Video summary
The Clean Clothes Campaign, a global network established in 1990 with the mission to amplify the voices of garment workers and fight for fair conditions, has historically relied on advocacy to address systemic injustices in the fashion industry. While the organization has always gathered internal data to substantiate its claims, a pivotal moment occurred following the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh in 2013, where over 1,100 people died. By physically searching the rubble for clothing labels, campaigners were able to identify the brands responsible, leading to significant financial compensation for victims and a fundamental shift in strategy toward using data as a tool for remedy and prevention rather than just evidence of wrongdoing.
In response to this tragedy, the campaign spearheaded major initiatives such as the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety and launched the Transparency Pledge to force brands to disclose supply chain details like factory locations and worker counts. To manage the vast amount of data collected from these efforts, the organization developed the Open Supply Hub, an open-source database that now maps over 1.8 million facilities across various sectors. This shift toward open data has dramatically increased efficiency; while gathering evidence used to take weeks, it can now be done in an hour, allowing for rapid tracking of incidents and holding companies accountable when they attempt to deny involvement in unsafe production sites.
Recognizing that raw data alone is insufficient without policy support, the campaign actively advocates for due diligence laws like the EU's CSRD while acknowledging current political challenges that threaten such regulations. To make complex supply chain information accessible to both consumers and workers, the group created user-friendly tools like Fashion Checker and Facility Checker, which rate brands on sustainability and living wages or allow factory workers to compare their pay and conditions against others. These tools bridge the gap between high-level data analysis and practical application, empowering workers to negotiate better terms while helping consumers make informed purchasing decisions based on transparency.
Despite significant progress, substantial gaps remain in supply chain visibility, with estimates suggesting that at least half of global garment production is still missing from current databases, particularly unbranded goods produced for local markets in Latin America or items made by undocumented migrant workers in home-based settings. The campaign acknowledges these privacy and safety constraints but remains optimistic about the future, pointing to upcoming regulations like the EU's digital product passport which will likely require full supply chain mapping by 2030. Ultimately, the organization emphasizes that solving these complex challenges requires a collaborative ecosystem involving various NGOs, academic institutions, and open-source protocols to ensure that data drives real change for workers worldwide.
Read the full video transcript
Um, so I'm going to tell you a story
about um how an advocacy campaign
learned to embrace data. And first of
all, apologies. Um, I was told that a
speaker had lost their visa entry uh
about 9:00 last night after a couple of
drinks at the reception. So uh I had to
improvise the uh presentation. I'll tell
you a little bit about the clean clothes
campaign. Um so we work in the fashion
industry. The fashion industry has a
very long history of um supply chain
issues and underpaid workers. So um what
we are we are a network of about 230
organizations and our aim is to amplify
the voice of garment workers and fight
for fairer work conditions.
And we've sort of been around since
dinosaurs roam the earth. Um we started
in 1990
and that means yes we do turn 35 this
year. Woohoo jubilium. Um, we are an
avid user of open source um because it
aligns with our values but it also
allows us to work in a secure manner
because we work with a lot of uh groups
partner organizations in challenging
locations like Myanmar like Cambodia uh
like Bangladesh uh which have various
degrees of authoritar authoritarian
regimes. So we really have to take care
of the data that we collect uh because
it can land people into jail or even
worse.
So uh we've been campaigning for a very
long time. This picture from 2004 when
we were protesting at the uh Athens
Olympics
and campaigning was always our focus.
But even then we uh already started
gathering data um basically to back up
our claims and to substantiate our
demands and our internal data. We have a
very complex uh very well-kept u
internal database and the data goes back
decades.
But what's really changed our approach
to data was one very pivotal moment in
our history. uh one that yeah really
defines us up till this day and that
probably many people have heard about
and that was the Rana Plaza disaster in
Bangladesh in April 24, 2013.
Um this was the most horrible industrial
incident in the garment sector ever. uh
1134 people died, thousands were injured
and literally all the brands that we
asked said like no, we have no
connections to this place. And so our
people in Bangladesh literally spent two
months going through the rubble and
actually picking out the clothes from
under that horrible place and finding
labels. And then the brands were like,
"Oh, now that you mention it, maybe we
have been producing there." So we were
like never again. Um
I mean no amount of money can ever
compensate loss of life but finding
those labels and connecting brands to
that allowed us after two years of hard
campaigning to secure $30 million US for
the survivors and their relatives.
So that was really that clicked into our
mind like we need data. We need data for
remedy. We need data to make sure that
this kind of thing never happens again.
