronto, where Kristen lives, there is not a municipal clothes recycling program. But H&M, American Eagle, Puma, and North Face all have recycling programs that will accept any brand of clothing. All four brands use the same company (I:CO) to sort and reprocess the clothes, so is very likely that it makes no difference which of these programs you use. Clothes donated through this program are most likely to be downcycled, assuming they are in good enough condition.

Selling and Swapping

If you want to resell your clothes, you have a few options. You can use an online service that takes on the process of selling clothes for you, like thredUP and the RealReal. You can try to sell clothes yourself online through websites like Poshmark. Or you can sell in person through consignment stores.

The types of clothing that do well in the resale market include: on-trend and recent purchases; luxury and designer brands; and in-season items. If you bought something but never wore it and the tags are still on, resale might be a good option – especially if it is from a high-end brand.

Bypass resale if your clothes are damaged; if they are basics; or if they are kids’ clothes, menswear, or workwear. These do not sell well.

You can also organize a clothing swap with friends or a community group. Cline has some suggestions in her book for setting up a clothing swap. But here is another article with quick tips.

Clothes Rentals

Clothing rentals can be a great option if you are the kind of person that needs a lot of trendy pieces in your wardrobe. There are lots of options for renting from clothes rental companies, as well as a few where you can rent items from your wardrobe.  

There are basically two different kinds of clothing rental options: onetime rentals and monthly subscription plans. Rental companies will clean and repair clothes, so no worries there. With rentals, there are shipping and packaging concerns to think about. But this is minimal in comparison to the environmental impact of making clothes.

Your location will determine what your clothes rental options are. In Toronto, there are a few companies.

Dresst is a Toronto-based clothing rental subscription company. When you purchase a membership, you can rent a set number of items for each month. At the end of the month you return the item(s) and they clean it and rent it to someone else. Dresst charges $49/month for one item or $99/month for three items.

Fitzroy is a dress rental company in Toronto. If you are in need of a luscious party gown, this is a great option. Most of the rentals were around $100.

Reheart is a rental website where you can lend or rent. As a lender you get a cut of the profits from renting your item (less than 50%, but Reheart deals with cleaning et cetera). It can be a good way to de-clutter.

Escaping fast fashion is about valuing your clothes more, from the time you are deciding whether to purchase (or rent) them until you have responsibly disposed of the item. Try to think about clothes as an investment, rather than something disposable. Ultimately, you’ll save money and love your wardrobe more!

Endnotes

[1] Thomas, Dana. (2019). Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes. New York: Penguin Press at p.1.

[2] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.31.

[3] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.31.

[4] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.34.

[5] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.35.

[6] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[7] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[8] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.3.

[9] Cited in Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.36.

[10] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.5.

[11] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.35.

[12] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.6.

[13] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[14] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.45.

[15] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[16] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[17] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.47.

[18] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.41.

[19] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.40.

[20] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[21] Shila Begum, worker at Rana Plaza, quoted in Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.57.

[22] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[23] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.55.

[24] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.54.

[25] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[26] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[27] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.6.

[28] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.42.

[29] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.50.

[30] Thomas, Fashionopolis.

[31] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.51.

[32] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.65.

[33] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.65.

[34] Cline, Elizabeth. (2019). The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good. NY: Penguin Randomhouse.

[35] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[36] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.199.

[37] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.199.

[38] Cline, The Conscious Closet at p.162.

[39] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[40] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[41] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[42] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[43] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[44] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[45] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[46] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[47] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[48] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.70.

[49] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.70.

[50] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[51] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.71.

[52] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[53] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[54] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[55] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[56] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[57] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[58] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[59] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[60] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[61] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[62] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[63] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[64] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[65] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[66] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[67] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[68] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[69] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[70] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[71] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.71.

[72] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[73] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[74] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[75] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[76] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[77] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[78] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[79] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[80] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[81] Thomas, Fashionopolis at p.194.

[82] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[83] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[84] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[85] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

[86] Cline, The Conscious Closet.

Episode 10 - Sugar

This episode featured the inimitable Alexandra Sundarsingh, a PhD student in the History Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Lex is an historian of food, migration, and labour. She is also part of the Canadian debate illuminati, which is how she and Kristen became friends. Lex highly recommends that you check out the book Sweetness and Power by Sidney W. Mintz – which Lex drew on for some of the information in this episode. (Actually, Lex wants you to gift this book to pretty much everyone you know; we’d endorse that).

