By Jacob Myers
I was on a training run recently when a fairly new piece of gear started to fall apart at the seams. As frustrating as it was to watch new gear literally unravel in my hand, the company had a solid replacement policy. Part of that replacement process had me submitting photos of the clothing and the manufacturing number to help determine where the manufacturing error came from.
This replacement process ensured the consumer was taken care of and that the distributors could track the product to its source. I wanted to know more. The gear was listed as Vietnam-produced, and I was able to track down the production location pretty quickly.
What I found bothered me to my core.
There were reports of sexual harassment and discrimination on the worker front, physical abuse from supervisors, and years of illegally trafficking in child labor. Reports of “recruiters” buying children from impoverished areas to work in factories appear as regular a practice for this company as feeding the children drugs to keep them focused on their tasks for longer.
The company never responded after I inquired about the ethicacy of its operation, and while I was appalled at the findings, part of me wondered if it was in some degree my fault. We live in the information age—the world is literally at our fingertips, so shouldn’t we be taking more responsibility for where we buy our products? While I don’t bear personal witness to these practices, it’s my money that bought the product that perpetuates those practices. The very ethos of a conscious consumer dictates that I now have to carry some of the responsibility for investing in this company by shopping with them.
My mind began spiraling as I considered whether it was fair to pin the blame on consumers. The argument that consumers should bear that blame has picked up steam in the past decade, but that’s not the complete story. Ethicacy is a major player in the discussion of what makes a product “good,” but it’s not the only matter to consider. Take this triage for example:
- Sustainability: A measure of the impact the product’s resource extraction, manufacturing, and distribution has on the external world.
- Quality: A measure of how well the product performs its given task (i.e., the comfort and durability of a pair of running shoes).
- Ethicacy: The “heart tax,” or the degree to which the product’s creation has negatively impacted the lives of other human beings.
These three elements work in conjunction with one another just as any other triage scenario would. Say for instance that you desired maximum ethicacy for a jacket, so you learn how to make clothing. You integrate sustainable materials like hemp or wool, and while that new sweater will keep you warm it’s highly unlikely that it will perform like the outdoor companies’ micro-spinning specialized fibers to both save weight, trap heat, and keep out the rain.
+ Sustainability | + Ethicacy | – Quality
This example can be flipped, where the top-of-the-line equipment excels in quality, but acquiring the materials for manufacturing is just as messy as the outsourcing of labor necessary to keep it affordable. The resource extraction often lacks sustainable practices in these scenarios, and the ethicacy of their production is commonly hidden by separating the consumers from the manufacturers via a well-marketed, culturally rich distribution company (think of this as “name brands”). The only possibly redeeming components to these products are that their quality can be enough where they don’t need to be replaced as often, compared to more ethically produced alternatives.
– Sustainability | – Ethicacy | + Quality |OR| ∅ Sustainability | – Ethicacy | ++ Quality
While the outdoor community is rich with people who care about the places they explore and the people who interact with those places, it can feel exhausting navigating “right” and “wrong” when it comes to conscious consumerism. I don’t hold any definitive answers, but it does seem that our need for quality, sustainably sourced and ethically produced products needs to be balanced so we can enjoy outdoor spaces with quality gear without helping perpetuate cruel working environments and unsustainable sourcing.
My hope is that cottage-industry gear companies—already seeing a growth in popularity—will help establish that balance in the outdoor space, so new products can fill all three elements of the triage.