So it was not only the remedy, it also
kicked off various major initiatives.
First one was the accord on fire and
building safety in Bangladesh. Um that
basically was a program to uh improve
the uh the safety of the factories in
Bangladesh. It was a legally binding
accord and about 200 brands signed not
quite voluntarily. We had to push hard
to make them sign but they did. Um it's
now the international accord because it
has expanded to Pakistan and it will
expand um to other countries uh based on
data that we are gathering to see where
the situation for workers is most
dangerous.
It's not complete. Some brands still
refuse to sign. So, we're still doing
campaigning to get brands to sign. Um,
we spoof some um of the famous Swedish
companies. Um, so there's still a lot of
work to be done, but we also worked then
hard on um increasing transparency in
supply chains. So, we started something
that called the transparency pledge
where we told brands like these are the
basic data that you need to supply about
your supply chain. You need to tell the
location. You need to tell um how many
workers are there. You need to tell us
exactly who owns it. Um and then you can
sign on to this thing called the
transparency pledge. In the beginning,
people told us like you are crazy.
Brands are never going to do this. But
then the first brand started to do that
and then um over a hundred started doing
it. So the data kept piling up and it
was usually in PDFs on on the brand's
websites. So not very useful. So
together with a lot of organiza other
organizations we started something
called the open supply hub which is an
open-source database
um aiming to map all production
locations not only in garments but also
in agri business in conflict minerals in
basically anything that manufactures
goods and we were quite uh astonished at
how well that has worked. Um, we started
out with nothing and now we have over
3,000 organizations that contribute
data. So that's mostly brands but also
trade organizations.
Um, there's 1.8 million facilities at
the moment in there and it's growing
still exponentially. So open data really
rocks um because it allows us to track
back if there is an incident in a
factory. uh it allows us to it used to
take us three three weeks to get some
evidence of who was producing there.
It's now down to an hour if people
publish on the open supply hub and
that's really crucial this speed. So
yeah data woo but data alone is not
enough. So we find that data works best
when it's accompanied by policy.
So um we also worked hard on advocacy
and the Rana Plaza Plaza disaster was
one of the major drivers for the EU's
due diligence laws uh which are
currently under attack unfortunately um
because there has been a sharp right
turn also in Europe we had some quite
good uh laws the CSRD and the CS D but
currently there's something called the
omnibus process that is trying to weaken
them And
we've all been there before. You two
steps forward, one step back, eventually
we will go forward again.
So why am I passionate about working in
the garment industry? Short intermed.
Well, the garment industry has a
enormously long history of injustice.
Um,
in a way I think of it as the original
sin of capitalism. um where the triangle
of oppression taking enslaved people
from Africa to the Americas to work on
the cotton plantations. The cotton was
then transported to England uh and then
uh was processed by children in the dark
satanic mills of northern England. Um
and that has been the history of the
garment industry and not much has
changed um only that production has
moved from the north of England to
mostly Asia.
Um and also there have been uh the Ronda
Plaza wasn't the first incident. There
was the uh infamous triangle shirt uh uh
uh fire in New York in Manhattan in
1911.
Um where over 150 people died because
there was a fire. So these stories of
sorrow must be told but also
the resistance
um the women workers of uh the garment
factories organized and that was the
beginning of the labor movement in the
USA. So
it shows the possibility for resistance
for organizing and it but it also shows
that these were not random incidents.
They keep happening and therefore yeah
we need to hold these companies to
account. So how do we do that? Um you
can't always bring bad news. People also
want to have a little bit of fun. Um so
you have to somehow package it to be
more acceptable.
So yeah, we did some fun fashion facts.
Um
the global ind the industry is big. Um
it's about as a country it would be
ranked about number 12 in the world for
GDP. Uh and at least 75 million people
work there.
So when we try to tell those stories, we
found out telling stories with data is
can be challenging. uh people are often
overwhelmed by numbers. So what did we
do? We created uh fashion checker and
fashion checker basically puts a very
user-friendly consumer oriented face on
data.
