Headlines and Hemlines: What Will the Gildan-Anvil Deal Mean for Anvil’s Sustainability Mandate?

Early this month, Canadian clothing manufacturer Gildan Activewear secured an $88-million deal to buy New York-based T-shirt and sportswear manufacturer, Anvil Apparel. Fairware has had a strong relationship with Anvil, whose socially and environmentallyfriendly approach to business strikes a chord with our own mission.

This buyout has raised a number of questions—and concerns—for us. Will Gildan keep Anvil’s unionized manufacturing facility? Will Gildan embrace Anvil’s sustainable apparel line?

We strive to provide our clients with ethically sourced and sustainable merchandise, and we have been great supporters of Anvil. Over the last five years, Anvil has made great strides towards brand sustainability. Their value statement mirrors our own: To operate our business with a deep and continued commitment to respecting the planet and all who live on it.

Anvil ranks as the 6th largest organic program in the world on the Organic Exchange and has launched an impressive “eco”-clothing line using fibers such as organic cotton, recycled cotton, transitional cotton and recycled polyester from PET bottles. They are a progressive and committed company that not only adheres to a socially and environmentally responsible business model, but also strives to educate the public on its initiative. Their interactive “Track My T” website gives customers a chance to see the progression of their T-shirt from “dirt to shirt.”

Gildan Activewear is a major player in its field. The Montreal-based company has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Corporate Citizens for two years running, and is a member of the Fair Labor Association. However, its track record also is marred by some serious allegations of anti-union activities and violations of workers’ rights. Despite taking steps towards reducing its environmental impact and promoting green operations, they have not yet ventured into manufacturing organic or recycled apparel.

This buyout begs the question: Will the acquisition of Anvil inspire Gildan to enter the organic/recycled apparel game? Or will Gildan drop the Anvil sustainability line entirely? While Gildan is the bigger of the two brands, we hope they’ll take Anvil’s 5 Rules for Building a Sustainable Brand to heart.

We at Fairware will be watching closely as this story continues to unravel.

Shanghai’d – Day 4 New Sewing Factory

Suggestion box for worker complaints

Day 4 found me at a new bag sewing facility we plan on working with near Shanghai. It’s run by Jorden Rosenberg, a Canadian guy (from Forest Hill Collegiate, like a # of the guys I seem to be meeting here) and it was great to see the Chinese and Canadian flags flying high at the entrance of his facility. I planned my trip to both check out his products and facility and meet the auditor from Openview, who we had arranged to audit the facility.

Jordan runs a great factory and difference between this facility and the one at Huaitai was immediately noticeable. The scale of the operation is much larger but the sophistication of their production processes was of a different standard. In addition to the bag workshop Jordan also runs Motherwear, a women’s maternity wear online retailer (check it out for fabulous bamboo and other products) and manages production for that line in his facility.

The facility was well laid out, with clear signage vis a vis fire safety and first aid. The attention to detail on the quality control front was impressive and they were working for major brands from all over North America and Europe.

Shanghai’d Day 3 – Fabrication/Sewing Factory

Sewer at bag factory

Spent Monday at our main bag factory – the drive out took over an hour and a half through  clusters of factories and fields. We’ve worked with this factory for over a year and have been impressed with their quality. It was so great to spend the day with Tony, the factory manager, after so much time spend on emails. We started an audit process a year ago to start gauging their social compliance  to ensure they meet our standards, and those of a key client.

In our morning meeting we talked about the process to date -we’re the first customer that had requested this kind of audit from them. While they’d been through ISO9000 audits by firms like SGS they’d never been through a process focused on human rights, worker health and safety, and environmental standards. In partnership with our client, we having been working with the external auditing firm  Openview from Hong Kong.

Shanghai’d Day 2

Offerings at the Confucious Temple

Spent the day wandering the streets and neighbourhoods of Shanghai – Fuxing Park, Xintiandi, Confucius Temple & Yuyuan Gardens. Wandered down many an alley through ‘wet’ markets full of seafood, veggies, frogs and other unidentifiable things.

Cargo bikes - very impressive.

Marveled at the kites, sites and madness on the streets where a mix of buses, taxis, cars, mopeds, bikes and pedestrians try to co-exist without too many casualties. Loved the bikes, the bike lanes, the bike parking and the cargo bikes – very inspiring.

And what up with the donuts? There are a serious number of donut shops in this city, Mister Donut, Dunkin Donuts, Donut Express – it seems fried dough is universally loved.

The enormous amount of development on what seems like every corner is for the upcoming World Expo this summer – the Expo logo is everywhere as are the little blue mascots that look alarmingly like gumby.

Shanghai’d Day 1

Photo by Jakob Montrasio

Arrived last night in the hazy, warm early evening vowing to not go straight to bed  (which my body was telling me to do after a 10 hour flight and 15 hour time change). I was last in Shanghai in 1999 and my has it changed. Apparently it now homes 20+ million people, 1+ million of those are ex-pats and it has grown skyward at a dizzying rate.

I’m here on a rather whirlwind tour visiting 3 factories we work with manufacturing tote bags. I’m here to meet factory management and  work with them on the status of corrective action plans coming from a series of social compliance audits we did earlier this year. And schedule permitting, I’ll be adding updates, photos and videos of the week as I go.

While I was immediately hit with the modern cosmo flair of the city at dinner & drinks last night – it was a rude reminder of where I am when I realized I can’t log into Facebook, Twitter, etc. – it seems that last summer in advance of Tianamen Square anniversary, most social media access was blocked by the Chinese goverment (will see if this post loads, WordPress is on that list).