We were really excited to link Lex’s expertise on the history of sugar to some of the present-day practices of the sugar industry. So, the research note below focuses primarily on modern human rights abuses in the sugar industry. There is also some information about sugar and the environment, which Kristen collected but did not discuss – like, y’all, we had been recording for two hours and we thought, ‘Let’s maybe save this for a future episode.’ But we’ve put the notes here just in case you want to know what we found.

Background

What is sugar?

Sugar (sucrose) is produced from two major sources: sugarcane and sugar beets. We did not talk about corn syrup (fructose) in this episode, but it could have (probably will have) an entire episode to itself. We also didn’t talk about maple syrup.

Sugarcane is a grass that reaches 10-20 feet. It grows in warm, humid conditions, typically near the equator. It is a perennial. Sugar beet is a 3-5 pound off-white root crop. It can grow in temperate climates with warm days and cool nights. More than 145 million tonnes of sugar is produced annually in 120 countries.

Here are some different kinds of sugar:

·      Granulated sugar: pure sucrose, the most common form of sugar;

·      Icing sugar: powdered granulated sugar with cornstarch to prevent caking;

·      Brown sugar: produced by crystallizing the golden coloured syrup (before purification?) or mixing molasses syrups with white sugar

·      Liquid sugar

·      Other specialty sugars (e.g. plantation raw, organic)

How is sugar made?

Sugar-making is a multifaceted process. Briefly, here are the steps of the process:

·      Sugar plants are cultivated and harvested;

·      Then they are washed and sent to sugar refineries for processing;

·      Processing sugar starts by slicing sugar beets or crushing sugar cane;

·      Then the sugar is extracted by essentially stewing the sugar in hot water to make a juice;

·      Next, the pulp is removed;

·      Then the sugar is purified using a lime solution and concentrated by boiling it at a low temperature;

·      After a thick juice is produced, it is crystallized, spun in a centrifuge, and dried/cooled;

·      Finally, the sugar is packaged and distributed.

There’s a really good video on sugar beet production from How It’s Made. If you are interested in making your own, here is a link to a DIY process. To be honest, though, it seems a lot less efficient than the manufacturing process. But hey, if you’ve got sugar beets on-hand, you do you. The fibre that remains as a by-product of the sugar refining process is used to generate electricity, or it can be manufactured into paper goods or pelletized for animal feed.

Where does our sugar come from?

Most of the sugar that we consume (60-70%) worldwide comes from cane sugar, while the remainder is from sugar beet. Depending on where you live, that proportion can be very different. Fun fact: sugar beet rose in popularity as a result of a blockade of French trade lines during the Napoleonic wars.

The top five global sugar cane producers are Brazil, India, China, Thailand, and Pakistan. If we’re talking about both kinds of sugar, the only major change is that the EU takes third place. Brazil alone accounts for more than half (52%) of the world’s sugar market. 

Almost all Canadian sugar (90%) is from imported raw cane sugar. The remaining 10% is beet sugar, mostly from Alberta. When we import the raw cane sugar, it is processed by Canadian refineries in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Albertan sugar beets are processed by a Canadian company called Rogers Lantic – the product of a recent merger of an east coast sugar company (Lantic) and a western Canadian company (Rogers). All Canadian sugar beets are processed by a refinery in Taber, Alberta. If you’re buying Rogers sugar with a black stamp on the bag that starts with the number 22, you’re buying Albertan beet sugar. There is also some sugar beet production in Ontario near a processing plant in Michigan.

Canada’s sugar industry is essentially dominated by Rogers-Lantic and Redpath Sugar. There are Canadian sugar refineries in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and BC. Aside from the Taber facility in Alberta, Canadian sugar refineries all process cane sugar.

Labour Abuses and the Sugar Industry

Human rights and cane sugar farming

Historically, sugar cane has well-documented links to slavery. But what are the practices today? Well, in short: it’s not great. Child labour, forced labour, and bonded labour are still prominent facets of sugarcane cultivation today.

Children between the ages of five and fifteen are engaged in child labour on sugar plantations. They may work as unpaid family helpers or migrate with their parents to find work on commercial plantations during harvest season. In El Salvador, for example, Human Rights Watch found that nearly all of the boys aged fourteen and older harvested sugarcane. And it’s important to remember that this is dangerous work.

