The Big Issue

This week saw another first for Pier32 - our debut appearance in The Big Issue magazine. The idea was first suggested to us by the delightful and charming Jenny Bryan who came to visit us at UK Aware earlier this year (another Pier32 debut event). As anyone who has seen the article will already know, we have an excellent relationship with The Big Issue Foundation and have supplied them consistently for over 5 years now. In fact, we had a quick check through our archives and discovered we did our first Big Issue job back in 2004. At the time of writing this entry, our Big Issue article and advertisement is still in the current issue available from your local vendor, the Big Issue week runs from Monday to Sunday. You can find us on page 34 (although we may not appear in all regional variations).

Now for an introduction. Rob Wickings - you can find him on Twitter as @Conojito - will be joining the Pier32 team and writing regular blog entries for us on a wide range of varying and relevant issues. Over to you, Rob...
 

Festival Volunteering - Guest Blog

Today's entry has been kindly provided by Hotbox Events and DC Site Services - two great customers of our ethical clothing range which they use as uniforms for their staff, stewards and volunteers...

The festival season is one of the highlights of the British summer and no other country provides such an eclectic mix of events. The festival industry is growing from strength to strength with new events arriving on the scene and established festivals increasing capacity. Large festivals need a lot of staff to keep the cogs turning and the growth in the industry is great news for event staff and volunteers.

If you've never been to a festival before - or even if you're a seasoned veteran - working or volunteering at a festival can add a whole new side to the experience. Our friends at PAAM have put together a comprehensive guide to working and volunteering at festivals. So, what's it all about?

Festival Volunteering.

If you choose to volunteer at a music festival you’ll typically work a lot less hours than the paid staff and you’ll also receive a host of other benefits. It’ll probably come as music to many festival goers’ ears that volunteers get to camp in a dedicated staff area with separate toilets and showers! Although you don’t get paid you’re free to enjoy the festival when not working a shift. Hotbox Events provides volunteers to festivals including Latitude, Reading, Leeds and Big Chill. In return for a ticket, staff camping and all the other benefits you’ll need to work three eight hour shifts. You can apply for festival volunteering positions with Hotbox Events.

Festival Staff (Paid Positions).

Working at Festivals with a company such as DC Site Services means you’ll earn money by working at some of the biggest music festivals in the UK. DC Site Services provide stewards and staff to the majority of music festivals in the UK including Glastonbury, Latitude, Reading, Leeds, T4 On The Beach, Green Man Festival, Electric Picnic and Proms in the Park. With such a large range of events on their calendar there is a real opportunity to work for pretty much the whole summer. Job roles include stewards, car park attendants, fire marshals and more. You can apply for festival stewarding and staff positions with DC Site Services.

Finally, if you're heading to a festival this summer check out PAAM's festival survival guide for some great tips on getting the most out of the season. Enjoy the summer!

A Brand New Website

In all its glory, the new Pier32 website is up and running for all to see. This is only the beginning though as many new features and products are still to come. A surprising amount of work goes into a website, especially one that has over 400 pages yet is still only in an initial launch stage! I won't babble on in techno-speak about 'slugs' and 'metatags', suffice to say that a lot of effort went into every little detail and we hope you like the end result (or at least, the beginning of the end result). I'm keeping this post deliberately brief because I still have several hundred pages of products to add and I must get back to it as soon as possible!

Getting Ready For The Season

In general terms, the promotional clothing industry has historically been more active from Easter until Autumn. This year, with the wedding holiday coming quickly after a late Easter, things are likely to get really busy in May, but many people are likely to be in for a bit of a shock as they start to receive quotations for this summer's events and promotions. Cotton prices have risen massively - around 60% within the last year - and that cost has to be passed on down the line from growers and manufacturers to decorators and, ultimately, customers.

Caused by devestating floods in Asia and then followed by unrest in Northern Africa the average garment price could be almost double that of last year. And polyester has been affected too as many producers search for alternatives to cotton, causing increased demand and therefore increased prices.

