M&S have done great innovative work in corporate responsibility and sustainability, largely incorporated in Plan A. So I was very surprised to see 'shopping' hit the airwaves last week, apparently being the first time anyone has ever thought of recycling old clothes and giving the proceeds to charity!
There are two fundamental problems with this concept: the first being that the claim manifestly isn't true!
The second being that it sees large corporate and charity muscle invading the space of a host a much smaller local charities for whom the local shop is the key funding lifeline.
Everyone involved in this from national treasure, JL, to Oxfam should know that this is enormously damaging to these small local charities that have relied on this channel to provide much needed funds. In a sector that is feeling the fund raising crunch quite acutely, the entry of large organisations using their big budget muscle to compete in this arena seems to me to be bordering on the unethical.
How much better to support in general the recycling of clothes, which is obviously sensible, and promote the funding means of all those small charities who have been doing this for years, than to imply ownership of an old idea and do it with an international charity who have many alternative methods of raising funds.
Finally I would suggest it is condescending to its customers and the general public to suggest that, now we finally got the hang of recycling old cans and papers, we might now be able to cope with the more arduous concept of recycling our clothes as well!
There is nothing new in clothes recycling and second hand charity clothes shops and M&S should be ashamed of suggesting that there is.
No comments:
Post a Comment