Speaker 1: It's the big tape from Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm West Cassova today. How can you tell if that
Speaker 1: new pair of jeans you just bought is made with
Speaker 1: forced labor? The rapid rise of fast fashion has created
Speaker 1: a bottomless global appetite for trendy clothes that are so
Speaker 1: cheap you can wear him a few times, shove him
Speaker 1: in the back of a drawer, and go buy some
Speaker 1: more without giving it a thought. Today's show is all
Speaker 1: about why you might want to give a little thought
Speaker 1: to what you're buying and how it's made. My colleague
Speaker 1: Shared in Presso is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg. She
Speaker 1: set out to find where the cotton enclosed from one
Speaker 1: of the world's biggest brands really comes from. And she's
Speaker 1: with me now, Shared And, thanks so much for being here. Hi,
Speaker 1: thank you. You've written a big investigation of a large
Speaker 1: retailer called she And. Can you tell us about this company? So?
Speaker 1: She And is based in China. It is the largest
Speaker 1: online only retailer in the world. It's valuation earlier this
Speaker 1: year became greater than H and M and Zara combined.
Speaker 1: So it's one of the most valuable startups in the
Speaker 1: entire world, and it doesn't really have Althose had a
Speaker 1: couple of pop up stores, it doesn't really have that
Speaker 1: kind of brick and mortar you walk into a store
Speaker 1: and make purchases. You go exclusively online really to buy
Speaker 1: she and products, and they don't really have to rely
Speaker 1: on the model of selling in retail stores. They can
Speaker 1: just appeal to people through social media, TikTok everywhere like that,
Speaker 1: and that's how people through the whole social media phenomenon
Speaker 1: have gotten to know the company, especially in America. So
Speaker 1: with a fast fashion company, the clothes are changing all
Speaker 1: the time and they're relatively inexpensive, so you can just
Speaker 1: buy them and buy them and buy them without doing
Speaker 1: too much thinking. That's right. It is kind of the
Speaker 1: leader now in what's called fast fashion, where they turn
Speaker 1: out a lot of fun, fast designs that kind of
Speaker 1: pop out quickly and also fade very quickly. They're not
Speaker 1: necessarily very well made. They fade quickly or fall apart quickly,
Speaker 1: but that's okay because they're not in fashion for very long.
Speaker 1: They just are kind of, you know, flash in the pan,
Speaker 1: and then they're sort of meant to be disposable in
Speaker 1: a way. And this company has risen very quickly to
Speaker 1: become super popular, and they sell clothes all around the world.
Speaker 1: So their global business is about five billion dollars total.
Speaker 1: About a third of that eight billion dollars a year
Speaker 1: is estimated to be in the United States. Now, why
Speaker 1: did you take a look at this company? What interested
Speaker 1: you about them? So for a long time? Because she
Speaker 1: is from China operates in China. They have been accused
Speaker 1: of using labor from the western region of China called
Speaker 1: shin Jang, And this would be a big deal because
Speaker 1: China's harsh treatment of millions of weaker Muslims who live
Speaker 1: in Jinjiang has been all over the news. The United
Speaker 1: States and other Western countries have accused China of repressing
Speaker 1: and imprisoning leaguers and other ethnic minorities, and they also
Speaker 1: accused them of carrying out a policy of forced labor,
Speaker 1: including harvesting cotton. China should say strongly denies this now
Speaker 1: because roughly of China's cotton comes from that region, any
Speaker 1: retailer that is using cotton from China is essentially thought
Speaker 1: to be using the product of forced labor. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the US government passed a law last year. It was
Speaker 1: a regulation became a law this year, basically banning all
Speaker 1: products from Shinjang. President Biden has passed a new law
Speaker 1: banning goods from China's in Young Region unless companies can
Speaker 1: prove they aren't made with spots labor. China's and ounced
Speaker 1: retaliate wory sanctions against US officials and a Canadian lawmaker
Speaker 1: as the row over alleged human rights abuses in Jinjiang
Speaker 1: escalates the sanction individual. But the accusation against she and
Speaker 1: is of course, because there is so much of Chinese
Speaker 1: cotton supply comes from Shinjang. It has to be from there,
Speaker 1: but no one was ever able to prove it before.
Speaker 1: So since the law was passed, I decided, well, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a way to test it and find out for sure.
Speaker 1: How did you go about doing that? I originally wanted
Speaker 1: to try to find a laboratory that would do this
Speaker 1: kind of testing, and I tried one big name in
Speaker 1: the industry is based in the UK. I tried them first.
