Fast Retailing: How sustainable is the largest fast-fashion company in Japan? Part 2

In the previous article, I introduced their unique concept (“LifeWear”) and its systematic model to achieve both sustainability and business growth. In this article, I introduce some of their actions already implemented by them.

Contribution to circular economy

When it comes to the circularity, you can find significant number of their practices, mainly under their unique “RE. UNIQLO” and “RE. GU” initiative (“RE” means recycle, reuse and reduce). In the initiative, they collect secondhand clothes of UNIQLO and GU with their recycling box and experimental “RE. UNIQLO STUDIO” (in the studio, they are also promoting repairing and remaking clothes for customers to use their favorite clothes longer.)

Then, how do they utilize those collected clothes? First, they donate collected clothing to those who need them, such as refugees. To make their initiative effective and needs-appropriate, they partner with UNHCR (the United Nations refugee agency) and NPO and NGOs worldwide. Second, roughly 20% of clothing donations that cannot be reused are transformed into new materials (used for soundproofing materials for automobiles) and even into solid fuel for energy generation.

The effort to address social inequality

Their practices to tackle social issues are also notable. To begin with, I will introduce their contribution to empowering refugees worldwide. Apart from their above-mentioned initiative to donate the secondhand clothing to refugee camps, they have supported refugees by their refugee employment, called RISE (Refugee Inclusion Supporting Empowerment) program, and their donation to UNHCR’s livelihood program (from 2016 to 2018), in which necessary vocational training are offered to refugees.

Moreover, you can easily find their practices to empower gender equality. For example, in their partnership with UN Women, UNIQLO developed special training for female workers at their partner factories in Bangladesh to support the workers’ career development. Also, they have encouraged numerous activities that help foster independence among socially disadvantaged women worldwide. Not to mention, Fast Retailing asserts the group is promoting diversity and inclusion with their special webpage

The critical review by the author for their practices

By checking their practices implemented so far, you can find they value sustainability as they state in their vision and concept. In particular, their practices for circular economy and refugee empowerment are significant, and they are very unique in terms of their partnership with global organizations, such as UNHCR and UN Women. However, there are some points that should be critically assessed in their practices.

First, some of their practices are incomplete or very experimental. For example, in their “RE. UNIQLO” initiative, the recycled materials are mainly used for automobile or energy generation, not for new clothing (except for down recycling). This means their practices for their “LifeWear” model (discussed in Part 1) to realize their clothing-to-clothing recycling are incomplete. In addition, their contribution to the UNHCR’s livelihood program for refugees ended in 2018, after three-year period. Although they have initiated new projects, dedication to long-lasting projects should be also required.

Second, despite the diverse practices of the company, they have faced fierce criticism recently, in 2021, because of the suspicion of human rights violations related to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. The case showed their weakness in their supply chain and the difficulty of managing it in global business operation and political context, at the same time.

For the company, improving their practices toward sustainability would be expected to maintain their reliability from customers, and for consumers, keeping an eye on their progress to prevent the company from misleading their customers.