Blog Post 2 – Themes
Better Lives has made me think a lot about social responsibility within sustainability. More specifically when taken in the context of fashion. Through the various lectures, the topic of consumer habits came up a lot. The lecturer showed us graphs and patterns which showed us how consumer habits have a great impact on the environment and how it’s up to us to take the first step in order to change/break these habits. Before these lectures, I was in denial of the fact that my shopping habits may have had an effect on the environment, or maybe I knew but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. Big companies like H&M, Topshop, Zara, and many more are mass producers of cheap products and use toxic materials to produce them which not only damages the environment but also creates an unsafe work environment for factory employers which produce and manufacture their clothes. I remember seeing a video a few years back from a factory that manufactures clothes for H&M collapsing and so many employees got injured. It scared me but I had never really understood that I was just as guilty as these big fashion companies which are fans of mass production, as I was giving them money by buying their clothes and giving them the opportunity to keep manufacturing their products the way they do. The Better Lives Lectures opened my eyes to a whole other part of fashion that I was completely oblivious to. I intend to carry on the theme of sustainability and social responsibility throughout my studies and making my part in breaking the cycle of consumer habits. Although, I do acknowledge that this might not be easy for everyone due to the fact that companies like H&M sell their products at very low prices and many people may have the option to stop buying from these big mass producing companies. This made me realize that there is a whole in the fashion market; we are missing rands that are economically friendly as well as environmentally friendly in order to reak consumer habits and do our part to help the environment. Sustainability and social responsibility are two of themes that have stayed with me the most throughout this Better Lives experience and I will continue to carry them on through my studies y incorporating them in my future projects when doing rand analysis or even in my personal life when I am looking to buy new products I will conduct my research before feeding an industry that is harmful to the environment.