Responsible Shirts: Ethical Clothing Research Report for Management

This report, titled "Responsible Shirts: Ethical Clothing Research Report," examines the crucial aspects of ethical clothing within a global business context. The report emphasizes the growing consumer concern regarding the environmental and social impact of textile production, highlighting the need for brands to adopt ethical and sustainable practices. It provides a rationale for conducting additional research on potential suppliers, outlining the benefits, such as increased customer trust and competitive advantage, and the risks associated with non-compliance, including potential business loss. The report details the types of evidence required to ensure ethical manufacturing, including sustainable textile certifications, eco-label certifications, Global Organic Textile Standard certification, and Global Recycle Standard certification. Furthermore, it proposes a research plan that involves brainstorming sessions, individual factory research, and potential field inspections to gather and validate the necessary evidence. The conclusion reiterates the importance of ethical clothing practices, emphasizing their role in minimizing environmental impact, promoting fair trade, and ensuring worker well-being.

Running head: RESPONSIBLE SHIRTS
Management in Global Business Environment
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
1. Rationale of Additional Research: Benefits and Risks....................................................2
2. Types of Evidences Required..........................................................................................4
3. Research Plan...................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................6
References............................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Ethical clothing or ethical fashion encompasses the concept of developing an ethical
fashion design that concerns a range of issues related to production, retail and manufacturing of
apparels (Harris, Roby & Dibb, 2016). Ethical clothing mainly promotes fair trade and
sustainable production of clothing. Therefore, prior to setting up of a partnership business with
any clothing chain, there production process are needed to be well investigated to ascertain that
they are designing their products ethically and/or doing fair trade. The discussion provides an
overview of the need of researching the working condition of the potential suppliers of the
consultancy team and the evidences that are required to ensure whether the suppliers are working
ethically. The discussion proposes a plan in which this research will be conducted.
1. Rationale of Additional Research: Benefits and Risks
The additional research about the production procedure of the shortlisted suppliers is
necessary since there have been an increasing customers’ concern related to ethical clothing and
the environmental and social impact of textile production. Therefore, it is important for the
brands, retailers and the factories to promote ethical and sustainable fashion this process of cloth
manufacturing reduces the negative effect of cloth manufacturing on environment (Goworek et
al.. 2017). Furthermore, the promotion of ethical clothing will prove to be a competitive
advantage for the consultancy team and therefore, the decision of undertaking additional research
in this context is justified. The path of ethical clothing is not only concerned with its impact on
environment, but also associated with the social and economic concern (Niinimäki, 2015).
Suitability in ethical clothing is only achieved if a factory or manufacturer is successful in

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embracing all the three pillars and therefore, this additional research on the prospective suppliers
is necessary.
The proposed additional research will offer certain benefits to the client which are listed
below-
1. The client can easily gain the trust of the customers by promoting the ethical clothing
process. This will in turn increase the competitive advantage of the company.
2. The additional research will indicate that a transparency is maintained in the sourcing,
manufacturing and designing the clothes which can act as a business advantage (Read, 2017).
3. The client will have a clear idea whether the workers of those factories are paid well.
This will in turn help the client in engaging with fair trade (Carey & Cervellon, 2014).
4. The additional research will save the client from getting associated with a factory that
does not consider the environmental impact of producing clothes or does not practice sustainable
fashion (Dissanayake, Perera & Wanniarachchi, 2017).
5. This additional research will foster accountability of continual improvement to the
consultancy team, which will in turn increase the company’s prospects.
The proposed additional research is justified as there are certain key risks of not
undertaking this work, which are indicated as follows-
1. The practice of ethical clothing have a considerable impact on the buying behavior of
the customers. With the increasing concern about sustainable fashion, promotion of products that
can have a negative effect on environment might result in business loss (Magnuson, Reimers &
Chao, 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to undertake the proposed additional research.

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2. The additional research about ethical clothing will further help the consultancy team to
cross check whether the quotes provided by the factories are legitimate or not (Shaw, McMaster
& Newholm, 2016). Not doing the same will incur a risk of buying products from those factories
at a much higher cost. The quotes received are assumed to be that of the products that are
prepared by the process of ethical clothing.
On evaluation of the risk and the benefits, it can be indicated that the proposal doing
additional research on all the prospective suppliers is necessary and integral from a business
perspective.
2. Types of Evidences Required
The proposed additional research on the factories about ethical clothing will require
collection of certain evidences that will confirm that the textiles are manufactured ethically on
those factories.
The very first evidence that those factories need to provide or the consultancy team need
to look for is sustainable textile certification (Almeida, 2015). This type of certification exists to
let the customers know about the quality of products they are buying or whether the clothes they
are buying have ethical working conditions.
Apart from sustainable textile certification, evidences of eco-label certification is needed
to be provided as well. This certification guarantees the safety of the textile and the garment.
This certification confirms that the raw yarn, finished textile, garments and the accessories on the
garments that include the buttons and zippers are properly tested.

