Check how ethical your fave fashion brands really are with this app
The Good on You app allows consumers to make informed choices about which brands to support based on their ethical practices.
The fashion industry has a very poor track record when it comes to the rights of garment workers and the impact that clothing manufacturing has on the environment.
Fashion is the second most polluting industry in the world, with only fossil fuel production having a more detrimental impact on the planet. It creates more greenhouse gasses than the shipping and aviation industries combined. Plastics from synthetic fibers and toxic chemicals from dyeing garments pollute our oceans, and mass-produced fast fashion spills out of landfills around the world.
Garment workers in Bangladesh, India, China, Sri Lanka and Mynamar often work impossibly long hours and are paid starvation wages that are impossible to live on. The vast majority of people who manufacture clothes are female, and they are routinely subjected to physical, sexual and verbal abuse.
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We know that the fashion industry has a lot to answer for, but trawling through pleasant-sounding codes of ethics on retailers websites can be incredibly confusing.
What theyre saying sounds good, but what does it actually mean?
The Good On You app offers a practical solution. You simply type in the name of a brand and the app provides you with accessible information about the companys true practices when it comes to environmental protections, labour rights and animal welfare.
If youre strapped for time, simply scroll to the bottom of the page for a rating and summary.
2,000 brands have already been rated, and an estimated 150,000 consumers use the tool every month.
The app considers the impact each brand has on workers across the supply chain, including child labour and forced labour practices, the payment of a living wage, health and safety and the right of workers to join a union if they wish to.
With respect to the environment, a retailers carbon emissions, use and disposal of chemicals and impact on water are all taken into consideration. Good On You can also be trusted to identify whether a brand uses animal skin or hair in their products.
As well as understanding the ethical practices of the fashion retailers you currently buy from, you can also find Good On You-approved brands with high ethical ratings that you might not have heard of before. If you want to give your shopping habits a complete overhaul, this app will suggest plenty of new, more sustainable alternatives.
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Good On You was born in Sydney in 2013, as the brainchild of Gordon Renouf and Sandra Capponi, two professionals with expertise in consumer advocacy and corporate social responsibility. They were speaking to people who wanted to buy better but didnt know how, because the information available to them was often confusing and contradictory.
Renouf and Capponi started by pulling together all the publicly available information they could find to create a consumer tool that people could easily use.
Good On You co-founder and Head of Development Sandra Capponi told Metro.co.uk: Many of us are now aware of the huge impact the fashion industry has on people and our planet and want to do something about it. However, it can be too hard to make sense of all the issues and to know whats actually going on behind the scenes of the major labels.
We created Good On You to make it really easy for people to know how well a brand is doing and to shop for fashion that fits their values. Shoppers use Good On You to check ethical ratings for over 2000 fashion brands and discover new brands that do good, as well as look good.
We believe theres a huge opportunity to tap into the power of shoppers – thats each and everyone one of us – and to change the industry to be more sustainable and fair.
Brands will always try to make themselves sound as pure as possible to consumers, but we deserve to know what our money is supporting when we buy a new top or pair of jeans.
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Good On You provides much-needed transparency to an industry where murky supply chains and lack of brand accountability can make it very difficult to be completely sure whats going on behind the label.
You can download Good On You from the App Store or on Google Play.
MORE: Feminist in name only: How feminist clothing companies are failing their workers
MORE: Addressing wastefulness in our shopping habits could help save the planet
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