Roger Cox: Outdoors gear, I now know, is no more likely to be ethically produced than jeans

Published on Sunday 4 July 2010 11:30

This week, a grovelling apology. Bankers and flat-flipping politicians: watch and learn. As regular Scotsman readers will be aware, I usually contribute two bits of childish nonsense to this otherwise grown-up magazine – the page you're looking at now, where I chart the development of my Peter Pan complex, and the men's gear guide. It's in the latter slot, I'm afraid, where it seems I've been applying grossly unfair double standards.

The gear guide is supposed to be a fairly even mix of fashion fripperies and serious kit for outdoors enthusiasts – that's why you'll get state-of-the-art tents one week and, say, cardigans the next. As more astute readers may have gleaned from that last sentence, I have considerably more time for functional gear than I do for the latest leavings of the rag trade, so when it comes to scrutinising the ethical provenance of the products I feature, I tend to pay much more attention to the fashion side of things than the outdoorsy side. In fact, while I've often urged readers to buy green fashion items – organic cotton T-shirts, ethical trainers etc – I have failed to do the same for outdoors goods.

So how did I end up with this almighty blind spot? If I was being charitable, I'd say it was because there's something so inherently wholesome about a pair of hiking boots that it seems almost churlish to ask whether they were made by well-paid, unionised workers in Scandinavia or hand-stitched by malnourished eight-year-olds in a third-world sweatshop. If I was being honest, though, I'd say it was because I spend way more money on outdoors kit than I do on regular clothes, and, well, I'd rather not think about the consequences of my actions, thanks, particularly if the truth is likely to sting a little.

According to a recent report by Ethical Consumer magazine, however, the ethics of some outdoor gear companies can be at least as questionable as those of the big fashion chains. In an exhaustive, 64-page document (available to download at www.ethicalconsumer.org), Bryony Moore, Tim Hunt and Simon Birch investigate the main manufacturers of fleeces, rucksacks, sleeping bags, tents, walking boots and waterproof jackets, and come up with some unsettling conclusions. In each area, they assess the companies in question on a range of issues, from their environmental impact to their reliance on factory farming to their record on workers' rights, and award them an overall "ethiscore" out of 20.

It can be a tricky thing to get your head around, the old ethiscore, but to give you a frame of reference, when the Ethical Consumer team studied jeans, a pair of Bishopston fairtrade organics scored 16.5, whereas Gap and Levi's scored 6.5 respectively and DKNY only managed 4.5.

Given the much-publicised human rights abuses perpetrated by some jeans manufacturers, you'd expect outdoor gear companies to be posting ethiscores in the mid-to-high teens at least – these, after all, are businesses that make their money by encouraging us to get out and enjoy nature in all its pristine, un-polluted glory. But I'm sorry to say most of them fall well short of that; a few even manage to make the jeans barons look good.

Among the worst performers are Helly Hansen (a measly 4 out of 20 for their fleeces and waterproof jackets), Salomon (6.5 for waterproof jackets) and Quechua (4.5 for walking boots and sleeping bags). And yes, you guessed it, over the last few months my gear guide has promoted a whole range of products that fall, shall we say, towards the ethically suspect end of the spectrum.

So here we go, apology time. In September I featured waterproof jackets by Berghaus (6.5 out of 20) and North Face (7.5 out of 20) in the gear guide, for which I apologise. In October I featured hiking boots by Merrell and Berghaus (both 7.5) for which I apologise. In February I featured a sleeping bag by North Face (8.5) for which I apologise. In May I featured a two-man tent by North Face (7.5) for which I also apologise.

Aaaaaand... I'm done grovelling. So let's move on to the penance stage of the process. In future, armed with my trusty Ethical Consumer report, I will do my best to feature ethically responsible companies in the gear guide wherever possible. If your ethiscore is less than ten, you're not getting in. Having said that, I haven't had time to check the ethical credentials of the companies featured in this week's guide, with the exception of Patagonia which has top eco marks. In case any of the others turn out to be bad guys too, I apologise. Again.

&#149 This article was first published in The Scotsman, Saturday July 3, 2010