Speaker 1: They're called Rattine. I contacted or attain. At first they
Speaker 1: seemed receptive to doing the test, and then after a
Speaker 1: little while they came back to me, and they said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, never mind, we are now under contract
Speaker 1: with she and and it would be a conflict of
Speaker 1: interest now to test it, are you? So then it
Speaker 1: took me a little while longer. I found another testing
Speaker 1: lab in Germany. That lab said we can test it
Speaker 1: for you if you can obtain a sample of cotton
Speaker 1: from Shinjang, we can do a matching test whether it
Speaker 1: matches or not. And once that company agreed to do
Speaker 1: the testing for us, I went online, ordered some Shin products,
Speaker 1: obtain a sample of cotton from Shinjang, and sent both
Speaker 1: of those to the laboratory in Germany. And where did
Speaker 1: you find? The way that the lab works is they
Speaker 1: test the ratios of three elements. They test carbon, oxygen,
Speaker 1: and hydrogen. The ratios of those isotopes in the cotton
Speaker 1: fibers can tell you where the cotton was grown. So
Speaker 1: it's unlike DNA testing. DNA testing will tell you the
Speaker 1: origin for example someone's you know, DNA will tell them
Speaker 1: that I have European ancestry, for example, but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell you that I grew up in America. So cotton
Speaker 1: ice tip testing does tell you where the cotton grew up.
Speaker 1: Because it's measuring the levels of oxygen, for example, that
Speaker 1: can tell you the altitude at which the cotton was grown,
Speaker 1: or for example, the amount of water that was used,
Speaker 1: the fertilizer that was in the soil, contents of the
Speaker 1: soil as well. So when you do that kind of
Speaker 1: ratio testing, you get something that's like a fingerprint. So
Speaker 1: a fingerprint has like a seven point match or nine
Speaker 1: point match somebody like that. You can do the same
Speaker 1: thing with these ice tip ratios in the cotton fibers.
Speaker 1: And so you sent it off. They gave you this
Speaker 1: lab test, and the lab test said the she and
Speaker 1: cotton matched the Shinjang cotton within a range that tells
Speaker 1: us that it does come from Shinjang. And now is
Speaker 1: that true in each of the pieces of clothing that
Speaker 1: you sent the lab to be tested. So I originally
Speaker 1: sent six different garments over the course of a couple
Speaker 1: of months earlier this year. It found that one of
Speaker 1: the items that I had sent turned out not to
Speaker 1: be cotton. After all I thought it was. It was
Speaker 1: a T shirt. It looked like cotton. I should have
Speaker 1: checked it more carefully before sending it. Another one was
Speaker 1: more of a blend. It had cotton mixed with something
Speaker 1: else and couldn't be determined. So four out of the
Speaker 1: six were definitely within the range of Shinjen cotton. So
Speaker 1: in addition to testing to get a fingerprint to match
Speaker 1: to the sample, they can also match it to other
Speaker 1: samples that they have from other countries. So, for example,
Speaker 1: they have a fingerprint already from cotton that comes from Egypt,
Speaker 1: and from the United States, and from Turkey and Africa
Speaker 1: and other places they grow cotton. And what they determined
Speaker 1: is with nine accuracy that cotton definitely doesn't come from
Speaker 1: any other of those places, and it even does not
Speaker 1: come from another region of China called Shandong, where they
Speaker 1: also grew cotton. So it's it really does. All of
Speaker 1: the evidence points to Snjang as the origin. You said
Speaker 1: within arrange. What does arrange mean. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: like an opinion poll where there's a plus or minus
Speaker 1: one or two percent margin of error. But it is
Speaker 1: virtually certain that this cotton comes from Shinjang. My conversation
Speaker 1: with shared In Prasso continues after the break. Shared In
Speaker 1: you found through your testing that this cotton almost certainly
Speaker 1: came from Shinjang. What did she in the company say
Speaker 1: when you brought them this evidence? So she and gave
Speaker 1: us a statement in which they didn't deny that their
Speaker 1: cotton comes from Shinjang, And then they also said that
Speaker 1: they have these audits of their supply liars and they
Speaker 1: ensure that all of their suppliers adhere to international standards
Speaker 1: of labor. So the interesting thing about that is that
Speaker 1: because the Chinese government doesn't consider that their work programs
Speaker 1: that they are essentially forcing people from Shenjang to participate
Speaker 1: in the Chinese government says that does not constitute force labor.
