Wallis

Is Wallis an ethical and sustainable brand?

The Good Shopping Guide gives Wallis, an online fast fashion brand owned by Boohoo Group PLC, a low ethical rating. Unfortunately, this brand receives a Good Shopping Guide Ethical Score in our Ethical Fashion Retailers Ratings Table and has not yet met our minimum Ethical Benchmark. This brand has several areas to improve upon before it would likely qualify for our Ethical Accreditation.

Find out more about fast fashion and its impact on the Environment, Animals and People in our article on Ethical Fashion Retailers.

In what areas does Wallis perform poorly? 

Wallis scored low for the Environment, Animals, and People, partly because it is a fast fashion company and commits all kinds of ethical infractions.

Although several Boohoo Group brands (including Burton, Wallis, and Dorothy Perkins) declare that solely organic cotton is used in the production of their products, this claim is unsupported by any independent certification or verification. Cotton is certified to make sure that it wasn’t grown in a way that would have harmed nearby farmers, ecosystems, wildlife, or communities because it is a crop that typically employs high levels of pesticides. Wallis thus obtained a very low score for our Organic criteria.

Boohoo, the parent business has also come under fire from PETA for using wool in several of its goods. In response to these criticisms, Boohoo announced to the media that it would stop selling wool products in its online stores. This story also shows that Boohoo terminated this agreement in response to protests from sheep producers. Given that some of Wallis’s products still occasionally include wool, vegans may wish to steer clear.

From there, Wallis’ record with regard to violating animal welfare standards doesn’t get any better; parent firm Boohoo came under fire for passing off real fur, possibly from a rabbit, as artificial fur. This includes deceiving customers and murdering animals solely for sake of profit and fashion. This is just one more reason why those who are vegetarians, vegans, or who care about animal welfare may want to steer clear of this business until it adopts higher standards and begins pursuing our Ethical Accreditation! Because of these occurrences, we did not award Wallis a high rating for its Animal Welfare Policy.

Only £3.50 per hour was paid to (UK) garment workers who worked solely for the Boohoo Group, according to a 2020 research by Labour Behind the Label. This was much less than the £8.72 minimum wage in the UK at the time. The business is also accused of operating factories in Leicester while the UK was closed, exposing workers to Covid-19, and publicly threatening workers who were more vulnerable.

The COVID Fashion Report, a revision of Baptist World Aid Australia’s Ethical Fashion Report, was released in 2020 and discusses yet another infringement of human rights. The study’s approach is based on the six COVID Fashion Commitments, which demand that companies show what they are doing to help and safeguard their most vulnerable supply chain members. Wallis did not demonstrate compliance with any of the COVID Fashion Commitments through its actions.

According to research by the Environmental Audit Committee, Boohoo Group’s subsidiaries are among the UK’s least environmentally friendly clothing brands (EAC). The EAC required documentation of the steps 16 British stores are doing to lessen the environmental effect of the items they sell in a letter it delivered in November 2018. The audit also showed that neither of the previously mentioned two businesses had ratified the Action, Collaboration, and Transformation labour rights agreement, which aims to ensure that all garment workers are paid enough to support themselves and live to a good standard, affording essentials such as food, water, sanitation, education, medical care and safe accommodation.

In what areas does Wallis perform well?

Though the aims of the Wallis Annual Report 2020 are ambiguous, Wallis’s 2021 Sustainability Plan does improve somewhat by including a few objectives; these goals focus on packaging reduction and reducing operational carbon emissions by an average of 4.2% every year. However, with the Net Zero 2050 deadline, Wallis will have to stick closely to that reduction percentage if they are to meet this global target.

Wallis also has a complete Code of Conduct; with such paperwork, both investors and customers can hold businesses accountable and determine which companies are making plans for a sustainable future. Here is the Wallis Code of Conduct.

How can Wallis improve its Ethical Rating?

In relation to Wallis, The Good Shopping Guide‘s score is given based on 15 ethical standards. Wallis must address a number of issues before the company can receive our Ethical Accreditation, including its lax standards for animal welfare and treatment of workers in its supply chain.

If your fashion brand values ethics and sustainability, why not check out The Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Accreditation? Increase customer and investor confidence and stand out from the greenwash.