Ethical Clothing: Challenges and Solutions

This report examines the ethical issues in the clothing industry, including working conditions, fair trade practices, exploitation, sustainability, and animal welfare. It discusses the challenges faced by Australia and other global countries and suggests solutions such as fair trade certifications, fair wages, safe working conditions, quality garments, alternative raw materials, and stopping child labor and exploitation of adult workers.

Running head: ETHICAL CLOTHING
Ethical Clothing
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Table of Contents
The challenges faced by Australia and other global countries...................................................2
Addressing the Challenge..........................................................................................................3
References..................................................................................................................................7

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The challenges faced by Australia and other global countries
As stated by Charles Jr, Schmidheiny & Watts (2017), the issues are ethical clothing
industry lies in both the sector of environmental and social as well as the discrepancies for the
employees in the area of Australia as well as other global countries. In this connection, the
given report examines the issues that come up in the way of the common good that relates to
the synergy of ethical clothing. As opined by Han et al., (2017), ethical fashion is a term that
determines the designing, production, retailing as well as purchasing the clothing fashion.
The same is recorded to cover various range of issues of an organisation working in the sector
of the clothing industry. The issues covered are determined as the issues related to the
working conditions, the fair trade practices, the exploitation, sustainability in the production,
the welfare of the animals as well as the entire environment. However, studies show that
these factors of ethical clothing that relates to the common good of the people are challenged
by the issues that are occurring in the region of Australia as well as other global countries.
 The employees working in the sector of clothing firms are recorded to be disregarded
in terms of payment and beneficiaries received by their working firms in Australia as
compared to the efforts they give for the work (Titmuss, 2018). These cases have been
recorded since the last few years, and the previous case was registered in the year of
2018.
 The concerns related to the exploitative working conditions in the sweatshops for the
workers.
 The cheap quality of the garments produced.
 Cotton is known to provide the highest fabric in the world for the production of the
garments (McLoughlin, Hayes & Paul, 2015). However, the growing of the same

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results to use of 22.5% of the insecticides of the world and this, in turn, results to the
hazards in the environment because of the chemical used in the production of cotton.
 Child workers, as well as the exploitation of adult workers, are subjected to violence
and abuse because of the unhygienic surroundings of work and providing the workers
with bad and non-feasible food.
Thus, the ethical issues in the same should be resolved, and the industries are working
under the sector of clothing industries both in the local areas of Australia and other global
countries as well. The failure in the same will result in the loss in the clothing industry, and
the connected stakeholders will lose their loyalty on the companies that are not capable
enough of dealing with the synergy of ethical clothing.
Addressing the Challenge
As per the viewpoint of Johnson (2017), addressing the ethical issues and challenges
faced by the common good because of the concern of the ethical clothing is more of a
complex nature than it just seems to be quickly resolved. However, the solving of the same is
not impossible and can be addressed effectively and efficiently by the help of adopting the
mentioned below strategical implications and solutions.
Implicating the practice of fair trade certifications
As opined by Barak (2016), if the global clothing industries would adopt the synergy
of practising the means of appropriate trade certifications, the same would remain under the
legal eye and considerations. Thus, the government bodies across the globe should highly
concentrate on imposing strict rules and laws on the business entities working within the field
of clothing industries. This step will ensure that the clothing industries does not practice any
fraudulent means of establishing its trade certificate and run an organisation that is illegal in
nature.