Speaker 1: Then therefore there's no way that their suppliers could be
Speaker 1: in violation of international labor standards. She and is in
Speaker 1: a different position because if they admit that their cotton
Speaker 1: comes from Shinjang, they obviously risk a consumer bath clash.
Speaker 1: If they deny that any of it comes from Sinjang,
Speaker 1: they risk angering the Chinese government. And in previous instances,
Speaker 1: a group of concerned nationalists who were supported by the
Speaker 1: Chinese government organized a boycott of H and M in
Speaker 1: China because H and M said that they were no
Speaker 1: longer going to use cotton from Sinjang, for example. So
Speaker 1: she AND is kind of between a rock and her place.
Speaker 1: But she AND didn't say that the cotton came from
Speaker 1: some place else. No, she didn't deny that the cotton
Speaker 1: comes from Shinjang. Now she AND is a big company,
Speaker 1: and they're making a lot of clothing, but they're not
Speaker 1: the only fast fashion brand or branding general that's using
Speaker 1: cotton from all around the world. Are there other companies
Speaker 1: in a similar position. So, because most of the brick
Speaker 1: and mortar retailers in the United States chip their clothing
Speaker 1: in bulk, they are subjected to reporting requirements from U
Speaker 1: S Customs and Border Protection. So any time a big
Speaker 1: retailers ships in a container of clothing from China or
Speaker 1: from anywhere in the world, they have to disclose the origin,
Speaker 1: the value, the weight, all kinds of things for customs declarations.
Speaker 1: All these clothing heading into stores physical stories that you
Speaker 1: walk into exactly. And so what we've been seeing is
Speaker 1: a lot of the US retailers have now shifted. If
Speaker 1: you go into GAP and you look at some of
Speaker 1: the clothing labels, where does their clothing come from? You
Speaker 1: see places more and more India, Turkey, Bangladesh, things like that,
Speaker 1: other places that are now bigger suppliers of clothing than
Speaker 1: they were in the past. And she and However, because
Speaker 1: they ship only online, they send you your items that
Speaker 1: you order in a package of plain white Polly envelope
Speaker 1: that doesn't say she in on it. It arrives in
Speaker 1: the mail like you know, your Amazon package, just like
Speaker 1: anything else that is not subject to US customs declarations,
Speaker 1: and therefore it is slipping under the radar. The U
Speaker 1: S Customs Department does not have enough people too. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's two point seven million such packages every
Speaker 1: day arrive into the United States. I guess that raised
Speaker 1: the question is there anything that the US government or
Speaker 1: other governments are going to try to do about this?
Speaker 1: You mentioned a law earlier about this very thing. Can
Speaker 1: you describe what it is? So? The Weird Forced Labor
Speaker 1: Protection Act was passed in December of last year. It
Speaker 1: went into full force in June. Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern says,
Speaker 1: if you bought something manufactured in a specific region of
Speaker 1: northwest China, there's a good chance at least part of
Speaker 1: it was made with slave labor. It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: illegal for us to be able to uh utilize products
Speaker 1: and that were the result of slave labor, and yet
Speaker 1: the Chinese government is cleverly found ways around it. What
Speaker 1: we can say, I guess is that because of the
Speaker 1: way that the Chinese government has been treating the weaker people, essentially,
Speaker 1: the US government considers that all products, anything that's made
Speaker 1: from shinjang, anything that comes from Shinjang, is the result
Speaker 1: of forced labor. Since the implementation of that law, we
Speaker 1: have seen over a thousand shipments detained or confiscated or
Speaker 1: held up in costs ums while the importers are being
Speaker 1: asked for more information. Those are bulk shipments that are
Speaker 1: being stopped. However, she and garments can continue to come
Speaker 1: in because they come in by mail, and they come
Speaker 1: in at a value that's less than what's required to
Speaker 1: trigger reporting. They are still subject to US laws, but
Speaker 1: the ability for the Customs Department or the U S
Speaker 1: Mail to police those and to actually stop illegal stuff
Speaker 1: coming in, which shinjen cotton is now illegal to import
Speaker 1: into the United States, That means the stuff can still
Speaker 1: get in because it's coming in under the radar. Is
Speaker 1: there any movement now in Congress or with the Biden
Speaker 1: administration to do something about this. Earlier this year, there
Speaker 1: was a proposal that was passed as part of well
Speaker 1: ultimately became the Bipartisan Innovation Act. There was a bill
Speaker 1: in the House measure of the House version of that
Speaker 1: Act to try to require all shipments from China to
Speaker 1: requ our customs declarations, and that would have effectively required
Speaker 1: she and to be more transparent about what they're shipping
Speaker 1: to the US, she And and everybody else, including packages
Speaker 1: that are carried by Amazon. It would trigger a lot
Speaker 1: of reporting requirements for UPS and FedEx and everybody else.
