One of the report’s authors,Sarah Knop,advocacy manager at Baptist World Aid,said the 75-year prediction was modelled on the progress made towards paying a living wage by 25 fashion companies,and applying the rate of change more broadly across 120 of the Australian industry’s biggest players. A living wage,which varies by region according to internationally recognised standards,covers what a worker needs for food,housing,healthcare and clothing,as well as some discretionary income. It is not a minimum wage.
Of the 25 companies surveyed,several,including Kmart and Lululemon,were singled out for the progress they had made on improving workers’ rights since the Rana Plaza tragedy on April 24,2013. Companies included in the report that can show evidence of paying a living wage in at least at some of their factories included Cue and Patagonia,though neither brand factored in the “most improved” list.
Knop says the data highlights the complexity of supply chains,and the need to avoid labelling companies as simply “good” or “bad”. She says the results for Kmart,despite it operating on a high-volume,low-cost model,which poses its own set of sustainability issues,showed it has made major improvements in some areas of transparency,but its overall score,just 57 out of 100 in the 2022 survey,meant it still had a lot of work to do.
A Kmart Australia spokeswoman said the company was pleased it had made some progress but “we will never be complacent about our responsibility to always improve”.
Knop says the survey “doesn’t mean if a company that scores the highest that consumers should go buy from them”.
“Consumers are waking up that if you can buy a T-shirt for the price you can buy a coffee,something is wrong with our fashion system and the way we attribute value to clothing,” she says.