Ethical Consumer

Ethical Consumer

Buyer's guide to sportswear

   

This is a free buyer's guide from Ethical Consumer, the UK's leading alternative consumer organisation. We research the social and environmental records of companies.

 

More detailed versions of this guide are available. See the links at the bottom of the page.

   

Best Buys as of July/August 2008
Best Buys logo


As our ratings are constantly updated, it is possible that company ratings on the ethiscore website may have changed since this report was written.


Clear Best Buys are from companies at the edge of the sportswear market such as Gossypium, Paramo and Patagonia.

Yogawear from Gossypium (0870 850 9953) scores best. Next best would be outdoor clothing suppliers Paramo (01892 786 444) and Patagonia (0800 026 00 55).

Of the mainstream brands, only Nike (0207 949 0359) produces organic sportswear (a small range for women).


Brand
Rating
Gossypium clothing [F,O]16
Paramo clothing14
Patagonia clothing [O,S]14
Patagonia clothing12
Slazenger sportswear10
Umbro Sportswear9
Asics sportswear8.5
Berghaus sportswear8.5
Ellesse sportswear8.5
Fila Sportswear8.5
Kappa sportswear8.5
New Balance sportswear8.5
Howies organic clothing [O]8
Nike organic sportswear [O]8
Howies clothing7
Nike sportswear7
Helly Hansen sportswear6.5
Adidas sportswear5
Reebok Sportswear5

The higher the rating the more ethical the brand. This whole scorecard was last updated from our database on 14 October 2009 but some individual company ratings may have changed since then. Up to the minute information can be seen by subscribers using Ethiscore.
Learn more about our ratings.

Striving to be the best?

Bryony Moore looks at the ethical performance of sportswear companies.

The Beijing Olympics 2008 runs from 8th to 24th August. The event will be rammed to the rafters with the world's finest sporting heroes fighting it out for the ultimate goal. But Beijing 08's slogan 'One World One Dream' may not sound true for the Chinese workers producing the athletes clothes. Other countries where sportswear is produced include Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, all of which are also on ECRA's current list of oppressive regimes.

Sportswear has been the target of human rights campaigners for some years now. In 2006, Oxfam wrote a report entitled 'Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia', which examined how sports brands were tackling the problem of sweatshops in their industry, with a particular focus on workers' freedom to form and join trade unions.

The Play Fair Alliance (which consists of Oxfam, the Clean Clothes Campaign, the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation) asked sportswear companies to adopt a Programme of Work in 2004, which set out concrete steps towards improvements in their supply chain. Four years later, the alliance has produced a follow up report 'Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to Improving Wages and Working Conditions in the Global Sportswear Industry'. Published this April, it has sought to identify solutions to these persistent workplace problems. It picks out three central hurdles which it says that, if not overcome, will inhibit the industry's ability to make real progress on other workers rights issues in the future:

  • Lack of respect for freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively;
  • Insecurity of employment caused by industry restructuring, and
  • Abuse of short-term labour contracting and other forms of precarious employment.

According to the Play Fair 08 campaign, sportswear brands tend to focus on issues that can be addressed without significantly altering profits or the cost of their products. So-called "cash standards", such as a living wage provision, are proving harder to establish, despite the fact that garment worker wages could be raised significantly without too much impact on profits. While industry leaders have been willing to take action in some cases to ensure that workers receive the legal minimum wage or prevailing industry wage, they have generally been unwilling to take steps to ensure that workers' wages are sufficient to meet basic needs.

Our scores table shows which companies have very good or poor supply chain policies, but some smaller, although still significant, details are not visible. For example, Timberland, Nike, Reebok and Puma are all now publishing a list of all factories which produce their clothes.(31) This is a big step for companies, and is a lead that other companies should be urged to follow.

It is also worth noting that, although they are clearly not saints, a 2006 report by The Ethical Trading Action Group on transparency in the clothing sector actually puts many sportswear companies ahead of fashion clothing companies, proving that it's not the worst performing area of the clothing sector.(32)


A step in the right direction?

Fair Labor Association

Adidas AG, ASICS corporation, Nike Inc., Patagonia, Puma AG and Umbro are all members of the Fair Labor Association. FLA is a multi-stakeholder initiative based in the USA which was set up to improve worker conditions in supplier factories. It requires a percentage of the company's factories to be independently monitored and the company nominates which factories take part.(4) The FLA code of conduct contains stipulations about the minimum age of employment (15, or 14 in certain countries), freedom of association and discrimination.

Working hours are limited to 48 hours a week with 12 hours overtime, except in "extraordinary circumstances". No definition of extraordinary circumstances is given however, so it is possible that workers are working longer hours. In addition, the code only guarantees payment of the minimum wage as required by law, not necessarily a living wage.

Ethical Trading Initiative

Pentland Group (who own Berghaus and Ellesse) is a member of the ETI.(5) Like the FLA, the ETI is a multi-stake holder initiative. The ETI has a Base Code, which it asks all member companies to adopt, and which is based on the International Labour Organisations' standards. The provisions are the same as those of the FLA, apart from a commitment to pay a living wage. ETI member companies are not required to meet Base Code standards before they join the Initiative, but just to work towards them afterwards.

While both of these initiatives leave a lot to be desired as far as provisions for workers are concerned, they do mark a positive move towards encouraging companies to be more open about conditions in their factories and working towards set targets for improvement.