So now I'm going to test the um
the demo gods. Uh so what is fashion
checker? It's basically an app that
helps consumers make informed choices
about the brands that they buy from. Um,
actually I'm going to do the live demo
at the end because maybe I run out of
time. So it's better to complete the
presentation. Uh, but we can do a little
demo and otherwise you can look it up on
your own time. Um, so we use the data to
rate the brands on the transparency,
their living wage and sustainability
efforts. Um, but if you click on
one of the nicely presented uh graphs,
you get taken to a back end that is
ultra nerdy. It will show you the the
license. It will show you the raw data
set, what other data sets you can
combine it with. We use a platform
called wiki rates and it's awesome. Um,
so that's how we combine user friendly
information with still access for people
like you, um, who wants the real data in
the back. Um, but when we presented this
to our trade union members, they were
like, "Yeah, but we're not that
interested in the brand. We're
interested in the factory that we are
working in." So then we were like,
"Haha, we've got you covered." Um, we
did another front end called the
facility checker and that is actually
exactly the same data but it focuses on
a factory first approach. So people can
trade unions can look up their own
factory and see like how is the pay
compared to factories around us, how's
the pay compared to um factories in
other countries, um how is the gender
pay gap? um and that can empower them to
start negotiating for better working
conditions.
Now, I must say we're not a
sophisticated data outfit. Our thing is
like if it moves and it should be stuck,
use duct tape. If it's stuck and it
should move, spray it so that it moves.
So, we'll use whatever comes to hand.
So, for pipelines and tools, we're quite
simple. We use localized mobile apps. We
use CVCM and Drupal for surveys and a
lot of set and orc scripts to mangle
everything into CSV.
Um and at this place a shout out to the
open data editor who helps to um clean
everything up. So what are our future
plans for facilit fashion checker? By
the way, this is how the future looked
in 1914. Remarkably accurate, I would
say. Um the mobile phones look slightly
different but yeah good approximation.
Um so our future plans is to include
some results that we can publish from
our internal data such as how effective
are particular remedy mechanisms, how
long do they take, do they give out the
results that the workers want? Um so we
want to assess that on a systematic
level and also see whether due diligence
laws are fit for purpose. Yep.
So bright future ahead. Will that mean
we just have unicorns poop in our garden
forever? Probably not. Um also because
we are under um funding issues because
we have a right-wing government. Half of
our funding came from the US aid. Um so
that's gone. So if anybody has a bunch
of money, count us in. Um but there also
there's a lot of supply chain
challenges. um you have to really be a
detective to find out the data. This cat
is better at it than I. Um
so there's a lot of proprietary data.
There's inconsistent formats. There's
intentional obiscation of the data. Um
so challenges but what do you do? You
combine forces. So we cannot solve this
alone but thankfully we don't have to.
We have a lot of other groups. Open
Supply Hub, Vicky Raate, Witch Indicator
Foundation, Fashion Revolution, Cornell
Institute, Global Labor Institute,
Catalyst Initiative. Um, so there's a
whole ecosystem of people working on
this and it's awesome to get to know
them all. And there's also even
transparency is now even going official.
There is something called theii United
Nations transparency protocol which is
an open source protocol to combine all
of these data. It's fully open source.
It's being developed. It's awesome. Um
if you're interested in open standards,
go look it up. So
everybody can do their part. If you can
do your part, contact us. So that was
me. Um, I'm known as polyester on most
social media except for I'm definitely
not known as polyester anymore on what
used to be Twitter and is now X. I
stopped using it for obvious reasons.
You can contact me here.
And that was it.
Thank you. That was really interesting.
Given the with the open supply hub and
looking at all that data, do you have a
sense of given the the whole universe of
supply chain data? Um I imagine you have
some numbers about how many garments are
produced. How much is getting covered in
this open data and how much is still
missing? Do you do you have senses to
that?
>> Um yeah, I think there we are still
missing at least half of the production.
Uh we are especially missing of course a
lot of production that never gets into
Europe or the US that is produced in
garment producing countries in Latin
America. Latin America mainly produces
for itself uh in Brazil mo mostly but
also a lot of unbranded clothing is made
to be sold in local markets, open air
markets. Um so that is usually not
covered although some of it is done in
the same factories where there's also uh
garments being produced for brands. So
they will be uh covered but there is
still a large a dark number and there's
also a lot of production happening in
people's homes. So homebased workers are
part of the supply chain. Uh but we
actually we never try to get data on
them because there's obvious private uh
privacy problems with that also because
a lot of homebased workers are usually
undocumented migrants and you don't want
to publish undocumented migrants
addresses especially not in these times.
Um so you can only aggregate results on
that
but it will improve because at least
Europe will introduce a digital product
passport for government and textiles. Um
it will probably be delayed but by 2030
it should be in place and that will give
a lot more incentives. Well actually
it's then will be a requirement to map
out your supply chain. So, it's taken 15
years, but slowly we're getting
somewhere.
>> Yeah. Sorry for taking too long.