Sustainability, Ethics and Social Responsibility
Sustainability, Ethics and Social Responsibility
This domain tests environmental and social impacts across the product life cycle and how to evaluate claims. Expect questions on materials, circularity, certifications, labour and greenwashing. Claims must be evidenced, not accepted.
Core rules
- Life-cycle stages: fibre, water, energy, chemicals, waste, transport, use phase (washing, drying) and end-of-life.
- Waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, repair, recycle, recover, dispose. Design for durability, disassembly and recyclability.
- Certifications include GOTS (organic textile processing), Fairtrade (terms and premiums), OEKO-TEX (harmful substances), B Corp and SA8000. They cover different things.
- Social issues: living wage, child labour, forced labour, freedom of association, gender equity, safe buildings.
- Greenwashing uses vague words, irrelevant claims or one attribute to imply overall goodness.
Worked example
A 'green' T-shirt claim: organic cotton reduces pesticide use but still uses water and energy; a GOTS label verifies processing. The reasoned answer separates fibre, processing, use and disposal rather than accepting 'eco'. It also asks whether the cotton was grown in a water-scarce region.
Traps
Accepting 'sustainable' as a fact; confusing biodegradable with compostable; ignoring use-phase impacts; treating a certification as covering the whole supply chain; ignoring transport and packaging.