Speaker 1: So that measure was not contained in the Senate version,
Speaker 1: and the version that ultimately passed didn't carry that provision.
Speaker 1: But there are some people in Congress who would like
Speaker 1: to see anything that gets shipped from China to carry
Speaker 1: a requirement for customs inspection and declaration. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: note that China requires any items valued at more than
Speaker 1: seven dollars to be reported to their customs, so they're
Speaker 1: putting greater scrutiny on goods coming in than the United States.
Speaker 1: Is goods from China coming to the US absolutely shared
Speaker 1: in press. Thanks so much for joining me today. My pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So, how can you tell if the clothes
Speaker 1: that you're buying are coming from a good place? The
Speaker 1: answer to that question after the break, Aisha Baron Black
Speaker 1: joins me now from San Francisco. She is the founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of Remick, which is a company that advocates
Speaker 1: for fair pay and safe working conditions in the clothing industry.
Speaker 1: I should thank so much for being here. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me, West, I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 1: I shall. We've been talking about the origins of cotton
Speaker 1: that is used in a lot of fast fashion items
Speaker 1: and how some of it is coming from Xin Jang
Speaker 1: in China, and what a big problem that is. You
Speaker 1: look at this all the time, the origins of the
Speaker 1: materials that are used in clothing. How are you able
Speaker 1: to find out whether the cotton and other materials used
Speaker 1: in clothing is coming from good sources or not? You know, West,
Speaker 1: this is such an important and complex question, which is
Speaker 1: exactly why I found it Remake. You know, after spending
Speaker 1: two decades working on the inside of the fashion industry,
Speaker 1: I wanted everyday people to have an understanding of who's
Speaker 1: making their clothes, where are they coming from what are
Speaker 1: the human and environmental impacts, And the only way to
Speaker 1: do it is really to come to independent watchdog organizations
Speaker 1: like ours that are looking at realms and reams of
Speaker 1: public information to a short traceability, because when it comes
Speaker 1: to the fashion industry, the supply chain is so fragmented.
Speaker 1: The only thing that your label shows is where the
Speaker 1: final product was made, you know, not where the zips,
Speaker 1: not where the buttons, certainly not all the way up
Speaker 1: to the cotton supply chain. And so outside of really
Speaker 1: trying to arm people with an understanding of these impacts,
Speaker 1: a lot of the work that we do on the
Speaker 1: back end is regulatory reform and getting governments to really
Speaker 1: pay attention because it really is hard for us to
Speaker 1: rely on mark based solutions to address some of these
Speaker 1: human rights violations, like product coming from forced labor in
Speaker 1: the shin Gen region. As I was just speaking to
Speaker 1: share it in Presso who says that the rise of
Speaker 1: fast fashion means people want clothes quickly, they want them cheap,
Speaker 1: and they don't care as much how long they're gonna last.
Speaker 1: Fast fashion is built on a model of overproduction with
Speaker 1: the reliance on fossil fuel. Today we are making upwards
Speaker 1: of a hundred billion units of clothes when we don't
Speaker 1: even have eight billion people on the planet. And because
Speaker 1: fashion is made in such a throwaway fashion, most clothes
Speaker 1: are thrown away within the first day of production. And
Speaker 1: so the environmental impacts of this some massive. You know,
Speaker 1: fashion today emits upwards of four percent of carbon emissions.
Speaker 1: That's more than the entire economies of France, Germany, and
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom combined. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: we look at in our accountabile anty ratings for companies
Speaker 1: is brand's own professed goals when it comes to science
Speaker 1: based targets to address their climate impacts. And because of
Speaker 1: this overproduction, there are nowhere close to meeting those climate targets.
Speaker 1: And then there's the human side, right, this is an
Speaker 1: industry that hires upwards of seventy million people, mostly women
Speaker 1: of color, that work in humane hours, making poverty wages
Speaker 1: not enough to live in because of the pace of production.