Sugarcane may be produced using forced labour in Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Myanmar, Pakistan, India, and Guatemala, according to Know the Chain. In Brazil, there are approximately 25,000 – 100,000 people in slavery, virtually all of whom are involved in agricultural work. Sugarcane production is one of the major sources of Brazilian slave labour. Most slaves work on estates in the extremely remove eastern Amazon region, occurring out of view of the population. As researcher Justin Campbell describes:

“Enslavement typically begins with a hired contractor, known as a gato, who recruits impoverished men from the slums of large cities or poor, rural villages. By offering cash up front and the promise of decent wages, he is able to entice these men to leave their homes for work on a distant estate. The men are then driven hundreds or thousands of miles to a remote ranch or plantation, where they are informed that they are in debt for the costs of transportation, food provided on the trip, and even tools. The debts are never erased; the illiterate workers have little recourse and are thus enslaved.”[1]

Research by the Conversation found that even among Bonsucro-certified sugar mills in Brazil (where workers are required to provide at least the legal minimum wage) workers’ earnings fall short of what is needed for a decent standard of living. Sugarcane is sometimes called the “hunger crop” for the poverty experienced by plantation workers.

And more generally, sugarcane workers experience negative health impacts. There was recently an epidemic of kidney disease across Central America, with rates rising by as much as 41% in some places (Nicaragua; 27% in Guatemala; 26% in El Salvador; 16% in Costa Rica). The suspected cause was heat stress from working in unsafe conditions on sugarcane plantations.

Canadian sugar beets and Japanese-Canadian internment

Canadian history: so fun! So many human rights abuses! Did you know that some of the Japanese-Canadians that were interned during WWII were forced to work on beet sugar farms? Well, they were. About 4,000 Japanese-Canadians were sent to work on sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba to fill labour shortages (of about 12,000 total interned). Fuck you, William Lyon Mackenzie King.

Canadian sugar beets and the exploitation of Indigenous people

From the 1940s to the 1980s, thousands of Indigenous families were recruited to work on sugar beet farms across the prairies. Essentially, farmers would go into northern Métis reserved to offer families work harvesting sugar beets. Labour conditions were horrendous – 12-14 hour shifts with no food or water and very low pay. Living conditions were just as bad. In some cases, families received no accommodations and slept in their trucks. In other cases, they slept in tents. Indigenous workers were also subject to racism. Families continued to return because they had few other alternatives. The Department of Indian Affairs would cut off social assistance and apprehend children if they did not work on the sugar beet farms.

This practice only stopped when journalists with the Winnipeg Tribune exposed the labour conditions in Winnipeg in 1975. After that, Indigenous farm workers organized to demand better conditions. That struggle, in combination with the availability of farm machinery, ended the practice in the mid-1980s. (So yeah white Canadians did effectively nothing)

Labour practices on beet sugar farms today

What about human rights and sugar beets? We were not able to find a lot on this, but sugar beet farming today is mostly mechanized, so the labour practices are likely not so bad. However, this does prompt an ethical question of whether the guise of buying ethical – which if you’re buying beet sugar means buying from the global north – is perpetuating international income divides. That’s a tricky ethical question and at some point in the future we want to give it a full episode, because it’s a theme that we expect will recur.

For now, though, we’ll say this: we don’t think that buying beet sugar (or switching to substitutes like maple syrup) is really the right way to approach the problem. Definitely, switching to stevia is a bad way to go (see below). Instead, we think the best you can do is to: (1) support fair trade sugar and (2) support political change. More on fair trade later.

Labour practices in Canadian sugar refineries

It was tricky to find information about labour practices on sugar refineries. At least some sugar refinery workers are unionized, though. Lantic Roger’s Sugar workers in Taber, Alberta are unionized through UFCW (local 383); Lantic Suger workers in Montreal also unionized; and workers at Redpath sugar refinery in Belleville also unionized through UFCW. So even though labour issues might come up at sugar refineries, when we’re talking about labour abuses in sugar we are usually talking about sugar extraction – and mostly sugarcane extraction.

Environment and Sugar

The environmental impact of cultivating and processing sugar includes: loss of natural habitats; water use; agro-chemical use, discharge, and run-off; and air pollution (according to a study by WWF). Because sugarcane deteriorates as soon as it is harvested, it needs to be quickly transported to a refinery; in contrast, sugar beets can be stored for months.

Land use

We were unfortunately not able to find much on whether sugarcane or sugar beets are relatively more land intensive. Articles seemed to point to the fact that both divert land use. A European sugar lobby (le Comité Européen des Fabricants de Sucre) study found that sugar beets are 50% less land intensive, but this is a pretty biased source (Europeans grow sugar beet).

In 2019, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lifted a ban on cultivating sugarcane in the Amazon rainforest and other areas of primary forest. This surprised even the sugarcane industry, which views the move as an unnecessary reputational risk. Sugarcane in Brazil is used for biofuel as well as sugar. Bolsonaro’s decision has been uniformly criticized by environmental groups. Sugarcane plantations threaten biodiversity and can cause deforestation.

Water use

Producing a 0.5 litre bottle of pop uses between 170 and 310 litres of water. Less than 1% of this is from the actual water in the final product. Most of the rest (95%) comes from the supply chain. A large portion of this comes from sourcing the sugar.

Sugarcane is a more water-intensive crop than sugar beet:

●      1 kg of sugar from sugarcane = 390 gallons of water

●      1 kg of sugar from sugar beets = 243 gallons of water

Oftentimes, to grow sugar producers will siphon water from local populations in water-stressed regions.

Air pollution

Harvesting process for sugarcane involves torching the fields to strip the crop of leaves. That causes air pollution.

Emissions

There is a lot more variability in how emissions-intensive sugar beets are, compared with sugar cane. At the high end, sugar beets and sugarcane are comparable. At the low end, sugar beets have a smaller carbon footprint. One of the big factors underlying this gap is transportation. Sugar beet is processed directly into white sugar (fewer steps than cane sugar) and generally at nearby factories.

Sustainability Labels for Sugar

Want to buy sustainable sugar? Here is some information about the ecolabels you might see.

Rainforest Alliance certification

Sustainable Agriculture Standard includes rules on biodiversity conservation; improved livelihoods and human wellbeing; natural resource conservation; and effective planning and farm management systems

Bonsucro certification

Bonsucro is a sustainability standard for sugar cultivation and processing. Producers must adhere to seven principles: obey the law; respect human rights and labour standards; manage efficiency to improve sustainability; manage biodiversity and ecosystem; continuously improve; adhere to EU directives; and organization of farmers (smallholder standard only).

Fairtrade

What is fair trade?

Fair trade is a set of movements, campaigns, and initiatives that have emerged in response to the negative effects of globalization, especially the often unjust and inequitable nature of international trade.[2] Fair trade began as a small church and Third World solidarity movement in the early postwar period.[3] Generally speaking, fair trade standards include values like decent and safe work, fair prices for producers, and sustainability

What fair trade labels are out there, and which is best?

There are five recognized fair trade labels: Fair Trade International (certified by FLOCERT); Fair Trade USA (certified by SCS Global Services); Fair for Life (certified by Institute for Marketecology (IMO)); the World Fair Trade Organization (a membership organization that recognizes its members by determining their adherence to 10 principles of fair trade); and the Fair Trade Federation (which is similar to WFTO).

Artificial Sweeteners

There are a bunch of artificial sweeteners out there, and we’ll do an episode on them sometime. But we do want to talk briefly about biopiracy and one artificial sweetener – Stevia – because it came up in the episode.

Stevia – Product of Biopiracy

Stevia is actually a product of biopiracy. Stevia rebaudiana is a plant native to eastern Paraguay and Brazil. Indigenous Guaraní peoples have traditionally used it to sweeten tea and medicine. In the late 1800s, stevia was identified in Western science as a sweetener.

Stevia is commercialized as steviol glycosides, which are ‘high-intensity’ sweeteners. Actually, it is not legal to sell Stevia leaves in EU, US, or Swiss markets. That is essentially because there has been little commercial interest in pursuing an approval process for Stevia leaves. Whereas steviol glycosides have been approved. “In practice this means that the products of large multinational corporations are able to access markets far more easily than products based on the traditional use of whole stevia leaves” (from the Bitter Taste of Stevia). Which is especially fucked because companies will play up the “natural” character of Stevia

The Guaraní have received negligible benefits from the global market for Stevia. This is in violation of their right to benefit from the use of stevia, as established under the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Nagoya Protocol. Today Stevia is grown in many countries outside of Paraguay. China is now the main producer and exporter of Stevia leaves. Stevia is primarily produced by smallholder farmers.

“In Paraguay, the average smallholder producer has only 5-10 ha of arable land available, and cultivates Stevia in crop rotation with other crops such as cotton, cassava, sesame or soy bean. Similarly, in China, Stevia is typically produced by contracted smallholders on plots of […] 667 square metres” (from the Bitter Taste of Stevia).