Cotton

The extremely heavy use of pesticides in cotton production has long been a concern of environmental campaigners. These pesticides cause huge damage, not only to the environment, depleting soil and polluting water, but also to the mental and physical health of the cotton pickers and farmers. At least 20,000 people in the majority world die every year from poisoning by agricultural pesticides.(33) Farmers often struggle to afford high prices for pesticides and many have resorted to suicide as a result of spiralling debts. The adoption of organic growing methods for cotton is seen by campaigners as the only way to move forward, since it reduces pesticide damage to the environment, and helps companies move into greener, socially-responsible production. Small scale farmers in the majority world benefit from stable income, reduced spending on pesticides and better health.(34)

Nike has drawn praise from campaigners for pursuing a policy of blending organic cotton into its mainstream cotton range. It claims that in 2007/8 98% of all t-shirts sold contained a minimum of 5% organic cotton.


Alternative sportswear?

Nike produces a small range of organic sportswear for women. For people wanting to avoid mainstream multinational companies, we've included a couple of specialist outdoor/mountain clothing companies in this report: Paramo and Patagonia. If you can go fell running in their clothing, then there's no reason why it shouldn't work around a track or in a gym.

Páramo, primarily an outdoor and mountain gear supplier, claims to sell ‘environmentally friendly' products, which have been developed without using fluorocarbons, membranes, laminates or coatings.(26) Páramo's founder Nik Brown established an ethical production facility in Colombia, which works as part of a social program with the ‘Miquelina Foundation' and provides skills to women seeking an improvement in their lives.

Patagonia sells trail/fell running clothing. Its online catalogue shows that a significant proportion of the clothing on sale is labelled as having been made from organic cotton (63 items), and 40 items of clothing are labelled as having been made entirely from, or from a proportion of, recycled polyester.(27) The company takes back old garments for recycling, including some from other retailers.

The other option is to look for yogawear which has a number of specialist supplier companies using organic cotton. Furthermore any ordinary organic T-shirt – from M&S to Howies – will be fine for much sporting activity.

Gossypium is a long-time favourite at Ethical Consumer and produces organic and fairtrade cotton items of yogawear for women and t-shirts for men.

Howies produce merino wool base layers for running and cycling.


Price Comparison (ranked by average price for both items)

Average Prices
Brands Joggers Base Tops Both items
Gossypium (Best Buy) £18.95 £9.95 £14.45
Umbro £14.00 £17.23 £15.61
Reebok £16.00 £15.50 £15.75
Slazenger £18.00 £15.00 £16.50
Kappa £16.00 £20.00 £18.00
New Balance £23.50 £15.85 £19.67
Asics £22.40 £17.00 £19.70
Puma £23.60 £16.00 £19.80
Nike £22.75 £18.34 £20.54
Adidas £21.50 £21.00 £21.25
Helly Hansen £24.85 £22.45 £23.65
Berghaus £19.00 £41.25 £30.12
Patagonia (Best Buy) £42.00 £25.50 £33.75
Paramo (Best Buy) £42.34 £26.67 £34.50
Howies £75.00 £30.00 £52.50
Ellesse n/a £12.99 n/a
Fila £10.00 n/a n/a

Links




References

3 Clearing the Hurdles :Steps to Improving Wages and Working Conditions in the Global Sportswear Industry, Play Fair 2008, page 5 4 www.fairlabor.org viewed 23/05/2008 5 www.ethicaltrade.org list of member companies, viewed 23/052008 6 Clean Clothes Campaign newsletter:23 (May 2007) (504094) 7 www.cleanclothes.org/companies/kappa.htm 10 International Defence Directory:International Defence Directory (1 January 2007) (502724) 11 Oxfam International:Offside! Labour Rights and sportswear production in Asia (24 May 2006) (292276) 13 Meyn Food Processing Solutions B.V. Corporate Communications:www.meyn.nl (29 April 2008) (522368) 17 No medal for the Olympics on Labour Rights (10 June 2007) (504512) 18 Innovative Minds Boycott Israel website www.inminds.co.uk:www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#companies (May 2008) (523347) 19 Boston Herald Online:New Balance uses Chinese Sweatshop (7 January 2006) (281683) 22 Chicago Tribune:Nike pays $7.6 million to settle Chicago discrimination suit (30 July 2007) (507760) 26 Paramo Ltd Corporate Communications:Email from Paramo manager (21 January 2008) (520159) 27 www.patagonia.com (13 May 2008) 30 China Labor Watch:Puma Supplier's unchanged dreadful conditions (Taiway Sports Inc. investigation follow-up) (March 20 (523220) 31 Revealing Clothing: Transparency Report Card 2006, Ethical Trading Action Group, 2006 32 Revealing Clothing: Transparency Report Card 2006, Ethical Trading Action Group, 2006 33 www.pan-uk.org/News/Press%20Release/cotlaunc.htm 04/06/2008 34 www.pan-uk.org/News/Press%20Release/cotlaunc.htm 04/06/2008



   

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2 comments so far...

Re: Buyer's guide to sportswear

So Nike gets the best rating for supply chain policxy! just goes to show bad publicity really works to change company behaviour. But everyone I know would avoid nike like the plague becuase of past scandals - maybe we need a Buy-cot Nike campaign!

By Dan on   25/08/2008 16:50

Re: Buyer's guide to sportswear

Taking just a quick look at your rating, I find it really weird ; this is the industry I work for and from what I know, I couldn't explain Howies getting a 7 or Patagonia a 11.5, when Le Coq Sportif gets a 11 for instance. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. I'm gonna check your full corporate investigations to understand.

By Eric Dargent on   11/11/2008 19:57

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