H&M and Sustainability

When reading about fashion, I found out that H&M is the global fast fashion leader, and I also learned everything they are doing to become more ethical and more sustainable. Learning this really made an impact on me. In an article by Leon Kaye called, “H&M, The Ethical Fast Fashion Leader?”, he states “H&M… has ramped up its sustainability and corporate social responsibility 9CSR) efforts in recent years.” This is something that I was never aware of before. H&M used to be one of my favorite places to shop. But I have not been there as often in recent years. However after reading about this and reading some other articles, it has changed the way I look at fashion. I am definitely more likely to choose H&M over some other stores. I like the fact that they are consciously trying to be sustainable and ethical. This is not something that companies have to do, so I think it shows a lot that H&M is making sustainability one of their priorities.

After thinking about this, one main question came to my mind… What makes H&M different? Do they really care about being sustainable or do they just want to market themselves that way to gain more customers? I did some research to help me figure this out.

In an article by Annamma Joy, John F. Sherry, Jr, Alladi Venkatesh, Jeff Wang and Ricky Chan they  explain, “Fast fashion—low-cost clothing collections based on current, high-cost  luxury fashion trends—is, by its very nature, a fast-response system that encourages disposability”. These fast fashion companies are producing quickly disposable products with short lifecycles. People will buy these clothes when they are in style and then soon swap them out for something else. H&M wants to change this idea of fast fashion, and make it known that it can be sustainable.

I found another article by Lindia Dishman where she talks about H&M’s new “Concious Collection” which is made using recycled and organic cotton varieties. She also states, “The world’s second largest apparel company also publicly released a list of its suppliers, something many retailers keep tightly under wraps.” I think that this is really important because it proves that H&M is truly ethical and sustainable. This proves that they are not just marketing as sustainable but that they really are.

I found one last article that talks about mixing fast fashion with sustainability by Talancia Pea. In the article, she mentions H&M, and she discusses  “customers’ acceptance of recycled textiles created into new garments are ‘small’ and more technological advances in the fiber recycling field could be the missing link needed to lessen the now 21 billion pounds of post-consumer waste collected in landfills each year.” I think that not only will there be “customer acceptance” of recycled textiles, I think that they will gain many new customers because of this. I think that even if H&M’s first concern is to just help the environment and not to market well, I think that either way it will still draw in many new environmentally friendly customers.

   

Sources:

http://www3.nd.edu/~jsherry/pdf/2012/FastFashionSustainability.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lydiadishman/2013/04/09/inside-hms-quest-for-sustainability-in-fast-fashion/
http://about.hm.com/en/About/Sustainability/Commitments/Responsible-Partners/Supply-Chain/SupplierList.html
http://www.dudesustainable.com/2013/06/mixing-fast-fashion-and-sustainability.html#.UmhZqZR-x4J
http://www.weardonaterecycle.org/about/issue.html

Food Deserts

After reading several articles relating to food, sustainability, food insecurity, poverty etc, one concept that really stuck out to me was the term “food desert”. I have never heard about this before. In case you aren’t sure either, in an article by Maria Trimarchi, she states, “Food deserts are large geographic areas where mainstream grocery stores are scarce or missing. They are found predominantly in low-income areas, although not everyone living in a food desert is poor.” So basically, a food desert is an area where you can not easily get to a mainstream super market. These food deserts are a problem because they lead to food insecurity. This means that the people living in these areas have very little access to healthy food and are not always sure where their food will come from. Food insecurity in these food deserts is often linked to poverty as well. In the same article by Maria Trimarchi she writes, “they have little-to-no access to nutritious food and are likely to have unbalanced diets and skip meals.” This being said, it does make sense why people in these food deserts are so likely to become obese.

            I find the connection between food deserts and obesity to be very interesting. The facts do make sense, but I would think that in an area where you don’t have access to a good grocery store you would be less likely to be obese. I found a video talking about the link between these. The video is a news report about a food desert in Mississippi. In the video, the reporter talks to someone that lives there and they say that it is really hard to find healthy food. She also states that one of the closest places to buy food is a convenience store that only sells pre packaged snack food. The connection between food deserts and obesity makes a lot more sense to me after watching this video and it now seems like a lot larger of a problem.

Sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g-X8GNBYCM
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/food-desert.htm

Image:

http://tcp4mance.net/map-food-deserts2009.jpg

Shopping can effect our future.

How do you feel about the statement “Shopping is more important than voting.” I feel like this statement could be taken a lot of different ways. Relating to fair trade, I would say that shopping is in fact, more important than voting. In the article, “The Good Consumer” from the Economist, the author states “most consumers will be happy to choose the greener product—provided it does not cost any more, comes from a trusted maker, requires no special effort to buy or use and is at least as good as the alternative.” I think that this could probably go for fair trade as well. People would probably buy more fair trade products as long as it required no special effort to buy or use it. I feel that buying fair trade products goes right along with being green, and being green is rapidly growing in today’s world. I’m not sure if it is just a fad, but it is something that is really becoming prominent nowadays.

Although voting is obviously important because we are deciding who is making major decisions in out government, shopping also plays a very large role in the world. Buying green and fair trade products effects the future of our world and I would say that is pretty important. If we continue to buy products that harm our environment and that harm people in developing countries, our world is not going to get any better. The people involved in government can help with this, however the consumer consists of more people than the government so they can probably make a larger impact on our future.  

iPhone

One very popular consumer product that came to my mind is the iPhone. It is a smartphone that provides people with several needs. Firstly, if fulfills the need for communication, and to be connected. But it also fulfills needs like keeping your schedule organized, taking pictures, listening to music etc. Customers are motivated to buy each new version of this product because they want to be on the cutting edge of technology. Every one wants whatever is cool and new. Each time apple comes out with a new iPhone, everyone wants it. Even when the new version is very similar to the old one. I think that the iPhone is so successful because it has a unique design with the one button, and that stays the same through all the different models. I also think it is successful because of the simplicity of the operating system. Everything is very easy to do on an iPhone, however it is considered to be very high tech. I think that people probably really like this because when using an iPhone, they can feel like they are very tech savvy, even if they are not.

Here is an article about the iPhone all the way back from 2007 http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1575743,00.html

I think that it is amazing that they have continued to grow and be successful this whole time. Most electronics don’t make it this long, however Apple has managed to keep the same product  at the top of the smart phone charts for 6 years by just making updates to the same basic product.