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Practising the means of distributing fair wages
Distributing fair wages will make sure that the workers are provided with the required
and deserving amount of pay (Kahn, 2018). The clothing industries should understand the
fact that it takes a considerable amount of effort for the workers to work in the sweatshops
and for extra hours out of their basic timing of work. Therefore, the management of the
clothing industries is liable to pay back the workers as per the effort each of the workers
gives. This, in turn, will also ensure that the employees and the workers as the stakeholders of
the company remain loyal and fixed to one working organisation. This also increases the
level of satisfaction of the workers as their basic need of earning a proper and daily livelihood
is fulfilled.
Accessing the right working conditions to the employees
Every working individual urges to work in an organisation where the same can get
the benefit of working into a healthy and non-harmful working environment (Fallon, 2017).
This is because working in a safe and healthy working environment helps the employees to
remain motivated to work with greater zeal and enthusiasm. Thus, the clothing industries
should focus on setting up its sweatshops is a manner that the same remains safe and sound
for the workers to work into. If an employee feels unsafe while working with the equipment
and machinery available in the factories as the same can cause adverse harm to them, the
workers lose their morale to work, and therefore the effectiveness and the efficiency of the
production is also affected in return.
Quality of garments
Studies show that the customers spent over $2238 million in the concern of buying
clothes. Therefore, the clothing industries all across the globe should focus on purchasing the
best quality of raw materials that are required to furnish the final product of garments.

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Moreover, the variety of equipment, as well as machinery, should be prominent enough to
help the workers work effectively and safely that furnishes the final garment products.
Providing the customers with the best quality of garments will help the company to gain not
only better revenue and profit but also an adequate level of competitive advantage in the
business market (Kotler et al., 2017). Therefore, the challenges that are faced by the common
good are mitigated with the help of the same.
Using alternative of cotton to produce garments
As undermined with the help of the study that the production of the higher amount of
cotton that is used to create the final garment products is resulting into the hamper of the
environmental resources and nature (Charter & Tischner, 2017). The primary reason behind
the same lies to be the amount of chemical used in the pesticides that generate the cotton
plants in a high number. Thus, the garment industries should focus on finding suitable and
better alternatives of raw materials that would help them in producing the final garment
products that would satisfy the demands of the customers and also benefits the organisations
in achieving their desired goals and objectives.
Stopping child labour and exploiting adult workers
Based on the examination of the study, it was examined that the garment industries all
across the world are into illegal adoption of using the child as their labour workforce (Huq,
Chowdhury & Klassen, 2016). In addition to this, the companies also exploit the workforce
of adult workers by making them work for long hours as well as into adverse working
environmental conditions. Indulging into child labour is not only unethical but is also
considered as a criminal offence all across the global governmental policies and rules.
Therefore, using children as labours in the adverse sweatshops of the clothing industry is
termed to be a crime. In addition to this, the clothing organisations should treat their adult

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labour workforce as; similarly, they maintain their other connected stakeholders. This will not
only help the firms to increase the efficiency in their product but also retain their workers in
the organisation for a more extended period of time.

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References
Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Charles Jr, O. H., Schmidheiny, S., & Watts, P. (2017). Walking the talk: The business case
for sustainable development. Routledge.
Charter, M., & Tischner, U. (Eds.). (2017). Sustainable solutions: developing products and
services for the future. Routledge.
Fallon, D. (2017). Working with health and illness beliefs in practice. In Cultural Awareness
in Nursing and Health Care(pp. 81-94). Routledge.
Han, S. L. C., Henninger, C. E., Apeagyei, P., & Tyler, D. (2017). Determining effective,
sustainable, fashion communication strategies. In Sustainability in Fashion (pp. 127-
149). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Huq, F. A., Chowdhury, I. N., & Klassen, R. D. (2016). Social management capabilities of
multinational buying firms and their emerging market suppliers: An exploratory study
of the clothing industry. Journal of Operations Management, 46, 19-37.
Johnson, C. E. (2017). Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow.
Sage Publications.
Kahn, K. (2018). WORK & WEALTH.
Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L., & Armstrong, G. (2015). Marketing. Pearson
Higher Education AU.
McLoughlin, J., Hayes, S., & Paul, R. (2015). Cotton fibre for denim manufacture.
In Denim (pp. 15-36). Woodhead Publishing.

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Titmuss, R. (2018). The gift relationship (reissue): From human blood to social policy.
Policy Press.