You’re hosting a panel on ethical sourcing practices in fashion. Who do you invite? Perhaps someone who grows or produces raw materials? A labour union representative? Someone from Fairtrade? Possibly someone from Stella McCartney or Collina Strada? Well, for those who’re Source Fashion, “the UK’s recent sustainable sourcing show”, you invite Boohoo. And only Boohoo. 

A seminar called Fashion’s recent ‘should have’: Ethical clothing starts with industry collaboration was billed for February 14 featuring a 100 per cent Boohoo line-up (bar the moderator). A lucky audience got to see the brand’s head of sustainability, head of quality and product compliance, head of ethical trading, and head of sourcing discuss how they’re “going the additional mile to strengthen their ethical practices” and “being generally known as an organization who’s willing to play their part”. 

The billing is laughable to those that learn about how Boohoo operates as an organization, and insulting to those whose lives have been impacted by it because the brand has a storied history of ethical failures, called out on the event by a bunch of protestors who took to the stage to spotlight the hypocrisy of Boohoo speaking on ethical sourcing. They were quickly and forcefully escorted out of the room by security.

In 2020, an investigation by The Sunday Times revealed that a Leicester supplier factory for Nasty Gal, owned by Boohoo, was operating during localised lockdowns and paying staff as little as £3.50 an hour. The original article now states that it’s “the topic of a legal criticism from Jaswal Fashions Limited”, the factory in query.

Boohoo responded to the allegations by saying “it doesn’t and is not going to condone any incidence of mistreatment of employees and of non-compliance with our strict supplier code of conduct.” Nonetheless, an independent report found that “Boohoo’s monitoring of its Leicester supply chain was inadequate”, and it “focused on revenue generation sometimes on the expense of the opposite, equally vital, obligations which large corporate entities have.” 

“It’s time for Boohoo to return of age”, wrote the paper’s creator Alison Levitt QC, and it’s clear the label is attempting to do exactly that by positioning itself as an ethical business figurehead. In 2021 it launched its ‘Ready for the Future’ manifesto and products, and in 2022 it opened a manufacturing facility as a “Centre of Excellence”, and appointed Kourtney Kardashian as sustainability ambassador.

“The billing is laughable to those that learn about how Boohoo operates as an organization, and insulting to those whose lives have been impacted by it, because the brand has a storied history of ethical failures”

But in November last 12 months, one other investigation by The Sunday Times went undercover in a Burnley warehouse. Temperatures were as high as 36°C. “I get it’s hot, but we still should perform”, said a manager. Multiple staff, who’re expected to select 130 items per hour, claim injuries to their feet, knees, and shoulders are brought on by the character of the warehouse work, while a Pakistani employee claimed they and other Pakistani staff were forced to work in the most well liked areas of the warehouse, while white Bulgarian staff were positioned within the cooler areas. 

The identical 12 months, an investigation by The Independent alleged that a whole lot of Boohoo’s items were mislabelled as “Ready for the Future” when in actual fact they didn’t even meet the brand’s own criteria for what that really means. No wonder, then, that in one other bout of bad news for the brand, the Competition Markets Authority launched an investigation into Boohoo (alongside ASOS and Asda) to “resolve whether the firms’ green claims are misleading customers”.

A number of the moves Boohoo has made to wash up its status have resolutely worked against it. A study commissioned by the Garment and Textile Employees Trust, funded by Boohoo, alleged that of the 116 Leicester garment staff surveyed, 49 per cent received no sick pay, 56 per cent had been paid below the minimum wage, 55 per cent didn’t receive holiday pay, and a 3rd had no contract and didn’t receive a payslip. 

The survey was a broad have a look at the Leicester garment production landscape, not specifically Boohoo, but it surely’s a damning view of an ecosystem through which the brand is embedded. As well as, recommendations raised by the body included making a single point of contact for staff wishing to make a criticism. Boohoo notoriously refuses to have interaction with and recognise the Usdaw trade union, placing a direct barrier between its staff and an actual, representative voice. 

Boohoo founder Carol Kane has previously said she’s going to recognise a union “if the employees would really like it”, but that “there doesn’t currently seem like a requirement for our staff in our Burnley warehouse to require a union”. As recently as November 2022, Usdaw, which says it “represents staff at Boohoo’s warehouse and call centre in Burnley together with the pinnacle office in Manchester” asserts that there was no response from Boohoo to the invitation of sitting right down to explore how they’ll work together. 

The accusations against Boohoo and evidence of its decidedly unethical working practices simply don’t stop coming, a lot of them listed by campaign group Labour Behind the Label in a Twitter thread calling out exactly why the seminar shouldn’t go ahead. Underpaid warehouse staff, underpaid garment staff, outlandish corporate salaries and bonuses, and non-compliance with minimum wage, all of it adds as much as a reasonably bleak picture – and yet there Boohoo executives sit, waxing lyrical about how great the corporate is and what number of good initiatives it’s working on.

“Boohoo’s billing is probably a surprise to some, but embedding yourself inside the sustainability world is a normal reputation-cleansing tactic”

It’s perhaps a surprising billing to some but embedding yourself inside the sustainability world is a normal reputation-cleansing tactic. H&M is a ‘strategic partner’ or sponsor for almost every sustainability and ethics event you can care to consider, including the Global Fashion Agenda, while Nike donated its Materials Sustainability Index to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which later became the (now highly challenged) Higg Materials Sustainability Index. Take a look at any major report on circularity, sustainability, or sourcing and also you’ll likely see an entire host of brands listed as partners. Grow to be an ‘industry leader’ and nobody can query you, is the hope.

But on this case, people did query it, with some offering Source Fashion ample time to vary direction for the seminar. Unfortunately the response wasn’t to knock Boohoo’s seminar off the bill entirely, only to vary the name from “Fashion’s recent ‘should have’” to “A fashion focus”. It’s a meek response. The most effective response would have been as well them from their chairs, and the perfect decision would have been to never invite Boohoo to talk on ethics in the primary place. 

Dazed reached out to Boohoo for comment on this text, with a spokesperson for the label responding: “We attend events like Source Fashion to share insights from the work we’re doing to scale back our environmental impact, embed our responsible purchasing principles and our quality assurance programme. The challenge of sustainability affects the entire fashion industry and no single brand or government agency will find a way to resolve these problems on their very own. That’s the reason it is necessary that we consult with people in regards to the work we’re doing to scale back our environmental impact and why we are going to proceed to partner with other retailers, government and NGOs, through initiatives like Textiles 2030, to search out solutions to those shared problems.”