FAST-FASHION BEFORE AND AFTER THE RANA PLAZA COLLAPSE

According to the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development, fashion is the world's most polluting industry after the oil, the textile and apparel industry have received great attention from consumers all over the globe. The “giants” or in other words the biggest retails of clothing have started to incorporate sustainable policies in their supply chain, in order to reduce the harm to the earth. The sector with major implications in the pollution of the environment is the fast fashion sector. As I will explain in the first chapter of the research, fast fashion is a relatively new term that has gain popularity in the last 20 years thanks to the ability of renewing clothing collections each one or two weeks, instead of sticking with the four seasons (winter, autumn, summer, spring collections) stock. The fast fashion has clearly impacted the consumers buying habits, giving as a result great amounts of purchase of garments each week for a very low price. The increasing demand and quick response from the suppliers have led to an even bigger business, it is calculated that the production of garments globally is of one billion annually and the profits are of three trillion dollars per year. This non-stop development of the sector has led to different ways of managing the whole manufacturing process. The most efficient solution has been outsourcing the production, and the real benefits of taking the production overseas was found in some developing countries, from which most of them are located in Asia, especially in the regions of Bangladesh, Vietnam and Taiwan. The insatiable consumption has had its consequences. On the second chapter I will analyze the biggest disaster in fast fashion industry which took place on the year 2013, where more than one thousand of workers died while working in satisfying the retailers demand. This was considered the inflection point, and from there everything has changed. After three years not only the consumers but also the companies themselves, started gaining consciousness about the real threat the fast fashion was making to the planet. That is when the term sustainability gain participation in the business. As I will explain in the third chapter, sustainability is about leaving the least possible harm in the planet, and this means, utilizing bio raw materials to manufacture the garment, with the least hazardous possible chemicals to dye the piece of clothing, and the correct working conditions for the employees. It is a fact that awareness has grown over the last years, but the purpose of this research is to investigate if it is truth that the biggest business are contributing to the socio economic and environmental sustainability on the planet, and what type of participation they are having. The analysis is going to take as a reference the companies that participated in the Rana Plaza collapse to see their evolvement throughout the years and to understand the different impacts that it can have in different cultures, given that the companies are from different countries of origin.