The largest Stevia (steviol glycosides) producers are the multinational corporations Cargill, Stevia First, and DSM. There is currently an effort to produce steviol glycosides through synthetic biology (SynBio) instead of producing them from leaves. Essentially, that would mean that you wouldn’t need to cultivate stevia farms to produce steviol glycosides. If that happens it could hurt smallholder farmers in Paraguay and elsewhere.

Sugary Drinks

Ethical Consumer recommends reducing packaging and food miles by making your own sugar at home, using Fairtrade and organic ingredients

But SodaStream has some of its own issues. It has been criticized for being complicit in Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights because of its operations in the West Bank. And it was recently bought by Pepsi, which has a number of ethically questionable practices.

Call to Action

Looking for something concrete that you can do? We’ve already recommended a few actions above. As a reminder, you can always seek out more ethical sugar by buying fair trade. It is also important to help keep human rights in the sugar industry on our political radar: tell your friends about what you’ve heard; stay informed; sign petitions and support organizations (like Know the Chain and Human Rights Watch) that work to uncover human rights abuses in sugar and elsewhere. But here’s one action we would recommend taking right now: contact your MP and ask them why Canada hasn’t ratified the Nagoya Protocol.

Endnotes

[1] Campbell, Justin. (2008). A Growing Concern: Modern Slavery and Agricultural Production in Brazil and South Asia. Human Rights and Human Welfare, https://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/slavery/agriculture.pdf, p.131-2.

[2] This is from an edited volume: Raynolds, Laura, Murray, Douglas, and Wilkinson, John. (eds.). (2007). Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization. NY: Routledge.

[3] Ibid.

Kyla’s Notes

An interesting and well-sourced article with more on how sugar affects the brain.

An idea of average sugar intake.

More on the Maple Syrup Heist.

More info on residential schools.

Even more info on residential schools, from Secret Life of Canada, a podcast we love.

Episode 01 - What is Ethical Consumption?

In this introductory episode, we explain what the Pullback podcast is all about. To illustrate how difficult it is to know what the right thing to do is, Kristen quizzes Kyla on the world of ethical consumption. If you are interested in trying the quiz, you can access it here.

Ethical Consumption Quiz

Below we include a bit more information on the themes from our ethical consumption quiz.

Ethical Consumer Labels

The first question is about ethical consumer labels. There are many of these labels, some with very robust standards and others with less rigour.

Most Effective Climate Solutions

We borrowed questions two and three from a a CNN quiz. CNN based the quiz on research done by a a group called Project Drawdown, which ranks climate change solutions.

Question two is all about food-related climate solutions. Even though throwing away less food was the most effective climate solution, the effect of eating a plant-based diet is similar. Specifically, Project Drawdown estimates the effect of the four food-based solutions as follows:

1.     Throw away less food: Similar to taking 495 million cars off the road;

2.     Eat a plant-heavy diet: Similar to taking 464 million cars off the road;

3.     Cook over clean stoves: Similar to taking 111 million cars off the road;

4.     Compost your waste: Similar to taking 16 million cars off the road.

Question three asks about waste-related climate solutions. Estimated effectiveness of the four waste-related solutions is as follows:

1.     Clean up chemicals in our refrigerators and air conditioners: Similar to taking 629 million cars off the road;

2.     Build with “greener” cement compounds: Similar to taking 47 million cars off the road;

3.     Use water more efficiently: Similar to taking 32 million cars off the road;

4.     Increase household recycling: Similar to taking 19 million cars off the road.

What’s the deal with refrigerants and climate? In the mid-20th century we used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) in refrigerators. Unfortunately, we found out that CFCs and HCFCs destroy the ozone layer. So, in 1987 the international community came together and agreed on the Montreal Protocol, a treaty banning CFCs and HCFCs. Unfortunately, the refrigerants that have replaced the ozone-burning ones – hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – are really potent greenhouse gases. They have a warming effect 1,000 to 9,000 times stronger than CO2.

HFCs are supposed to be phased out, per an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that came into force in January 2019. The Kigali Amendment sets a goal of reducing HFCs by 80% over the next 30 years, which could avoid up to 0.4 degrees of warming. The Kigali Amendment has been ratified by Canada, Australia, most countries in Europe, and a few African and Latin American countries. The United States has not ratified the Kigali Amendment. Nor have China, Brazil, and India, which are three risk priority countries.

