Slide 2

Kahoot! Instructions – See Kahoot! Instructions Deck

Last week we learned how fabric is transformed into clothing. This week we are going to explore how these new products get to us. We return to the Planet Money Tee story to see what happens next to the tees produced in Bangladesh and Colombia.

Slide 3

• Present the Boxes Video (2 mins)

Retailer (4 mins)

Slide 4

Now that the apparel has been manufactured, it needs to be sold. This done by retailers around the world. They include traditional stores (Zara, H&M), ecommerce (Amazon, Alibaba), and direct sales (Nike.com, Allbirds.com).

• Fashion is the #1 ecommerce sector in the world (as of 2021).

• Products are sold to consumers directly from the brand through their own stores and website or sold to a third party such as Dick’s Sporting Goods or Kohl’s who then sells the product to the consumer either instore or online.

  • The top 10 global direct sellers are led by the parent companies of Zara, Uniqlo, and H&M.

  • The top 10 fashion brands by total sales (direct or through a partner) account for around 8% of global apparel sales or about $105 billion per year.

Slide 5

• Online sales are the fastest growing channel with fashion (apparel, accessories, footwear) becoming the #1 ecommerce sector in the world. 22% of fashion purchases were made online in 2020, with 35% of these purchases through Amazon.

• Unfortunately, this rapidly growing sales channel has created new challenges. 56% of all clothing or footwear purchases were returned. 37% of these returns were made because the consumer “didn’t like the item.”

Slide 6

• Present the You Video (2 mins)

Consumer (5 mins)

Slide 7

• You are the first and last step in the production cycle – the consumer. How much you buy, what you buy, and how you dispose of the things you buy has an impact. Your buying habits determine what companies make and will control how your future looks.

• Some big-picture facts:

  • Our consumption of clothing has risen by 400% in the last 20 years.

  • The average American now purchases over 59 pieces of clothing a year, yet does not wear 50% of their closet.

  • The average UK consumer buy 20 fewer garments per year than Americans, but spend 70% more per item.

  • Japanese consumers buy roughly half of the amount bought by US consumers and spend 31% more on each item.

• How many of your clothes do you actually wear?

Slide 8

Unfortunately, where you live in the world likely determines how much you can consume. In fact, many of the producers of the clothes we wear cannot afford to purchase those items for themselves. To further illustrate this inequality, consider the following:

• 45.8% of global wealth is controlled by 1.1% of the global population, 1.3% of global wealth is controlled by 55% of the global population

• North America and Europe control 55% of global wealth, despite having only 17% of the world’s population.

• Almost half of the world’s population is living on $5.50/day.

• Unfortunately, those that are fortunate enough to live in wealthy areas like the U.S. are buying more and wasting more.

Slide 9

• Fortunately, we have the power to reverse this trend and the impacts it is creating. It requires us to answer a few questions each time we are considering a clothing purchase.

  • Does it spark joy? - Ask before you buy. Not five years later.

  • Does it fit me well? - In order to spark joy a garment has to fit.

  • Does it feel good? - Just say no to clothes that don’t feel good.

  • When and where will I wear it? - Is it formal, casual, seasonal, or a trend?

  • Who do you want to support? - When you buy, consider the company you are supporting with your dollar. Who owns the company? How do they market their products? Where are they made? Who made them? How are they addressing the impacts of this production?

Slide 10

• Here are the average monthly wages of people involved in the Retailer stage in the US.

Ask the students what they learned from the video series. After initial discussion ask students to refer to their Planet Money Makes A T-shirt Questions while you ask the students each question (answers below):

• How many t-shirts are produced annually from the cotton on Bowen Flowers farm? (9.4 million tees from 13,000 bales of cotton)

• What percentage of US cotton comes from genetically modified seeds? (90%)

• How many miles of yarn is in a single Planet Money T-shirt? (6 miles)

• How much did it cost to build the factory in Indonesia that spun the Planet Money T-shirt yarn? ($35 million usd in 2013)

• How much did Jasmine in Bangladesh make each month working in an apparel factory? ($80 usd in 2013)

• How much did Doris in Colombia make each month working in an apparel factory? ($307 usd in 2013)

• How many T-shirts can a standard shipping container hold? (82,880)

• Which cost more – shipping the tees from Bangladesh and Colombia to the US or shipping the tees from the US once they arrived to customers in the US? (It cost less than $.10/tee to ship from Bangladesh and Colombia to the US and an average of $2.26 to ship to customers in the US from the US)

Slide 11

• Economic Impacts

• Living Wage

• Social Impacts

• Wealth

Slide 12

Graphics, images, and video are great ways to describe complex subjects. Together, we are going to create our own Gallery of Sustainability. We will close each class by designing a poster that graphically illustrates what we have learned that week. Each poster will be displayed in the classroom until we have completed our gallery.