A Challenge to Be Met: the 5 WHYs regarding fast fashion
The first project that we were called to respond to was the 5 WHYs of our reason of choosing Ethical Fashion as our main subject of our social innovation project. Our team spent quite a while speculating what it is that we would rather talk about in our part of the Dare To Challenge and the 5 WHYs procedure helped us not only pinpoint the reason why ethical fashion is important on a worldwide scale, but why it’s important and personal to us as well.
Our thought process involving the 5 WHYs went like this:
Why is fast fashion problematic?
Because it uses non-sustainable means of production.
Why are they not sustainable?
Because they employ cheap labour and use environmentally damaging supplies.
Why do they use them?
Because they can maximize their production at a low price.
Why do they need to maximize their production at a low price?
Because of the massive demand.
Why is there a massive demand?
Because of over-consumption.
Our team was familiar with the concept of Ethical Fashion from the beginning, so such concepts as the above were not foreign to any of us, leading to simple and quick understanding of the situation at stake. Therefore, it became clear as the day why the clothing industry was in desperate need of innovation. With that in mind, we set out to create a presentation which involved a brief summary of the problems created by fast fashion, the 5 reasons that it is subject to renovation.
In short, through conversation and research, we decided to include the following factors contributing to our concern regarding the course that the garment industry has taken.
For starters, we all agreed that we didn’t want the workers’ rights to be violated, as cases of forced labour, sexual harassment, child labour and general abuse of human rights are a common occurrence in clothing factories belonging to the fast fashion industry. Furthermore, it ranks as the third most polluting industry on a worldwide scale, thus damaging the environment that we all live in.
On the opposite side of the board we have Ethical Fashion, which stems from the use of recycled material, ethically produced fabrics, humane working conditions and personal, small-scale effort, as opposed to the overproduction of major clothing corporations, which leads to an unfathomable amount of waste production.
Where to find us:
The rest of the team: Hara Papadatou, Glykeria Mirka Savvaidi
Source Materials:
