Latest news with #TheOrFoundation
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘We Have to Stop Romanticizing' Systemic Challenges Secondhand Markets Face
In the wake of fires in Ghana's Kantamanto Market and Los Angeles that devastated local communities and resulted in the deaths of at least two people, Liz Ricketts made a plea to the audience at the Sourcing Journal Sustainability Summit—'We have to stop romanticizing.' Ricketts, co-founder and executive director at The Or Foundation, called the Kantamanto fire 'a supply chain disaster' with more than 60 percent of the secondhand clothing market having been destroyed, directly impacting 10,000 vendors working the trade. More from Sourcing Journal New Report Makes Case for Expanding Textile Recycling in Pakistan Eileen Fisher Renews Secondhand Clothes with Indigo Steering Circularity Amid Not-So-Sustainable Policy Shifts The nonprofit Or Foundation has already distributed more than $1.5 million in direct relief to individuals impacted in Kantamanto. The firm works heavily with the community surrounding the market and carries a mission to identify and establish alternatives to the pitfalls plaguing fashion's current business model including overproduction and greenwashing. But even with the assistance the foundation provides, the fashion industry needs to pay more attention to the health of these markets, she said. 'It's unfortunate that we still don't view secondhand markets and the secondhand economy as part of the supply chain, because it is essential to the transition to circularity,' said Ricketts in a panel discussion moderated by Jasmin Malik Chua, sourcing and labor editor at Sourcing Journal. The panel itself was focused on the topic of overproduction, which IE New York College (IENYC) program director Michelle Gabriel noted had a 'fraught' relationship with overconsumption. Since growth ultimately determines the success of American businesses, the industry is now too dependent on consumption-driven factors like trends, she argued. 'We have entire extremely profitable portions of the sector, businesses like Ross or T.J. Maxx that monetize that overproduction. So we're reinforcing these feedback loops that are predicated on these growth models,' Gabriel said. 'Consumers are purchasing overwhelmingly to craft identity, to belong, to satiate desire. Companies are obviously incentivized to produce and drive consumption because they need to be profitable.' Gabriel said there was a glaring case for a new approach to the speed of fashion production. She channeled Harvard Business School professor and economist Michael Porter, who created the 'five forces' framework for businesses analyzing competition, saying that if there isn't one entity that wins the low-cost game, ultra-fast-fashion brands are effectively incentivized to overproduce goods to compete to make sales. 'We're all living in that reality. If we are pursuing the same business models, we cannot compete with that race to the bottom,' Gabriel said. That race to the bottom is undermining our ability to exist.' The current market conditions necessitate a return to degrowth, or ideating that concept within the retail business model, according to Gabriel. Ricketts pointed to a fatal human flaw in the 'volumes over value' business model, noting that its current problems aren't just impacting places like Kantamanto. Bluntly, she pointed the finger at one problem: the overproduction business model is successful if everyone along the value chain is not paid enough. 'We are exploiting people all along the value chain to make this possible, garment workers, people who are making the clothes, as well as the communities that I work with in Kantamanto,' said Ricketts. She argued that the low pay means there is no longer enough embedded value in product, an example which has led to the collapse of Kantamanto over the past 10 years. 'A 'volumes over value' business model means that a shirt that is purchased here no longer has enough value for someone to think it's worth it to put a button back on it. So how does that garment have enough value to fund the collection, repair, sorting, export, resorting, preparation for reuse, resale? It does not,' Ricketts said. As a result, more workers are feeling the adverse conditions, further calling into question the sustainability of overproduction in fashion. In Kantamanto, there is no longer enough funding to subsidize the rehabilitation of the lower quality items, which is resulting in many of the sellers, namely single mothers going into debt to importers, banks and family members. To close the panel, Ricketts expressed her disillusionment with the general attitude outsiders may have to supply chain disasters such as those in Kantamanto and Los Angeles, even if much of the sentiment may be coming from an empathetic place. She noted how people often refer to people as resilient in the Global South, 'as if it is a character trait.' 'I am retiring the word resilience. I am sick of hearing that word,' said Ricketts. 'we're judging how well someone struggled in a way that made us not have to be uncomfortable…We have to stop excusing things that are systemically challenging, and yes, we can focus on resilient structures, which is what we're doing. But let's stop judging how someone who is in a difficult position survives a crisis like this.'
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Or Foundation, Suay Partner to Tackle Textile Waste in Ghana, L.A.
It's the collaboration the fashion industry didn't know it needed. Forged in the heat of not one but two cataclysmic fires, seven days and 7,600 miles apart, the partnership between The Or Foundation in Ghana and Suay Sew Shop in Los Angeles seeks to address what the organizations describe as the 'disaster after the disasters': the inundation of castoff clothing from well-meaning donors that so overwhelmed California's aid centers that they spilled into the streets, and the destruction of critical infrastructure in Accra's Kantamanto Market that has backed up a major pipeline for the global North's unwanted garments, leaving them with few other places to go. More from Sourcing Journal California's Organized Retail Crime Task Force Recovered $13.5M in Stolen Merchandise Last Year Pact Group and BlockTexx Partner on Fashion Recycling in Australia Circ Raises $25M in Oversubscribed Round led by Taranis While Liz Ricketts, executive director of The Or Foundation and Lindsay Rose Medoff, CEO of Suay, have known each other for years—'pre-Covid,' Ricketts offered—their extended distance and busy schedules made it challenging for their teams to physically connect. When the fires happened, throwing into the sharpest of relief their shared reality of too much textile waste and not enough outlets to manage it responsibly, they realized this had to get together. And quickly. On Sunday, the two organizations came together in Suay's downtown Los Angeles retail shop and production facility to announce '100,000 Bags for Climate Change,' complete with an installation of the snarled clothing 'tentacles' that have become an indelible part of Accra's coastlines. The initiative is both a way to tackle 120,000 pounds of so-called 'disaster relief' clothing that Medoff and her crew have picked up over the past three months and a call to action to fund what she and Ricketts say must be a 'systems change' in textile recirculation based on community-centered solutions. The climate change part is self-evident: Fashion overproduction is part of the reason rising temperatures are powering extreme weather events that increase the risk of wildfires. 'Most people were surprised to see the tentacles in person, realizing that fast fashion's harm isn't just what's visible it's also what's invisible: the chemicals, harmful dyes, polyester and the long-term damage to our bodies,' said Nutifafa Mensah, peer education lead at The Or Foundation, who flew to Los Angeles for the event. 'I hope people now see that this isn't just Ghana's problem. Fast fashion is a global health hazard that affects all of us before it even reaches Kantamanto. No one is isolated from it.' Money remains tight for The Or Foundation, which has distributed $1.5 million in emergency relief to the nearly 10,000 vendors who saw their livelihoods burned to ashes at the start of the new year. But it's still struggling to raise cash to rebuild Kantamanto with essential fire safety measures while continuing to fund programs involving textile waste diversion, skills training and financial education, beach monitoring and cleanups and chiropractic services for the female head porters known as kayayei. So far, only Vestiaire Collective, Debrand, Puma and eBay along with a collective of Belgian brands that include Bel & Bo, Claes Retail Group, e5 Fashion, Noterman Fashion, Pluto, Torfs and Xandre, have contributed, in stark contrast to the outpouring of generosity—many times over the $5 million Ricketts estimates will resurrect the marketplace—from the likes of Nike, Gap Inc., the Walt Disney Co. and Target for restoring burned-out neighborhoods in the Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Pasadena areas. That's where Suay hopes to come in. Sponsoring a 20-pound bag for its 'Suay It Forward' textile-recycling platform costs $20; 100,000 of these bags would help it raise $2 million, split evenly between Suay and The Or Foundation to wrestle with the problem of textile overflow on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The two organizations will also be collaborating to create a 'Textiles aren't Trash' capsule collection, pieced together from the donation surplus that Suay has absorbed, as well as conducting clothing 'sort-a-thons,' where they'll invite members of the community to tally which brands are showing up most often in Los Angeles' clothing waste, similar to the 'Tag Ur It' audits that The Or Foundation has been conducting in Ghana. 'It's important for organizations like Suay in L.A. to show solidarity with Kantamanto because the two communities may be thousands of miles apart geographically but the systemic monster that is overproduction and overconsumption we fight against knows no bounds,' said Sammy Oteng, senior community engagement manager at The Or Foundation. 