Speaker 1: So fashion really is one of the biggest climate and
Speaker 1: gender justice issues of our time because of this reliance
Speaker 1: on ultra cheap, throw away goods. So here I am,
Speaker 1: I'm a consumer. I have a lot of choices of
Speaker 1: where I can buy my clothes. I want to do
Speaker 1: the right thing to make sure that the origins of
Speaker 1: the cotton and other materials came from a good place,
Speaker 1: that the people who made the clothes are being well
Speaker 1: paid and not mistreated. How in the world am I
Speaker 1: supposed to actually know whether or not my clothes I
Speaker 1: can feel good about them? You know, Wes, I have
Speaker 1: so much empathy for the average person trying to understand
Speaker 1: what's in their food, what's in their clothes, because this
Speaker 1: becomes very complex, very quickly. And so this is the
Speaker 1: founding story of Remake. You know, on our website Remake
Speaker 1: dot world, you can come and visit and know that
Speaker 1: as an industry watchdog, we take no money from the
Speaker 1: industry and we are really here to arm you as
Speaker 1: everyday people, to come to our side. Look up your
Speaker 1: favorite brands and see the human rights records, their environmental impacts.
Speaker 1: And we also make it very easy for everyday people
Speaker 1: to write to their favorite brands, to engage with them
Speaker 1: and say hey, I need you to do better. So
Speaker 1: on your website you can go and look up brands
Speaker 1: and you can see actually an accountability score. How are
Speaker 1: you actually measuring this? So the way that we measure
Speaker 1: brands and retailers, all your beloved companies, whether Gap or
Speaker 1: Levi's a Walmart. We look at first of all, traceability,
Speaker 1: you know, how much is the brand telling us all
Speaker 1: the way down to the farm where the product is made.
Speaker 1: We then look at wages and well being to make
Speaker 1: sure that the people behind the product are moving towards
Speaker 1: making a pay that would assure life of dignity. We
Speaker 1: also take a really hard look at commercial practices because
Speaker 1: so much of how quickly and how cheaply a brand
Speaker 1: wants products results in the impacts that we're contending with.
Speaker 1: You know, as we were earlier, talking raw materials has
Speaker 1: become increasingly important because we want fashion to divest from
Speaker 1: using fossil fuel, but also assuring that when it comes
Speaker 1: to the cotton supply chain, it's not made with forced labor.
Speaker 1: We also look at environmental justice concerns. You know, are
Speaker 1: they looking at responsible transitions? Are they greenwashing? Are they
Speaker 1: actually reducing their overall climate impacts? And finally we look
Speaker 1: at governance. You know, is this a racially diverse makeup
Speaker 1: at the board level, at a management level, is this
Speaker 1: company really look across all of these things? Because we
Speaker 1: think that is the best way to really push for
Speaker 1: a more sustainable and ethical industry. Okay, so I want
Speaker 1: to go buy a pair of jeans? How do I
Speaker 1: go about doing it so that I can feel good
Speaker 1: about the thing that I ultimately buy. So first I'd say,
Speaker 1: do you wes do you really need another pair of jeans?
Speaker 1: How many pairs of jeans do you have? Have you
Speaker 1: looked in your closet lately? Perhaps there might be something
Speaker 1: sitting at the back there that you can bring back out,
Speaker 1: Because the best thing we can do is really do
Speaker 1: not consume as much. Then if you say, hey, I
Speaker 1: should in the pandemic, you know, I perhaps put on
Speaker 1: a few pounds that really do need to buy another
Speaker 1: pair of jeans? My next question would be is there
Speaker 1: a local consignment shop in your neighborhood that you could
Speaker 1: visit and you could buy something secondhand? Because again going
Speaker 1: back to that hundred billion number, we're simply buying too
Speaker 1: many clothes. We have too many pairs of jeans, So
Speaker 1: could you buy it secondhand? And then if you come
Speaker 1: back to say no, absolutely not, I want something that's new,
Speaker 1: then you can look in our directory. There are smaller
Speaker 1: companies like a newdy Jeans that is really committed to
Speaker 1: living wages, to repair, to keeping their clothes in circulation longer.
Speaker 1: So you could shop with some of the smaller sustainable brands.
Speaker 1: So those would be the three steps. Do you really
Speaker 1: need it? Can you buy it secondhand? If you cannot,
Speaker 1: can you do a smaller company that's really trying to
Speaker 1: be a disruptor in this space? I share Baron Blood.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been a pleasure. You can read shared
Speaker 1: Impresso's story about Sheen on Bloomberg dot com. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to us here at the Big Tech. It's the
Speaker 1: daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: shows from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio
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Speaker 1: West Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another big take.