If I were the Director of Sustainability at Bestseller… by Ejiro Ohwodo

I love fashion. I love to play with all-over prints and bright colours that probably hurt other people’s eyes. I love to envision in how many different ways I can wear one piece and with what outfit it could go well. One of my greatest treasures is my bomber jack with an all-over floral print which I bought in my hometown in The Netherlands about a year ago. For my sustainability class, I decided to map this jacket. This means I was required to traced back how it was made and how it ended up in the shop where I got it.

The jacket is from ONLY, a fashion brand owned by Bestseller. Bestseller is a Danish clothing company that owns 12 different fashion brands. Shops are located in almost all European countries, Canada, the Middle East, China and India. These stores either sell one brand or several brands of Bestseller. It’s not considered a fast fashion brand like H&M or Zara but rather as a “boutique” that targets middle-class women and men.

I worked for ONLY for a while and my managers would often talk about how sustainable the brand was. However, whenever I asked about it, the only thing they could mention was that sewers in the production factories were paid fairly. I would always ask myself how they claim to be a “very sustainable” brand if they couldn’t really explain to their employees what makes them so sustainable?

When I mapped my jacket, I found out that all raw materials such as non-organic cotton, and ingredients to make polyester, elastane and dyes are obtained in India, Bangladesh and Cambodia. My jacket is made out of polyester and elastane was produced in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Raw materials were processed into polyester and elastane and dyed with a regular dyeing method that uses a lot of water. In India, for example, the textile industry uses 425,000,000 gallons of water daily. Next, the finished fibres and zippers are sent to another factory in Phnom Penh by truck where sewers make the garments. Then, for Europe, the pieces are either shipped or flown to Egypt and it’s imported to Denmark by ship. From Denmark, trucks transport the goods to a logistics centre in the east of The Netherlands. Finally, it’s transported on last time to the ONLY shop in my hometown. I was shocked how much kilometres it travelled before I bought it; however, I wasn’t surprised as I had been suspicious for a while.

It reminded me of the guest lecture by dr. Chandu Visweswariah I attended a while ago. The president and CEO of Utopus Insights, an independent energy analytics company that develops software products that convert renewable energy sources into more predictable, reliable and cost-effective sources of power, talked about how temperatures have been rising since the 1950s because of the amount of trapped heat and CO² in the air and in the oceans, caused by factories, vehicles, etc. He mentioned that 80% of the global warming is caused by the CO²emissions from the energy sector and 20% comes are non-CO² emissions from agriculture. Also, 17 of the hottest years were the last 17 years with 2016 being the hottest year ever.

So, let’s say Bestseller seriously wants to become sustainable and is looking for a Director of Sustainability. Let’s say that person happens to be me. What would I do? What could I change? 

First of all, I would implement some of the solutions dr. Visweswariah mentioned during his presentation such as solar and wind power, and electric vehicles. I would replace the use of gas in the factories in Cambodia with solar power as the sun shines about 250 hours per month. I would also replace trucks by electric trucks in Cambodia. When the goods get distributed around the world, Bestseller should use electric trains where possible. 

Secondly, I would stop the production of new polyester, nylon and elastane fibres and only allow the use of recycled materials to reduce CO² emissions, water waste and a part of the garments that would end up in a landfill, get it be used again. I would also encourage the company to use organic cotton instead of regular cotton and to dye fabrics with the solution dyeing method to, once again, reduce water waste.

Lastly, I would create a program to educate the Bestseller staff and the staff working at the different brands worldwide. People often don’t exactly know what sustainability is or why it’s so important because they lack knowledge on this subject. By educating the staff, they know why certain changes are made, they understand the vision that the I, the Director of Sustainability, have for the company and they can educate the customers better on this subject.