'This is why Suay has hundreds of thousands of pounds of clothes nobody wants sitting in storage, and on the other hand, the Kantamanto community continue to fall deeper in debt working to recirculate the global North's excess while Accra beaches are being taken over by clothing tentacles.' For Medoff, watching Los Angeles relate to clothing in the wake of the fires has been an education in and of itself. 'It was interesting to see the conversation continue to develop from, 'We need a bunch of textiles' to 'These textiles aren't right; there's too much' or 'They're not good enough,'' she said. 'And this is the conversation that is happening daily in Ghana and other places where they're getting bombarded by textile waste.' For months, Suay's phone was ringing off its hook. There's an intrinsic impulse for people to empty their closets when disaster strikes, even though it might be more prudent—and expedient, human labor-wise—to fork out cash. 'People were calling us with, like, semi-trucks: 'I'm coming from Texas, I'm coming from Reno, I have a truck full of clothes to drop off,'' Medoff said. 'And so you see humanity like rising to the occasion and feeling overwhelmed by wanting to help, but also we have no organized disaster relief when it comes to clothing. And it is a disaster, in terms of clothing and textile waste, which is what Liz and her team deals with on a daily basis.' With the passing of California's extended producer responsibility bill for textiles, there's a shot at doing things differently, Ricketts said. But that will also depend on whether the Golden State follows the French model of 'essentially subsidizing sorting for export' or if it's going to build the infrastructure necessary to ensure that organizations like Suay have the support to recirculate textiles locally. 'So hopefully this partnership then provides a model, a case study, that we can speak to to say, 'This is why money should be going to repair,'' she said. 'Money should be going to upcycling. Money should be going to taking clothing that we know has very low value and turning it into something of higher value. Otherwise, it's always going to be a mass amount of low-value products and the only outlet is going to be to export it. You can't just be putting money into sorting; you have to be putting money into added-value services here in California and elsewhere. And it's not going to happen overnight.'
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New collection sheds light on hidden treasure from Ghana marketplace: 'A testament to the ingenuity'
The Vestiaire Collective is known primarily as a secondhand luxury marketplace. However, it recently launched an exclusive clothing collection in partnership with The Or Foundation. This collection is 100% upcycled and features the accomplishments of Ghanaian designers while also spotlighting the organization, whose mission is to "identify and manifest alternatives to the dominant model of fashion," according to the foundation's website. Consumers can purchase a range of clothing items, including varsity jackets with hand-painted details, patched jeans, and crocheted hobo bags. By purchasing an item from this collection, you are extending the life of clothing items already in existence and celebrating the work of independent artisans. What should the government do about the fast fashion industry? Set strict regulations Incentivize sustainable options Use both regulations and incentives Nothing Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. As detailed by Trend Hunter, the sales will benefit both the designers and The Or Foundation's Secondhand Solidarity Fund. "The capsule is a testament to the ingenuity of upcycling," the Trend Hunter wrote. The Or Foundation is based in Accra, Ghana, which is home to Kantamanto, the largest secondhand clothing market in the world. Beyond saving thousands of pounds of scraps from the marketplace and upcycling them into new clothing items, the foundation also offers relief funds after climate disasters, analyzes water and air samples to measure pollution, hauls away plastic waste from Accra's beaches, fights for fair wages, and offers sustainability education. Many cogs in the fashion industry wheel are destructive — more than 101 million tons of garments are tossed every year of the 100 billion that are produced. With that amount of waste, it is no surprise that microplastics and chemicals from dyes are polluting our waters. The fast fashion industry also has a concerning human rights record. The way the world consumes fashion must change in order to be kinder to our planet, and shopping secondhand is a great place to start. Supporting initiatives similar to The Or Foundation x Vestiaire Collective collab also shows designers that sustainability can be not only stylish but also profitable. "Fashion must divest from disposability. We can all do our part by recirculating quality garments, but we also have to prioritise justice for the people and the ecosystems who are often forgotten in fashion's chain of supply and demand. We are grateful to Vestiaire Collective for joining us in this mission," The Or Foundation co-founder Liz Ricketts said in a statement. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
