Cover der Studie © DIE
On 9 September, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) gave the go-ahead for the „Green Button“, a publicly endorsed textile label for sustainably produced textiles. At a press conference Minister Gerd Müller presented the study conducted by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) on social and ecological challenges of the global textile industry (Soziale und ökologische Herausforderungen der globalen Textilwirtschaft). Clothing for the rapidly growing world market is manufactured almost exclusively in developing and emerging countries, where production causes considerable social and ecological problems.
The study identifies three fields of action in the textile value chain: working conditions in the ready-made clothing sector; environmental problems in the upstream wet processes; and social and ecological problems in cotton production. The first two fields of action are documented
Furthermore, the German cooperation in this area is described, distiguishing four fields of action: (1) making consumption more sustainable; (2) demanding entrepreneurial due diligence; (3) increasing local value chain in production; and (4) strengthening local institutions. For each of these fields, sectors will be identified where more should be done in the future.