Another consequence of the lack of cotton (which on reflection seems rather obvious) has been a lack of garments - ranges and styles have either been dropped completely or produced in greatly reduced quantities as manufacturers try to second guess the demands of customers by concentrating their efforts into what they think will be wanted the most.

It's not all bad news though. Here at Pier32 we've been working closely with manufacturers and suppliers for decades and we have access to well over 50 brands offering hundreds of ranges and thousands of garment styles between them. Like so many other products at the moment, they may cost a bit more than last year, but we'll do our best to find the best offers for you.

Importantly though, we will not compromise on ethics, so you are safe in the knowledge that the clothing you buy from us has not been produced at the expense of others that may be in more vulnerable positions than we are here in the UK.

Pier32 at UK Aware 2011

Here at Pier32 we are both excited and nervous about making our live show debut. We decided to take the plunge into exhibiting ourselves after being contacted by the wonderfully charming Uta at UK Aware. She felt that our ethical profile was an excellent fit for the UK's top contemporary sustainable living show and put a lot of faith in our brand by choosing to use our WRAP-certifed organic t-shirts for the UK Aware team to wear at the show.

The event itself takes place at London Olympia 2 on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 March. We'd love you to come and see us and we have a special offer to save you money on tickets. At the UK Aware website just enter code PIER32 to receive your discount. We'll be displaying a selection of WRAP-certified items from our massive range of ethically produced clothing and accessories, including sportswear, hoodies and t-shirts as well as running our own prize draw.

Sleeping With Jonathan

Our good friend (and very loyal customer) Jonathan, known affectionately as Jay, has asked us to invite you to a Sleep Out. On Friday 18 March 2011 The Big Issue Foundation will hold its first ever Sleep Out. It's taking place in Spitalfields Market, London and they want you to sleep with them! It's going to be a great night - both fun and challenging - so please show your support and get involved. The aim is to raise much needed funds for The Big Issue Foundation and to celebrate 20 years of The Big Issue. To read more please visit www.bigissue.org.uk/sleep or contact The Big Issue Foundation events team via events@bigissue.com or on 0845 217 9023. Good luck and good night!

All Change

2011 looks like it's starting with a few months of change here at Pier32. In the next few days we'll be sending out our first ever email newsletter. That will be followed a month or so later by a shiny new website. And a few weeks after that we'll be doing our first exhibition. More details will be forthcoming over the next few weeks...

A prosperous AND ethical New Year to you all!

We firmly believe that in the long run adherence to sound ethics will enhance prosperity - so let's take the sentiments of the headline forward into the new year with the wish that we can make it a great year for all.

We're back in full action on 4th January. In the meantime we seem to have forgot to post our Christmas card to the blog! If you didn't receive it and would like to keep in touch with communications from us then just let us know. And rememember that you can also follow us on Twitter.

How long is your supply chain?

Two news items have loomed large for us in the last couple of weeks. One concerning the lack of ethical trading standards beginning in a supply chain close to home, the other aimed at clothing manufactured in Asia.

Until 7 December 2010 you can view the episode of Channel 4's Despatches, "Fashion's Dirty Secret" on the "truth behind High Street Fashion" not at "a factory in the developing world" but in a factory in Leicester. In a further quote from the introduction "This is the dark side of cheap fashion".

The factory concerned supplied New Look, BHS, Peacocks, Jane Norman and C&A. Is it news to these companies that they need to look further down the supply chain than their immediate suppliers, that there is such a thing as sub contracting? The answer is of course no, but it certainly seems to be something they need to pay greater attention to.

It is no surprise that the offending firm Sammi Leisurewear, flouting the UK's minimum wage laws and paying cash in hand, has ceased trading.

As an example of reaction, New Look told Despatches "New Look does not permit sub-contracting within its supply base and implements clear and direct guidelines to suppliers not to deal with unauthorised sub-contractors."

