Business – Aishwarya

If you are active on social media, you would know what fashion haul is. At least once, these fashion haul videos must have popped into your feed. These videos can also be there in your ‘for you’ feed. Well, you might think, what’s the big deal if these videos are there? So let us tell you that, these videos are destroying our environment. Not in a real sense, but hypothetically speaking, these hauls lead to excessive buying of clothes and that leads to the destruction of our environment. A haul is a video that is promotional and, most fashion influencers do it. The company sends them a large number of clothes to try on and review. In return, the influencers get a hefty compensation in money or its kind.

Now, the problem with such a promotion is that it provokes the audience to buy stuff that isn’t even needed by them. These hauls are heavily focused on fast fashion, which on its own is damaging to our nature. Though the hauls are bad for nature, people seem to like those content. The concept to understand here is that hauls are not only bad for our nature but are also for our budget. TikTok is a video content platform and, there are more than 1 billion views on the #clothinghaul hashtag and almost 13 billion views on the #haul hashtag. These numbers show us the reach, these videos have amongst the audience. The famous Shein is one of the most popular companies, in the haul trend. Shein hauls are popular for sure, but they are also driven by a marketing strategy. Shein has an affiliate program for influencers, that pays them a 10-20% commission for the haul post.

Now, let’s talk about the damage, that these fast fashion hauls do to our environment. According to a study, the fast fashion industry creates almost 92 million tons of waste and, consumes around 79 trillion litres of water each year. As an industry, the fast fashion industry is responsible for 1/3rd of all microplastics found in the ocean and, produces almost 20% of global water waste. These numbers will concern you, but the fact is that most of fast fashion’s waste comes from post-production. Textile waste, the waste from unused textiles and old clothes, ends up in landfills. Around 85% of all textiles wind up in landfills every year- equivalent to one garbage truck filled with clothes being dumped in landfills every second. If this doesn’t concern you- which shouldn’t be the case, there’s more than this. The fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world, after the oil industry. Well, if you are thinking that, then why is it always the fashion industry that is being targeted? Then the reason is that fashion is a want and not a need. An excessive amount of clothing is harming the environment and also your bank account (read: month-end balance).

The wastewater that this fast fashion industry produces, has toxic substances in it like lead, mercury, and arsenic. These substances are extremely harmful to aquatic life- where these substances are released, and also to millions of people who live by the river banks. A huge quantity of freshwater is used for dyeing and other processes, which leads to a shortage even more. To this, cotton needs a lot of water to grow, up to 20,000 litres of water is needed to produce 1kg of cotton. Another contributor to pollution is chemicals. They are used in every process, right from dyeing to result. The fashion industry also accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions. It is also seen that the fashion industry has a major part in the degradation of soil.

Apart from these environmental issues, there also exist some societal issues. The workers in the fashion industry are compensated very less and, and they work for a crazy amount of time. This is to keep up with the trends and deliver the clothes within the shortest period possible. This makes them a slave to the time, and they often end up getting burned out mentally and physically. The fast fashion and haul culture also give rise to the flex culture. Youngsters are on a quest to always have the trendiest clothes and also an excessive amount of clothing to wear.

When there is a will, there is a way. So, the solution to this problem/disaster lies in acknowledging the harm that it is creating and, showing some willingness to change. Change isn’t difficult in today’s world, where nearly everything and anything has a cool alternative available. We just need to be mindful and choose sustainable options rather than convenient options.

No big company runs without controversy and hate. But the case with Nestle is a different scenario. Nestle is known for its controversies and unethical practices. It is considered to be one of the biggest companies in the world, with hundreds of products sold all around the globe. You would identify Nestle with packaged food ranges, but it is famous for its dreadful track record in baby food formula. Nestle is a Swiss multinational food and beverage company, which produces baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee & tea, pet foods, frozen foods, dairy products and much more. Twenty-nine of these companies have sales of over $1 billion a year and have over 8,000 brands. Nestle has over 447 factories across 194 countries and employs around 333,000 people. Now you will be convinced when we say, Nestle is one of the biggest companies in the world. But as big as its size and net worth is, it isn’t the same case with reputation and ethics.

In the 1970s, Nestle expanded its baby formula market to less economically developed countries, targeting the poor population. The company began to advertise its baby formula as superior to breast milk, which is unethical for many reasons. They attempted and succeeded in manipulating the customers into believing that their baby formula was more beneficial for infants than breastfeeding. They even have a track record of bribing medical specialists to approve this on their behalf. They ran ad campaigns encouraging mothers to replace breast milk with their baby formula. Nestle even hired ‘saleswomen’ across the developing regions of Asia and Africa, to give medical advice to mothers and hand them a free sample of baby formula. The company strategically weighed the baby formula in a way that would only last up to the day when mothers get dependent on the formula and stop lactating. This horrible PR stunt led to the death of infants, due to malnutrition. Something even worse was that the mothers in the poor households started to dilute the formula with more water, to make it cost-effective. By doing this they were unknowingly starving the children and making them weak. Due to malnutrition and no access to clean water, many infants died of diseases. This tragedy was even named “Baby Killer” by the media.

Nestle is one of the leading producers of packaged water bottles. They are produced with single-use plastic, leading to the pollution of the sea. A study also found that most of the land and water waste was the plastic bottles produced by Nestle. We all know that plastic bottles cause damage to our environment, but even the water inside the bottle was causing damage to the environment. Nestle was deriving the water from the ground and is blamed for exploiting the groundwater of the areas that need it the most and seeing it for their profit. Nestle is also accused of taking the water sources of the countries, where people are forced to drink dirty water as their clean water source is acquired by Nestle.

Nestle is known for selling a wide range of chocolate goods made from cocoa obtained by child labour. During the 2000s, Nestle was accused of using child labour to produce cocoa for their chocolates. On the accusation, the company claimed that most of the unpaid child labour was working on their parents’ farms. They gave the reasoning that the farmers cannot afford school fees and need all the working hands possible to afford food, shelter and other necessities. However, this reasoning is absurd and was ruled out, as scarcity cannot be the reason for child trafficking and child labour.

With all these allegations, it’s not a big deal to call the company evil. Businesses are meant for making a profit, but at what cost is the big question that entrepreneurs have to ask themselves. We still use Nestle products in our day-to-day life, Maggie is something that deep within us know isn’t good for our health. Still, we consume them because we are used to their comfort and nostalgia. It is high time you and I make a difference, by letting such companies know, what we are here to accept and what not.

Tag: Business

Why Nestle is known as an evil company?: Explained