San Francisco-based advocacy group Remake became a radical voice leading the charge toward a more ethical, environmentally responsible tomorrow for the fashion industry with campaigns like #PayUp and #NoNewClothes.
The nonprofit marched to the front of the physical and proverbial picket lines on behalf of climate and labor justice, but in late February, after 11 years, its founder, Ayesha Barenblat, told the world that Remake would be shutting its doors.
Over the past two years, she said, funding dried up. Something changed in the ether after the 2024 presidential election, and Remake became a casualty of shifting priorities and distractions, from global geopolitics to a shaky economy and evolving consumer motivations.
Sourcing Journal sat down with Barenblat to learn about what’s next for the industry’s sustainability pioneers.
Sourcing Journal: I thought it would be an interesting time to talk to you not only about Remake, but the state of the industry when it comes to sustainability, because it does feel like this is indicative of the way that public attention is shifting.
Ayesha Barenblat: 100 percent. When our news went out, I can’t tell you how many other worker organizations and civil society organizations—not just U.S.-based but also in Asia, in Europe—wrote to us to say, ‘Hey, we’ve also been downsizing, trying to look at merger opportunities, cutting down our programs, and we’re afraid we’re going to shutter our doors.’ So I think one of the trends that is certainly consistent is that funding across the board for this kind of work, whether that’s on the climate realm or on worker rights, has really shrunk.
SJ: It seemed like there was a crescendo when it came to sustainability becoming a real topic of importance for brands, and then in recent years, there’s been a quiet pulling back—not as much public reporting or public investment. What do you think are the core factors playing into that? Is it simply bottom line and cost, or is it geopolitics? Is it tariffs?
AB: I think it’s a couple of things. For all of my career, one of the things I’ve often said is that voluntary commitments to sustainability do not work, because every time it is no longer trendy, every time these commitments are no longer something that will improve your brand image or serve you from a marketing standpoint, then what you see is corporate backsliding.
An example was the height of Black Lives Matter. We saw so many brands making commitments to DEI, but the minute BLM went off the headlines, it was no longer trendy to talk about it. Very quietly, those DEI commitments went away. If you look at any of the climate goals, one of the things we noticed was that every time they didn’t meet their goals, companies tended to just change the goal posts, because it’s voluntary.
The profitability calculus has changed. Tariffs have had a big impact on our industry. We know that sustainability is often the first thing to go when you have an unsure market, and you have tariffs on top of that and a lot of unpredictability. Some of this really is the Trump era of philanthropy no longer serving billionaires; giving in America is at an all-time low. If you can simply just buy access through the current administration, then why bother trying to harness or enhance your image in any way with philanthropy.
I think the final thing is the nativism that we’re seeing here in the U.S., with USAID unwinding. Fashion is a global industry with environmental and labor impacts that are very much global. We certainly saw with our donors less of an interest in wanting to do very much “over there,” if you will—overseas—because there’s so much broken right here at home. But of course, as we know, global supply chains don’t work that way.
SJ: We’ve seen such an evolution and movement toward a different kind of regulatory environment for sustainability all over the world. It’s interesting that it’s in this moment, when regulations are ramping up, that things seem to be backsliding. Am I reading that right?
AB: In civil society, organizing labor space we’ve always known that at the end of the day, smart regulation is really worker-led. Not all regulations are the same. A lot of regulations cause the burden of reporting, but it doesn’t make things better. I’m very skeptical about regulation as a silver bullet.
I look at the CSDDD in Europe and how it ended up being watered down. I see the lack of appetite, even at a state level, for having regulation. I think we’ve seen some innovation at the state level, when it comes to some of the EPR regulation; SB 62 [the Garment Worker Protection Act] for us was a very big win. But what you’ve seen is really apathy at a federal level, and even in Europe, you’ve seen a lot of less inclination from governments in wanting to regulate.
SJ: That’s a really interesting point about the burden of reporting and compliance on companies—having to hire legal counsel, having to invest in some of these technological tools for reporting. Maybe that is a bit of a distraction from what the end goal actually is, which is to better the supply chain. But what other way is there to move forward with regulation that makes a difference?
AB: We’ve always said this in our accountability report: regulation that is led by people closest to the problem—who are also closest to the solution—is what works.
The California Garment Worker Protection Act for the first time had joint liability. It said, not only are we going to end the piece-rate, but we are going to hold manufacturers and brands jointly liable for wage theft. And it really is a blueprint for what this industry could do. That was an example of where we’re getting to the root cause—why is wage theft so pervasive in our industry, whether overseas or right here at home? Well, it’s because of the prices brands pay, so unless we hold brands jointly accountable, we are not going to get anywhere.
That’s very different from a burdensome reporting requirement about transparency that’s going to make a bunch of consultants very rich. The root cause is not that we have bad data. The root cause is that the contracts and the business relationships are set such that fossil fuel remains very cheap, as does exploiting labor, and unless regulation changes that, we’re not going to get anywhere.
This article was published in SJ’s sustainability report. Click here to read more.