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The additional research should further look for Global Organic Textile Standard
certification of all the prospective suppliers to ensure that the materials that are used, the yarn,
the fabric are organic and they retain their authenticity from harvesting to selling (Garments,
2019). This certification is significantly important as it imposes social responsibility
requirements that ensure that the workers are not forced into labor or are denied fair wages.
This certification further confirms hygienic and safe working environment for the workers.
The evidence should further include Global recycle standard certification that confirms
that the materials used for designing the products are recyclable, which reduces the
environmental impact of the waste clothes.
The above discussed evidences are required from each of the shortlisted factories to get
an assurance that the textiles offered by the prospective suppliers are ethically produced.
3. Research Plan
The proposed research is critical since a lot of evidences are needed to be provided to
prove that the clothes that are produced in those factories are produced in an ethical manner. The
plan for conducting this research are indicated as follows-
A brainstorming session can be arranged with the consultancy project team to discuss
and shortlist the key evidences that the factory needs to produce or the team needs to collect.
Individual research on each of suppliers are needed to be done to check if all the
factories possesses the sustainable textile certification. Along with this certification, the research
will check if the other mentioned certifications are possessed by all the factories.

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However, the production of proof of certification may not confirm whether the factories
are maintaining sustainable and hygienic working condition or whether the workers are being
fairly paid for their work. Therefore, a field inspection is proposed as well to collect evidences of
ethical clothing. However, this is subjected to additional expenditure and can be conducted only
after approval by the team.
The secondary or the individual research is needed to be executed in a planned manner.
Each team member would be given the responsibility of researching about a particular factory.
The tasks will be equally distributed to ensure its timely completion.
Conclusion
The discussion provides an idea of the concept of ethical clothing and the need of
incorporation of ethical clothing practice in an organization. The consultancy team need to do a
background check of all the prospective suppliers to see if the shortlisted suppliers follow the
practice of ethical clothing. It is necessary to follow the practice of ethical clothing as it
ascertains that the products manufactured by the process has minimal impact on the environment.
The practice of ethical clothing and sustainable clothing further confirms the practice of fair
trade. It guarantees that the workers are fairly paid and proper hygienic working condition are
maintained. The discussion provides an idea of the evidences that the consultancy team needs to
gather to confirm that the prospective suppliers are following the practice of ethical clothing.
Along with that a plan for the research and gathering the evidences are discussed.

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References
Almeida, L. (2015). Ecolabels and organic certification for textile products. In Roadmap to
Sustainable Textiles and Clothing (pp. 175-196). Springer, Singapore.
Carey, L., & Cervellon, M. C. (2014). Ethical fashion dimensions: pictorial and auditory
depictions through three cultural perspectives. Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management.
Dissanayake, D. G. K., Perera, S., & Wanniarachchi, T. (2017). Sustainable and ethical
manufacturing: a case study from handloom industry. Textiles and Clothing
Sustainability, 3(1), 2.
Garments, A. (2019). Certificate of Compliance.
Goworek, H., Hiller, A., Fisher, T., Cooper, T., & Woodward, S. (2017). Consumers’ attitudes
towards sustainable fashion: clothing usage and disposal. In Sustainability in fashion and
textiles (pp. 376-392). Routledge.
Harris, F., Roby, H., & Dibb, S. (2016). Sustainable clothing: challenges, barriers and
interventions for encouraging more sustainable consumer behaviour. International
Journal of Consumer Studies, 40(3), 309-318.
Magnuson, B., Reimers, V., & Chao, F. (2017). Re-visiting an old topic with a new approach:
the case of ethical clothing. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An
International Journal.
Niinimäki, K. (2015). Ethical foundations in sustainable fashion. Textiles and Clothing
Sustainability, 1(1), 3.

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Read, J. (2017). Overcoming barriers to ethical clothing consumption: a conjoint analysis
approach.
Shaw, D., McMaster, R., & Newholm, T. (2016). Care and commitment in ethical consumption:
An exploration of the ‘attitude–behaviour gap’. Journal of Business Ethics, 136(2), 251-
265.