That this goes on in the UK is surprising; you would expect local production to be better monitored; if clothes are being produced locally to be sold at rock bottom prices then should this not cause alarm bells to sound?

The second revelation was in this weekend's Observer newspaper and highlighted a retailer that last year was ranked by Ethical Consumer magazine as the most ethical on the UK High Street.

The Observer article writes: "Monsoon, the fashion retailer, proclaims its fair trade values, but its internal audits reveal concern at suppliers' failures to meet minimum ethical standards in India and China". In this case, amongst other ethical offences, the was the pariah of child labour - "children have been discovered working in its supply chain; women working from home may have been paid less than the legal minimum wage; some workers are regularly required to work excessive overtime; and conditions in suppliers' factories sometimes break both local laws and the industry's own ethical code".

What is good here however is that it is not an Observer investigation that was required to reveal the abuses. It was an internal ethical audit by Monsoon's own people. Again there was sub-contracting. They would not have wanted the results of the report to be leaked but at least they were conducting their own monitoring in a way that refused to turn a blind eye. Monsoon highlighted how action was taken against the offending supplier and that that have "policies to sequester" children, "put into a care home" and "repatriate them to the family".

Monsoon is a member of the Ethical Trading Inititive ("ETI"), an ethical code subscribed to by Monsoon - and indeed New Look. The ETI code of conduct, requires "the assumption of responsibility by an organisation for the labour and human rights practices within its supply chain".

The problem with fashion is that its very nature means that you can expect some churn in suppliers. But it's very possibly pressure from retailers to supply more that causes a supplier who is meant not to be sub-contracting to do just that.

At Pier 32 we are too small to have our own monitoring team. And we don't have to juggle suppliers - most of our clothing comes from Starworld whose factory facility (run by a company called Cotton Club) is closely monitored by the independent organisaton WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production). We recently asked for and obtained a copy of WRAP's most recent audit report. We were pleased at the depth of the report and the findings that gave the factory a clean bill of health.

In the context of the rest of this article we are particularly pleased to note that the report included the statement that the factory does not get help from sub-contractors to produce their products. So we have confidence that the Starworld clothing we supply is produced within a facility that is monitored and therefore meets the ethical standards that we would like to see.

The price of cotton

Something as mundane as the price of cotton rarely hits the news, but in the last week or so it has. The warning issued by retailers such as Primark and Next about soaring cotton prices has certainly hit the headlines. Next suggest that the price of cotton clothing will be 8% higher at the start of 2011 - part of this increase accounted for by the planned 2.5% increase in VAT. Since the price of clothing at Next is proportionately more than at Primark while the cotton content is broadly similar we could easily find a rather bigger percentage increase on the shelves of the country's favourite super low cost retailer.

The increase in the price of cotton may lead to your typical teenager buying fewer t-shirts next year. That's a price to be paid. But when it comes down to it not a great price.

How do we measure the price increase? Well 45% over the last year according to Next, but if you go back 15 years there has not been one! 15 years ago cotton prices were at the $1 per pound which sparked these headlines. While living standards and prices have forged ahead in western countries the price we have paid for cotton has fallen year on year and it is only the disasters that have befallen the cotton harvests that have caused prices to return to these previous levels.

So what is the real price of cotton?

In Pakistan and China floods have caused chaos, in the former in particular displacing the populations of whole towns and villages in affected areas.

But even before the floods these people, as cotton farmers and pickers elsewhere, lived in considerable poverty. It's not easy to highlight particular exploitation in these countries but elsewhere we have highlighted the scandal of the government sponsored forced labour of the children of Uzbekistan in its cotton fields.

At Pier 32 our Fairtrade options mean that you can have confidence that a fair price is being paid to the farmer. By buying organic cotton you will be buying from a different market - here supplies may not be affected as much and prices although starting at a higher level may stay more stable. Our Starworld range produced in Egypt is unlikely to be immune to the price increases but you can be certain that in 2011 it will still allow us to offer the great value clothing that we do now.