New research is proving that there has been a massive rise in the number of people boycotting budget clothes shops due to concerns of exploitation of foreign workers in sweatshops.

Findings by the Co-operative Bank’s Ethical Consumerism Report 2007 published that £175m worth of business was lost due to shoppers boycotting the likes of Primark last year.  The ‘value’ clothing market is estimated to turnover £8bn a year, however 2006 saw a 20% increase in clothing boycotts as a number of consumers are associating low cost clothing as an indicator of poor labour conditions.

In its report the Co-op said that ethical consumption as a whole rose by 9 per cent to £32.3bn.  One of the fastest-rising sectors was fair-trade food and drink, which spiked 46per cent to £285m as awareness of the Fairtrade mark grows.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 9:05 am and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.