Managing refrigeration chemicals was ranked as the number one climate change solution, not only in this category but overall, as identified by Project Drawdown. The top five climate change solutions identified by Project Drawdown are:

1.     Manage refrigeration chemicals

2.     Install onshore wind turbines

3.     Cut down on food waste

4.     Eat more plants and less meat

5.     Restore our tropical forests

What a Waste!

Question four is about waste. According to a USA Today article by Byrnes and Frohlich — which draws on the World Bank’s What a Waste Database 2.0 — Canada produces the most waste per capita.

Generally speaking, wealthier countries waste more. High-income countries account for 16% of the world’s population but generate 34% of the world’s waste.

But this is not necessarily in the form of garbage. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is, according to Byrnes and Frohlich, “waste generated from companies, buildings, institutions, small businesses, houses, and yards”. It is often less than 5% of total waste. Canada ranks 22nd in the world for MSW.

Most waste is from other “special” waste categories - things like industrial, construction, and agricultural waste. Canada ranked as the most wasteful country in both agricultural and industrial waste.

Ethical Mobile Phones

Ethical Consumer is a nonprofit that provides information for ethical consumers. Among other things, they rate companies and products on a range of ethical criteria. Their mobile phone ratings give major phone brands a score out of 20. Ethical Consumer considers a 14+ to be an ethical company to support. 5-13 is sort of the middle range and anything under 5 is ‘needs improvement’. Most phone companies are in the messy middleThis is a holistic score looking at people, politics, animals, and product sustainability. Question five asks which major phone brand has the lowest ethical score according to this rating.

Fashion Transparency Index

Question six asks about the 2019 transparency index. Fashion Revolution is a global nonprofit that is working to make the fashion industry safer, cleaner, and fairer. Every year it publishes a transparency index which rates the transparency of 200 major fashion brands. Transparency, as they define it, means “public disclosure of sourcing relationships and of companies’ social and environmental policies and practices, goals and targets, governance, performance and progress.” The Fashion Transparency Index benchmarks brands’ public disclosures across five areas: policy and commitments; governance; supply chain traceability; supplier assessment and remediation; and spotlight issues.

Know the Chain

Know the Chain is an NGO that is working to eradicate forced labour in global supply chains. They produce annual reports on three sectors that they consider high-risk for forced labour. Those reports evaluate how major companies are doing on the issue of forced labour. Question seven asks about Know the Chain’s 2018 ITC Benchmark Report, which evaluates 40 large information, technology, and communications companies on how well they address forced labour in their supply chains.

Divestment

Divestment – or, disinvestment – is a tool that activists use to create social change. It is the act of no longer investing in something (like a financial boycott). Divestment is famously associated with anti-Apartheid advocacy targeted at South Africa in the 1980s. But it has since been applied to a range of issues. Question eight asks about a recent divestment from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

This year CPPIB quietly divested from GEO Group and CoreCivic, two companies which hold the majority of contracts to manage ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention facilities in the US. As of 2018, it had held nearly $8 million USD in stock from those two companies. CPP did not make a public statement, and it has denied that ethical considerations prompted this decision. In fact, the CPPIB says that it does not screen individual investments “based on social, religious, economic, or political criteria”. But this decision did come after pressure from civic groups like Sum of Us and Leadnow.

CPPIB still invests in fossil fuels. However, during the recent election campaign Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also pledged to divest CPPIB from coal, oil and gas, so we will see whether that will happen. CPPIB owns shares in the handgun manufacturer Smith & Weston, as well as Ruger and Olin Corp., which produces ammunition for AR-15 rifles. And as of 2018 CPPIB had not divested from tobacco companies.

The private prison divestment movement in the US is gaining steam. This year high-profile divestment decisions were made by prominent banks. JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust, BNP Paribas, and Fifth Third Bancorp all announced that they will no longer provide future financing to private prisons companies. These banks represent 72% of the total current financing available to private prison companies.

Virtual Water Footprints

“Virtual water footprint” refers to the water used to produce a finished product or service is its “virtual water” footprint. Question nine uses a calculation by environmental organization Friends of the Earth in the UK to ask which product has the highest water footprint.

E-Waste

Question ten is about e-waste (electronic waste). Globally, we produce 50 million tonnes of e-waste every year, according to a joint report of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Economic Forum. Only 20% of that waste is recycled. The total estimated value of e-waste is $62.5 billion USD, which is roughly similar to the Gross Domestic Product of Croatia.